The Huffington Post thinks we’ve all been keeping our climate alarmist views in the closet. Apparently we’re all quietly worried, but we lack the courage to face our friends, and admit our guilty secret.
…if the vast majority of Americans are still not even talking about climate change, we will never break through these obstacles and put irresistible pressure on Congress and every other opponent to stop fighting all reasonable actions to combat climate change and finally take positive action-for the sake of their own children and grandchildren if no one else’s.
So how does this change? How do we change it?
As I have written elsewhere, the model of gay and lesbian Americans “coming out” is a good one. Not perfect but we don’t need perfect. We need action. And what gays and lesbians proved is that one-on-one communication is a deeply powerful tool for creating social change.
The teenager, the mother, the husband, the actress, the Congressman, the Olympian, the football star-all the many people who said simply, “I’m gay,” changed the world. Their world, and our world. By making their issue personal, and taking one small brave step, they moved hearts and minds that may never have opened and changed in any other way.
That is what I believe all of us who are concerned about climate change need to do–in addition to all the other necessary political and practical actions.
For once I’m at a bit of a loss to know what to say. The Huff Post article, which conflates sexual freedom and climate alarmism, has got to be one of the strangest and most desperate theories I have ever read, for why nobody talks about climate change.
I can imagine the conversations now…
“That’s OK Son, we will always love you, but, well, have you tried not being a climate skeptic?”
Sorry, but I was born this way. I have skepticism in my DNA.
You possibly do. We have co-evolved with narratives since language started, and there is a constant arms race between narrative takeovers such as CAGW, which are extremely common throughout history, and narrative resistance. Psychologists know of this resistance and call it ‘innate skepticism’. Even Lewandowsky knows of this effect; he calls it ‘the key to accuracy’. Needless to say he does not think it applies in the climate domain. Only, apparently, everywhere else.
Innate skepticism seems to need no significant knowledge of the topic at hand. It probably works by detecting the narrative style, e.g. things that are presented in too coherent, too certain, too forceful, too emotive and too arrogant a way, are most probably not true. If you think of the narrative as a kind of virus, some folks will be more susceptible than others, but narrative exposure, counter narratives (inoculation), links to allied or opposing cultures etc. will all strengthen or weaken the natural resistance.
You might call it a built in BS detector. But unfortunately one that is not infallible and can be overcome. On average, who is and isn’t affected depends as much on the where you are on the map of narrative spread as it does on natural resistance. A bit like a map of a spreading disease; although one *cannot* use this analogy to imply there is anything at all ‘wrong’ with believers. There is not. We are all subject to narrative influence, and are generally influenced by several at once.
@Louis & andywest
Innate skepticism can be both nature and nurture. As a former regulator, I used to get criticised for telling people the truth, eg I never invoked the “Bluff Act” and if there was a way round their problem I would tell them what it was. Some people can tell they are being lied to. With others it takes longer.
And with CAGW, far too many stupid lies told for them to recover by telling better ones.
Unfortunately large numbers are just unreasoning drones/non-thinking zombies, flocking to whatever cause(s) their peers support and authoritarian masters provide. True skeptics don’t act like this and are much more independent which though usually regarded as anti-social is a good thing when everyone else is running off the cliff.
Actually, Louis, you probably watch less TV than most. We didn’t go to digital TV to free up band width, so we went to it for some other reason – say, writing subliminal messages on the screen in a less easily detectable manner, perhaps at screen brightness -2 or something like that. Yep, another crackpot conspiracy theory, but at least it would explain why you can logically convince a “believer” about the weaknesses of the AGW theory only to find out two days later that they have totally regressed to their original position on the subject without discussion with others at all, and seemingly totally forgotten your logical arguments.
andywest2012 April 21, 2015 at 12:12 pm
Thanks for your comment, and three quick questions, if I may:
Can innate skepticism be quantified? How is it overcome?
Can you recommend any online reading on narrative influence & related issues?
@ur momisugly Steve P April 21, 2015 at 3:01 pm
Innate skepticism turns up in various psychological studies, but I don’t think it’s quantifiable in an absolute sense, no more than emotions or other such characteristics are currently quantifiable. But their effects can be observed and there is I guess some sense of relative strength in particular study circumstances. It can be overcome by various means, for instance we are social thinkers and if many of our friends and colleagues believe some concept, our own innate skepticism against that concept will likely be lessened. It can also be overcome by formal knowledge. Studies show that the more science literate folks get, the more polarized they are on CAGW. So for folks who are *somewhat* more inclined by worldview towards belief in CAGW, their path to further knowledge will typically be steered and filtered more and more to climate orthodoxy by this small initial bias, and what innate skepticism they had will be eroded. Learning can overcome instinct even where the learning happens to be wrong and the instinct right. But bear in mind these are average effects, people can and have ‘crossed over’.
Most of my reading over the years has been on paper rather than online. Narrative influence typically comes as sections or chapters in books about cultural evolution, rather than being a tidy subject all in it’s own right. Probably best to scan the abstracts for works and see what takes your fancy. However, the strong Darwinian end of cultural evolution includes memetics, which focuses much more on narrative evolution and influence. Have to warn you that the memetic way of viewing things is controversial, even though some of the same concepts described in a different way within cultural evolution, are not. A great primer on memetics is ‘Memetics by Tim Tyler’, because it is geared for the layman and doesn’t require all sorts of assumed knowledge like most of the heavier works. You can find it on Amazon.
My (long!) series below at WUWT has a little bit more about innate skepticism within, and I think one of the Lewandowsky papers referenced shows that this is a significant factor in the resistance to misinformation.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/06/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part1/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/08/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part2/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/09/wrapped-in-lew-papers-the-psychology-of-climate-psychologization-part3/
He did reasonable work before he jumped straight off the deep end into climate and conspiracy nonsense.
The answer is in my jeans?
@andywest2012
Always interesting to read you. Thanks for sharing.
andywest2012 April 21, 2015 at 4:50 pm
Andy, thanks again for your interesting comments, and the links.
Innate skepticism seems to need no significant knowledge of the topic at hand. It probably works by detecting the narrative style, e.g. things that are presented in too coherent, too certain, too forceful, too emotive and too arrogant a way.
_____________________________________________
Spot on.
I became a skeptic as soon as I saw UK political ads on prime time TV promoting something I had never heard of – my carbon footprint (with black footprints being left everywhere). Lots of reasons for instantly becoming a skeptic here….
a. The UK Labour party was and still is the most [deceitful] organisation known to man (apart from the BBC). You could guarantee that anything the Labour party said was based upon political spin and [completely divorced from the truth.
b. The UK government rarely puts out information adverts. Even when we have a dire disease problem or the like, we vary rarely have information ads. And suddenly we get prime time ads about something we knew nothing about, let alone being a [problem]. They were obviously talking up a non-problem.
So this had to be either a spoof or a con, and since it was too expensive for a spoof, it had to be a con. And so it proved to be – the innate BS detector was right yet again.
Ralph
Imagine the day your women/man leaves you for a warmista!
Changing teams in the middle of the game, what could be more damaging to a person’s ego and soul?
Progressives have innate cynicism. Innate cynicism, the natural state where one so distrusts their fellow man that one seeks to regulate him.
therefore, stopping climate change must be the same as stopping sex change.
should we pass laws and tax people to prevent sex change as well? Should we all speak out against the dangers of sex change. is sex change a threat to sex itself, even greater than abstinence and other unnatural acts?
An unchanging climate is unnatural. the ice ages and other climate cycles are proof. to remain healthy, the climate must change. It is only natural.
The theory of the Huffington Post piece is that the overwhelming silent majority would support making food, energy and fuel more expensive for no measurable benefit.
Could be the exact opposite.
Perhaps the silent majority are closet skeptics.
Silent Majority
The alarmists get all the media attention. In fact, many media organizations will not give any coverage at all to the sceptical position. It must mean that the silent majority actually support the sceptics.
Leftists consider individuals to be so weak minded, that merely hearing a contrarian position will permanently corrupt them. Which is how leftists justify banning any opinion that they disagree with.
I suspect the silent majority are closet skeptics, and they are so because they’d rather not deal with mentally-ill people attacking them for their non-fealty to the CO2 boogeyman.
Where I post (or re-post) skeptic climate articles, intelligent, logical, Reasoning people (such as myself) are under constant assault from social justice warriors- otherwise known at the mentally ill.
@ur momisugly Otter…I now think of them as little climate nazis. Their behavior fits that mold. My former father-in-law, last name Mueller, wore a German uniform at the start of the Hitler regime in the mid 1930s. He showed me a picture from back then. He was captured right at the start of the war, and ended up in the POW camp in Chicago. Later he met his wife, a Greek women, and then they moved to California. We had some good conversations. I asked him “Why and How”. His answer can be summed up in two thoughts. One everyone else was going along with it, and two it seemed like the right thing to do. And that is a perfect description for most of those who firmly believe in CAGW. They do not have any understanding of the underlying science even at rudimentary levels. They can only parrot replies, but they are fully committed to the belief that their side is right. So they are now and will always be little climate nazis to me.
PiperPaul,
I’m not sure I would go as far as saying “the silent majority are closet skeptics”, but I do think most people are aware when they are being subjected to moral-preening, praying in public, self-righteous sermonizing, or whatever you want to call it.
At some level, people perceive the holier-than-thou shtick and tune it out a bit.
I like nature shows, and can’t help but notice that the Green Sermons are usually put at the end of the show. It is pretty clear that the shows are organized that way deliberately. If the creators were incautious enough to put the sermons at the beginning, most viewers would turn away in disgust.
Survey after survey reveals public inaction and disengagement, despite many years of persuasion from the highest authorities on downwards. Highly likely that there is indeed a silent majority of ‘innate skeptics’ (see comment to Louis above). But ‘coming out’ means challenging the apparent high moral ground established by consensus authority. Not easy.
Yes, obviously the silent majority (though expressed in polls) doubts catastrophic global warming (CGW). Yes, given the media push in unequivocal favor of fears of CGW, this majority is highly pressured not to doubt and would thus logically be the majority in need of coming out.
I think many do not know what to believe, but the lack of any concrete events to back up the scaremongering crowd is weighing more heavily every day.
We are a five year cooling trend away from warmistas being tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.
Reblogged this on Catholic Glasses and commented:
CO2 is just pulmonary expiration. These Global Warming GeoEngineered Weather, Whipper-Snappers are bonifide “Nut Jobs!”
I am not gay, just agreeably content. I also can’t say I expend more than a tiny percent of calories in the sexual realm, being a 56 year old married father of three university students. Perhaps that is why I am totally unaware fo the rising heat that so mesmerizes the author of this article and their repressed but climatically worried readers.
“Bizarre Huffington Post Claim…”
This is news? 😉
Exactly
“Bizarre Huffington Post Claim…”
May I suggest tautology?
Their bread and butter these days.
What a ridiculous conflation. On the sexual issue there was and still is in some parts of society a real danger in admitting that you are gay/lesbian. Physical harm or social ostracism may result. I am not aware of any such dangers in coming out of the climate alarmist closet. As you say it is speaks of desperation.
To the liberals it is a danger to come out. Any skeptics among that bunch know they best keep their fat yaps shut on the subject, or be cast out of the in-crowd and bunched in with the “lunatics”.
Which is what many, perhaps most, of them consider anyone who has a conservative bone in their body.
Do you ever read the comment section of the liberal news sites?
Ordinary looking folks say the most hateful things about anyone who even hints at a conservative or even centrist view of anything.
Not only bizarre, but backward. If the socially acceptable answer is agreeing with alarmism, then only skeptics can “come out” by the meaning of the phrase.
That’s my observation too. HuffPo think that the only socially acceptable position is to be sceptical… and they want that to change.
If they are right though, it raises several questions:
1) How did they discover this? Are they just mocked all the time?
2) Why is it socially unacceptable to agree with the President of the USA on this subject? And does it apply to all subjects?
3) Should the will of the majority be ignored? What injustice over rules the democratic will of the majority who favour prioritising other issues for attention an action?
I think they are right, though.
1) Pretty much all surveys presenting a list of priorities place climate change near the bottom or dead last. In the US where support is party polarized, though a clear majority of Dem / Libs claim to believe in climate change caused largely by man, only a clear *minority* place this at high priority. Indeed just a *small* minority of Dem / Libs place it highest. This speaks only to party allegiance, and not to any underlying will to address this ‘the most important issue of our times’, hence there is not in fact a true belief. This is common knowledge, the surveys are public. It has not by any means been accepted that CC should take the priority place that the president demands for it, even among his own supporters let alone the larger US population.
2) No it won’t apply to all subjects. See comment above to Louis about innate skepticism. It will apply only to subjects where innate skepticism keeps the bulk of the public at odds with the presidential narrative, which in this case is the CAGW narrative. And there are different levels of socially acceptable; at the moment everyone still nods to the narrative in public, yet it is socially acceptable to do little in private, and even to wink to each other about that. Yet if the narrative gains strength, there is no guarantee that this get-out clause will remain.
3) The will of the majority has to be expressed for it to be ignored. It has not yet been expressed. The difficulty with innate skepticism is that it occurs at an instinctive level. Most folks won’t know quite why they are doing nothing and disbelieving in private. Judging by the tales of WUWT commenters over the years, it is just such odd feelings that ‘something is not right’ which made many seek deeper, and find sites such as this. Myself included. But the great majority of the public are too busy with their lives to chase the issue, and probably won’t unless it gets much more aggressive.
andywest2012
Points 1 and 2 are well made. I completely agree.
But Point 3 seems alien to me here in the UK.
We have Climate Change mentioned in a news bulletin every day.
It’s called the most important news story of all time by the Guardian – a major newspaper.
We’re building giant wind turbines across our small island to tilt against it.
How can it not be a major discussion point in the USA too?
First comment on HuffPuff article: ‘is a sort of “five stages of grief” when it comes to climate change awareness. It’s real tough to dig into the nitty-gritty and not want to blow your brains out when you find out just how dire the situation really is.’ dire all right, direly psychotic
Sorry Huffington, but the grown-ups, with children and grandchildren have the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus higher on their priority list of talking points …. and rightly so.
I’m genetically predisposed to be a climate skeptic … actually every rational person is … its only the people being brainwashed or have another agenda who refuse to be a skeptic … they are the ones that should “come out” as a skeptic …
If anyone is scared and shaking in the closet it is sceptics.
The growing desparation of warmunists is ever more palpable.
The HuffPo thing is as bizarre as this weeks Obama broadcast claiming climate change is the greatest threat facing the US. Not Russia in the Ukraine or threatening European gas supplies. Not ISIS. Not the Iranian supply convoy to Yemen or its nuclear program. Not China coopting the South China Sea. And those are just the foreign policy issues, not the long list of domestic issues like unsustainable deficits or lack of jobs growth. Obummer, that talk.
Oh all right then, I’m coming out as a AGW disbeliever, how does that sound? I don’t believe there is enough real world evidence to support the claims that 4% of 0.04% is sufficient to cause the climate to “change”! As they say, twice a very small number is a very small number!
I’m sure that what they actually want is for everyone to be required to admit what they think about climate change, so the skeptics can be shamed by the yellers. It’s not politically correct to put a sign in your snow-covered yard that you wish the climate was warmer.
I was at Yosemite last week and noticed that the glacier which polished the granite walls is gone! No denying it…
Yep. The glaciers in Glacier National Park are mostly gone too. However, they were mostly gone back in the ’50s when I first visited the park. I was told back then by a ranger that the name was given to the park because of the landforms left by the glaciers. Even so, alarmists will often point to Glacier Park as an example of what has happened due to (modern) global warming. The message and lies are becoming tedious.
I actually prefer the park without the glaciers – makes it easier to see 😉
Leftists will use any model they think that will win, regardless of morality or fact. That is why you seem them throwing the tobacco wars tactics at groups like Heartland, because they used the power of the government and won. They found a winning narrative and use the template. Now they think they have another winning template with gay marriage, another hammer to use against their opponents. ForecastTheFacts dot com maintains a blog of leftist propaganda tools. On a single page they attack Israel, Conservatives, climate “deniers”, Christianity, ALEC. Their plan is not about debate, it is about shutting down their political opponents.
This is the apex of climate ideology.
And a quite original tool of propaganda and disinformation: let’s repeat this article a few times around the World and it will be a new factual fact that people are afraid of climate warming because they don’t speak about it.
The next step will be a special benediction for marriage between anthropowarmists, the “coming-out” bonus.
What is this Huff article – some sort of psychological media warfare aimed at the non-CO2-obsessed?
Ridiculous premise.
“Coming out” as an alarmist is about as controversial as Hollywood making a pro-abortion or anti-capitalist movie. (And when they do, ironically pat themselves on the back for their “courage”)
There is no social risk at all to being a climate alarmist.
Precisely.
It is outspoken skeptics who use the courage of their convictions, especially outside the friendly confines of WUWT.
It’s a tough trek wading through author Lisa Bennett’s smarmy prose, but it’s a good example of the alarmist hold on our mass media. She describes herself as “author, communications strategist…thought leader,” and so, there you have it.
Gee, I didn’t know science and facts of science were based on touchy-feelies and just wanting to belong and relate to others. But we now live in the artificial world of social media sound-bites. Quite sad really.
I confess. I am proud, but not necessarily loud about my support for the scientific method.
Me too Pat! WUWT is the best forum, short of storming the Capital building, for showing such support. But a Million Person March for the Scientific Method makes for some interesting imagery. 🙂
csanborn,
But a Million Person March for the Scientific Method makes for some interesting imagery. 🙂
Everyone marches with a beaker held aloft?
How about the chants?
“What do we want?” DATA!
“When do we want it?” NOW!
“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Climate models got to go!”
Megadodo Publications, the fictional publishes of the Guide in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where well know for allowing anyone to pop in and write a few words for the Guide, no fact checking needed during the quite lunch times .
Huff Puff seems to use the same principle , however they claim to be real , and they are in no way funny .
Yep, although unspoken and unwritten, they are MegaDooDoo Publications.
What’s next? “Outing” secret believers ?
#B^)
The skeptics have come out. However the alarmists do not want to talk to us.
This might back fire. Maybe most people who come out may come out saying: “Shut up already with your war on fossil fuels and get back to doing something useful.”