Guest essay by Eric Worrall
One of the more amusing climate dramas in the wake of the Trump victory, is watching Liberal attempts to construct a theory of Conservative climate “denial”, so they can figure out which button to prod to make us all support carbon pricing.
This one weird trick will not convince conservatives to fight climate change
Clever new arguments are beside the point.
Updated by David Roberts @drvox david@vox.com Dec 28, 2016, 9:10am EST
Conservative climate denialists are a source of immense frustration to scientists and liberals — and have been for decades. As long as I’ve been writing, there’s been a perpetual quest to find just the right argument to appeal to conservatives and pierce their denial.
This has led to periodic flurries of headlines in the climate journosphere around various social science studies that purport to finally crack the nut, to find the argument that works. Dozens of “easy ways to get conservatives to care about climate change” have floated through the media over the years; oddly, with all these easy ways to change their minds floating around, conservatives continue denying climate change
The latest chapter of this unending story began a few weeks ago, when a paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that purported to show a way to change pro-environmental attitudes in conservatives.
The studies were conducted online. Study participants were exposed to various messages about climate change (and other social problems) and then rated their feelings about the urgency of the problem.
The results showed that “past comparisons” — comparing the damage climate change has done to the past purity of ecosystems — do more to increase conservatives’ pro-environmental feelings than warnings about the future. “Past comparisons largely bridged the political divide in addressing global warming,” the authors write.
“Our studies describe in words and pictures what the past used to be like, an almost Eden-like version of the planet, one with clean forests and little traffic and pollution. Then we draw a comparison to today, without any references to the future,” Matthew Baldwin, a post-doctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Cologne and one of the authors, told Climate Progress. “It is much harder to avoid the reality of change when the comparison is to the beautiful planet in its ‘untouched’ form.”
…
Only conservative elites can change conservative climate beliefs
The literature on how public opinion is formed and influenced is fairly clear. I summarized it (drawing on this great Jerry Taylor post, which in turn draws on John Zaller’s The Nature & Origins of Mass Opinion) here:
One, most people have no coherent ideology and no firm opinions on “issues,” as they are defined in politics.
Two, partially as a consequence, “elite discourse is the most important driver of public opinion.”
…
How can conservative elites be persuaded to think and communicate differently about climate change? That’s a subject for another post, but here’s a spoiler: The answer won’t be found in clever arguments or skillful persuasion, but in money, power, and material interests.
Read more: http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/12/28/14074214/climate-denialism-social
The abstract of the published paper referenced by the article;
Past-focused environmental comparisons promote proenvironmental outcomes for conservatives
Conservatives appear more skeptical about climate change and global warming and less willing to act against it than liberals. We propose that this unwillingness could result from fundamental differences in conservatives’ and liberals’ temporal focus. Conservatives tend to focus more on the past than do liberals. Across six studies, we rely on this notion to demonstrate that conservatives are positively affected by past- but not by future-focused environmental comparisons. Past comparisons largely eliminated the political divide that separated liberal and conservative respondents’ attitudes toward and behavior regarding climate change, so that across these studies conservatives and liberals were nearly equally likely to fight climate change. This research demonstrates how psychological processes, such as temporal comparison, underlie the prevalent ideological gap in addressing climate change. It opens up a promising avenue to convince conservatives effectively of the need to address climate change and global warming.
Read more: http://www.pnas.org/content/113/52/14953.abstract
Hasn’t buying off Conservatives already been tried? That plan failed, as I recall.
There are enormous potential financial opportunities for rich elites who support carbon pricing, to skim money from the misery of poor people through rent-seeking – using their capital and influence to force ordinary people to buy their expensive green energy.
The fact such rent-seeking schemes have been vocally criticised and largely rejected, in many cases by people who stood to make billions had they been implemented, demonstrates that at least some people in positions of influence still give a damn about doing the right thing. You can’t buy off everyone, David Roberts.
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One “conservative” is apparently already all for climate change: our Sec of State nominee Rex Tillerson.
James Delingpole is very critical of Tillerson:
“under its CEO Rex Tillerson, Exxon had a track record of corporate cowardice (withdrawing funding from right-wing think tanks; failing to speak up for fossil fuels; kow-towing to greens)…”
Rex Tillerson Oct 2016: “At ExxonMobil, we share the view that the risks of climate change are serious… [and favor] the Paris agreeement.”
His company was positioned to make billions off the shift from coal to gas. I wonder how much was a business decision to use the crony capitalist elements of the carbon scheme to drive a major low-cost competitor out of the marketplace. I still don’t like that Trump is putting crony capitalists into major positions. They like decisions that give them nice long-term stability at the expense of start-ups and new technology entry to the marketplace. That works great for government regulators and mega-corporations, but stifles innovation and the creative destruction that marks a healthy marketplace.
Exxon’s own scientists came to this conclusion, so why do you assign their motive strictly to self interest? A carbon tax, which Exxon supports, will certainly have an adverse impact on natural gas and gasoline as well, not just coal.
Chris,
That is a very weak argument. A scientist sent a memo summarizing the published articles with a comment that he didn’t believe any of it. But keep drinking the “Exxon knew” kool aide, you and Schneiderman can be codefendants when Exxon’s lawyers finally get tired of the slander and file RICO private action against you both.
Of course, now that a new sheriff will be in charge at DOJ next month, criminal RICO may be forthcoming against those AGs that started the over-broad fishing expedition.
I really wish the folks on the left would quit using “1984” and “A Brave New World” as manuals for good government.
Ignore all the BS, coming and going, and WATCH THE MOVEMENTS OF THE MONEY. That’s where the real story is told–what basket The Mighty are putting their eggs in. Several years ago Forbes published an article in which it was stated that the “decarbonization” problem would shortly take care of itself via that very switch from coal and oil to gas that you mention. In the meantime, why wouldn’t the CEO of a company standing to make billions thereby indulge in some (wink-wink) “green” virtue-signalling? Remember who was in charge of our culture up until the wee hours of 11/9/16? Yeah–“The Matrix!”
Chris, why do you need to lie about things that have been thoroughly covered here.
Exxon’s scientists concluded that the CO2 affected the climate, but made no decision regarding how much.
Even you should be able to recognize that a carbon tax would hit those forms of energy highest in carbon the most. Thus forcing a shift from coal which Exxon doesn’t produce to oil and gas, which they do.
Having had a career in big corporate I can speak with some knowledge and assure you that big corporate is rife with cowardice in the face of government and the potential for loss of sales. Shareholder value and, even more importantly, CEO compensation are always in the forefront. At some point a guy like Tillerson makes a decision about what is best for him to say in the gace of these primary considerations. It’s what I like least about the corporate hounds Trump is taking on this hunt.
Face not gace.
Jim G1
So you’re expecting designated virgins to fill Trump’s cabinet positions; I guess you’d better get used to disappointment.
Most of his selections have stunning accomplishments while working difficult (non-government) jobs. Have they had to compromise – yea, I’m sure they have. Did they check with you before they did so – apparently not. The trick to compromise is to do so to achieve a higher priority goal without selling your soul. So you disagree with a couple of the 1,000,000 high pressure decisions they’ve made. Big deal – none of these guys played bean-bag for a career.
Lemmie guess – you may have had to compromise once or twice in our career…wanna discuss it? I just might have a different perception of it (them) than you.
Ps: I’m a retired corporate CFO
Senior management sticks its finger to the wind to determine which way it is blowing.
Major corporations have no “beliefs” regarding climate change, whether it is happening, why it is happening or not, as the case may be, but they are serious about presenting themselves as good corporate citizens because it affects sales and therefore the jobs of the managers.
If the management of a major corporation considers that hugging trees and building windmills somehow enable them to make more sales then they will hug trees and build windmills. There is no belief in the efficacy of tree hugging or windmill building.
Joe Blow in the street knows it cannot be sustained, but as long as it allows the current crop of managers to get out with their suitcases packed with cash it will have been a successful policy [for them].
Javert Chip,
Character and honesty are sometimes more respected by customers than jumping on whatever band wagon is going by. Not so much govrnment. Selling out on telling the truth can sometimes come back to bite one on the ass in any event. I’ve seen honest guys at high levels as well as brown nosers, though the lickspittles did tend to move along faster. My point was that I hope that Tillerson does not really believe in agw for then I would question his intelligence. In this case my hope is that he was playing the good corporate boy and going along to get along. There is a big difference between smart and shrewd, by the way. And I was a national VP and president of a subsidiary plus I have successfully owned and operated my own businesses. Some of the worst managers I have seen have been bean counters, BTW.
As Javert Chip indicated, if you want a saint, go look in a seminary. If you want things done, look to those who have done things. Which precludes politics.
Just a thought Eric, Like Trump who had to build in heavily controlled DEM/Union cities you followed the rules of PC. Exxon had a global target on his firm’s back and had to buy off Greens to be allowed to operate…I am sure not his choosing.
The Sec of State arguably would play a key role on the Paris Accord. Why don’t we just get somebody that has no ambiguity in saying they oppose the leftist climate change lunacy and the Paris Accord, instead of someone that says the opposite. 80%+ of Republicans oppose that leftist garbage. It shouldn’t be so hard.
Say it isn’t so…😟
It is so I’m afraid. And I’m just seeing more come across the wires:
From the NY Times yesterday: Tillerson Led Exxon’s Shift [Left] on Climate Change
(Tillerson bucked much of Exxon to push his leftism on climate change)
Plus, from The Daily Caller today:
Social Conservatives Aren’t Thrilled With Rex Tillerson: http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/29/social-conservatives-arent-thrilled-with-tillerson/
An excerpt:
Perkins wrote that Tillerson “may be the greatest ally liberals have in the Cabinet for their abortion and LGBT agendas. To hear that Donald Trump may be appointing a man who not only led the charge to open the Boy Scouts to gay troop leaders but whose company directly gives to Planned Parenthood is upsetting at best,” continued Perkins, who accused Tillerson of allying with the radical LGBT group Human Rights Campaign.
~
Clearly Tillerson’s openness to adult gays leading boy scouts has perhaps nothing to do with the Sec of State position, but it shows a general liberalness, as on climate change, an issue which is relevant to the Sec of State.
Delingpole is hyper-ventilating. Listen to this hour-long interview between Tillerson and Charlie Rose in 2013:
Tillerson is more diplomatic than Delingpole is giving him credit for. I found the interview enlightening for what he didn’t say, but implied.
Eric Simpson, are you inferring that you are that “somebody” that Trump should appoint to the position of Secretary of State?
Eric, were you speaking for yourself in your above rant, …… or speaking for James Delingpole?
Or were you just paraphrasing or mimicking the opinion of James Delingpole after you read/heard that he was “very critical of Tillerson”?
Eric, I guess with all of your knowledge and experience you acquired during your past many years of being CEO of several successful large corporations gives you the credibility to agree with and support James Delingpole’s “badmouthing” of Rex Tillerson, ……. RIGHT?
Iffen one goes to bout any pub or barroom ….. they can always find a few beer drinking “guzzlers” that will surely tell most anyone that they “know a hell of a lot more about running the business” that employs them …… than any of their supervisors and managers do.
Obviously conservatives don’t think like liberals would like them too. However, they’ve missed an important factor. Conservative people don’t just blindly follow leadership.
“Conservative people don’t just blindly follow leadership.”
Conservatives are independent thinkers. Liberals are sheep who follow the leader, and don’t think for themselves but instead adopt the mantra currently favored by their peer group.
I think that is a better distinction between the two than that conservatives are rooted in the past and Liberals are future oriented.
A lib thinks the government is the solution
An American thinks the government is the problem.
I can name conservatives in my family who are not independent thinkers, they’re reactionary accusatory a-holes, and I have liberals in my family who are nuanced and thoughtful. And vice versa. Throwing everyone into two silos isn’t particularly helpful or descriptive.
All I can see is that people who are “liberals” want to tell me how to live, what to think, and what I can and can’t do. And If I don’t agree, they want me punished. If that is future oriented? you can keep it.
Ok MRW, I over-simplified. I was a liberal for most of my younger days and was still a critical thinker. I disliked both Bush administrations and blame Reagan and union-busting for the demise of the middle class. To me, the neo-conservative movement was just as anti-constitutional as the progressive movement. The liberal mindset however, has gone far past the traditional Democratic values that existed in the 60’s, and now is blatantly socialist. Free thinkers are the force that put Trump in the whitehouse.
“Throwing everyone into two silos isn’t particularly helpful or descriptive.”
In the case of politics, it is helpful. That’s not to say that there are not a number of people who do not fit the stereotype, but there *are* a lot of people who *do* fit the stereotype. Enough that a generalization is accurate to a certain degree.
I know some very thoughtful Lefties, but when it comes to politics, their brains stop working properly for some reason. I attribute it to their emotional makeup. We don’t discuss politics among ourselves, because they can’t do so without becoming emotionally overwrought when they realize you don’t agree with them. So why bother.? And that’s fairly standard behavior from what I have seen.
@Pop Piasa,
I don’t know what you define as socialist, and my schoolbook understanding of the word is still stuck in the early part of the 20th C.
“Socialism” became the country’s biggest fear after the 1893 Panic, a global economic panic that lasted for five years and led to the uprising of the Russian peasantry and (subsequently) communism in that country in 1917; the Russian Revolution. In fact, the socialism fear was so great in this country that they had to manufacture the appearance of a private sector component when they created the central bank and the district Federal Reserves in 1913 because the public wouldn’t go along with even the appearance that the federal government might control local and state banks, and hence, their livelihoods. Senate hearings held throughout October 1913 with over 500 businessmen and bankers from around the country appearing as witnesses yielded over 3600 pages of testimony. So it’s a word fraught with fear.
But I still don’t know what anyone means when they use that term in 2016. It seems like an automatic tic to me. As far as I know socialism is when the government owns the means of production and employment.
Hey, let’s not call them “liberal.” What a misbegotten moniker. There ought to be something better, like deadfish, or killjoys, or Leder-kopfen. Just because a “Liberal” party was once the opposite of some “Conservative” party doesn’t mean there is such a party anymore, or that the bunch who swiped the name own it. They sure don’t deserve it.
More to the point, they’ve missed the fact that Trump won the election despite the opposition of the ‘Conservative elite’. The election was a blatant repudiation of the ‘elite’. They’re a spent force.
“Conservative people don’t just blindly follow leadership.”
Blindly naive. One of the more frustrating problems in all of these divides is this sort of generalization. My facebook feed has become so overwhelmed with reflexively reactionary rubbish from both sides that I had to stop following just about everyone. Conservatism is full of dinosaur riders and liberalism is full of unicorn riders.
of course the buy-off will be with our taxes just like the buy-off idea by the UN to pay undeveloped countries to stay undeveloped.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2812034
Ironic that the affluence in western societies has been earned, not bought. A free society thrives when grown from seed, but struggles and often dies when transplanted.
The UN must quit harboring oppressive dictators, if the third-world population is to be controlled. People need a purpose in life other than surviving to copulate once more. When all people are presented with the choice of affluence (which is the product of their own work ethic), natural population control will be achieved.
The UN is mostly made up of oppressive dictators.
Greg
That is not true; some of them are quite charming. Jimmy Carter said so…and he said more than a few of them had attractive wives.
“The UN must quit harboring oppressive dictators”
It is going to be a very lonely place. OTOH, I care not. the UN has outlived its sell by date. Maybe Donald will be willing to shut it down if he can get the rights to turn its buildings into a multi-use condo development.
Heh. I’ll be more than happy to change my views for $10 billion. Any Watermelons want to donate?
Ahh but would you change it for $10?
Now we’re just setting the price…
$10 dollars will barely buy me a 6 pack of my favorite beer. But I’m willing to negotiate. How about $15 billion. 🙂
Hell, I’ll do it for half that. $8 billion and I’ll believe whatever you want me to believe.
What about Gore positioning himself to profit from Carbon-Credit trading …. hypothesis or fact?
Fact
Agree.
“We have already established what you are, now we are just haggling over the price.”
Thanks Dale.One of my favorite jokes. Guaranteed to give an SJW a conniption.
“Conservative climate denialists are a source of immense frustration to scientists and liberals — and have been for decades.”
Just what is it that you bleeding hearts think we are denying? Griff, care to weigh in on this?
Liberals in general see themselves as the smartest example of mankind. Thus, those who disagree with anything they believe aren’t wrong, they are either evil or stupid. Never mind that I’ve blown holes in their arguments time and again even giving them their core starting assumptions using applied logic to their own arguments.
Liberals in general seem to believe in magic, but instead of pointed hats and colorful long robes, their magicians wear lab coats and pocket protectors (nothing wrong with a good pocket protector when you are carrying drafting and writing instruments in your pockets by the way). They also do not recognize the limitations of science.
There was a famous physicist named Philipp von Jolly who advised his student in 1874 not to go into theoretical physics because all the good discoveries in this mature field had already been made. It is a good thing that student ignored him or else Max Planck would have missed his true calling of being one of the fathers of quantum physics. Most liberals make the same mistake as Professor von Jolly – out of misplaced confidence in the knowledge of man, they place a veneer of infallibility over science. Yet every time scientists have investigated something they have found something that doesn’t quite line up with previous theory if they look closely enough. When something impossible happens in the lab, it isn’t because we understood it well, but that we had no idea of something critical. It does happen that the things that don’t line up now are really hard to experiment on – you can’t really make a pocket galaxy in the lab in order to make careful controlled measurements to account for “dark matter and energy” and doing measurements on the real galaxies are complicated by time-space distortions created by the very things we measure. It is also very hard to study individual particles since the act of measuring them seems to change their nature.
The universe is constantly throwing new surprises up for us to find. Warmists would miss the surprise because it didn’t meet their accepted dogma.
Well said. They are over-reliant on logic and reasoning and tend to ignore the glaringly obvious. They act like they have right brain damage. Such people will believe anything as long as it is not self-contradictory. They will underestimate the difficulty of a project and will be surprised and disappointed with the results they get. The book The Master and His Emissary lays out the science well.
Owen in GA “Most liberals make the same mistake as Professor von Jolly – out of misplaced confidence in the knowledge of man, they place a veneer of infallibility over science.”
Also remember “climate change” is politicized science. Politicized science is not science. It’s straight out advocacy, and doing everything to further what their advocating instead of searching for objective truth. Politicized science has no credibility. None.
Eric,
The “scientists” aren’t the problem per se. It is the mass of liberals who couldn’t spell science who have latched on to this latest sciency fad as an opportunity to implement one-world totalitarianism on the proletariat. They don’t know or even care about the details of the data manipulations. Only the implementation of rule by experts (with them being the experts of course) is important. How one fools the proles into accepting it and welcoming it in is just details to be worked as one goes.
Interesting, they have been bribing the climate community for years and are delusional in expecting people with integrity will fall into line at the expense of the economy and the nation.
I think it odd that climate change alarmists are trying to find the best way to preach to the unfaithful when all it really takes is debates between competent parties and winning that debate. Should be pretty easy if the science is settled. While it hasn’t happened recently, it did take place at Roger Pielke’s blog on occasion several years back and I found these to be very helpful at understanding the consensus view.
Should be pretty easy if the science is settled.
=================
the quickest way for a climate scientist to convince a skeptic, is for the climate scientists to take another line of work. why do we need climate scientists to study settled science? we use engineers to build solutions, once the science is settled.
convince me that climate change is real. quit working as a climate scientists and take a job in another field. so long as there is a need for climate scientists I will be skeptical that the climate scientists truly understand the problem. if they truly did understand the problem, there would be no need for them to study the problem.
what the past used to be like, an almost Eden-like version of the planet
====================
where knuckle-heads like the authors would work 12-16 hours a day to support themselves and their families in a standard of living that would be called “cruel and inhuman” by today’s standards. And their reward for this life of sacrifice? Half their children would die of disease by age 5, their wife would be dead before 40 from child-rearing, and they themselves would die of “old age” before 50.
the Earth isn’t the Garden of Eden. never was. We were kicked out of the Garden and where we end up is Earth. Surely a God powerful enough to create heaven and earth is powerful enough to move humans billions of light years from Eden to the Earth, just to make sure we couldn’t sneak back in.
Those children that survived to be six started work at about that age too. Forest fires raged unchecked, diseases and pestilence swept whole populations underground. My what a great past we had before learning how to make wheels, bake bread and Tweet. Heaven on Earth, I tell ya, heaven on Earth.
In those days catastrophists had to make sandwich boards on which to inscribe their dire warning of the nearness of The End and over which to drape their untrimmed whiskers.
If catastrophists want to win hearts and minds they have to be prepared to debate the facts. Declaring ‘the science is settled’ is nothing more than admitting they are afraid of debate and unsure of their convictions.
Boring, boring, boring stories of original carbon sin. We will happily debate the issues. Show up, or shut up.
Facts are the grenades you toss into their packs of lies. Scares them spitless now that they’ve lost their main propaganda weapon (aka MSM)
just as an aside, and to demonstrate that many Christians *don’t* take all the genesis stories literally, the entire “Garden of Eden” story actually works very well if you view it as an allegory about mankind’s shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural life, which happened in the levant about 8000 – 9000 years ago.
As the Ice Sheets rolled back and human populations were still very small, the entire Earth truly was a virtual “Garden of Eden”. We’ve been reminiscing about that moment ever since, even if only in our dreams.
Can these simpletons really have believed that showing me a picture is a natural park would turn me against cities – civilisation? I can visit a forest or mountain any time. Cavemen couldn’t visit a grocery store or hospital though – let alone had their inflamed appendix out, or their kids born in a hospital’s sterile environment.
The left don’t care how bad life is for the masses, so long as they’re the ones in charge.
Two things, I think;
Conservative elites know that if the illiberal nerd’s voices become too trusted/powerful, they will eventually be used to justify socialism and the confiscation of the conservative elites wealth.
Conservative elites know that many conservatives believe in God, and won’t go along with conservative elites telling them He set a grand trap for humans by stocking the planet with vast amounts of extremely handy fuel, which will destroy the world if we use it, anymore than with illiberal elites telling them that.
I have a sure fire way to convince conservatives:
SHOW EVIDENCE!!!
By that I mean actual evidence that man’s CO2 is causing serious global warming.
The evidence must also show that today’s climate is unusual in view of history over several cycles (perhaps back to Minoan times) and discount all other possible causes,
…um, we’ve already been using evidence and no such anthropogenic warming has been identified.
But you’re right!
A warmer world should be a better place. Why fight it?
Jim, having the warmunists tell the truth wouldn’t hurt either.
“nd discount all other possible causes,”
Its unicorns what dunnit
Steven, that is about the level of ‘reasoning’ that blames CO2.
We can’t think of anything else, therefore we will blame what we were told to blame by our funders.
Displays both lack of scientific method and lack of ethics.
…and it follows the money trail–BIG TIME. That’s three big reasons CO2 = Hysteria is a completely false notion.
Conservatives tend to focus more on the past than do liberals….
…because they didn’t kill all their brain cells and can actually remember something
They need to concentrate on all the liberal elites….and countries like China and India….Kuwait is a developing country my rear!…we’re going to die from global warming….but they’re not! LOL
…no conservative with half a brain is going to fall for this crap until the liberals do
Our studies describe in words and pictures what the past used to be like, an almost Eden-like version of the planet, one with clean forests and little traffic and pollution.
Sure, a time when life expectancy was short, the dark nights held numerous dangers outside the range of the candle or the communal fire, illnesses were treated via blood-letting or incantations, drinking water held uncounted pathogens, and a simple broken limb or tooth decay lead to death from infection. Yep, it sounds like the olden days were much better than today.
Maybe if these climate “researchers” could get a prediction or two correct, I might consider listening to them.
“The past used to be like” contains a significant admission that the author is fabricating their argument.
Assuming I haven’t missed a hidden /sarc tag, this is just a stunning view into the mind of warmists: an amazingly corrupt view of parties who oppose them as well as thought of ethically questionable tools for advancing fraudulent policies.
I feel neck-deep in slime and have an intense need for a shower (this is not a new reaction of mine for close encounters with this crowd).
The CAGW’s efforts to buy off “skeptical elites” is a fanciful (false) as their efforts to convince everybody that CO2 causes catastrophic global warming.
Already the CAGW crowd has pulled back from emphasizing “catastrophic” by changing the meme to “Climate Change”; they’ll eventually pull back from this charade, too!
Such idiotic bumblers will have put another nail in their own coffin.
That is a standard liberal assertion. Man is an evil cancer on the face of the earth and he will inevitably destroy the earth. Put your lives into the hands of the liberals and they will save you and the earth. The proof, look back 1000, 5000, 10,000 years and observe the paradise that once existed. Don’t bother to look back any farther (it won’t add to your knowledge). Let liberals make earth great again, just do as they say.
Has everybody gotten their Koch brothers check this month ?
.. me neither
Why are there no studies on how to rid liberals of the misconceptions they have been sold concerning climate change and how to get them to embrace the 21st century and learn to love humanity?
…lack of test subject with functioning brain…
Excellent question, Sheri. I would like to know the answer to that myself.
Because liberalism has absolutely nothing to do with thought and everything to do with emotion, seasoned by a massive amount of self-righteous moral preening.
The entire purpose of a liberal’s philosophy is to convince himself that he is much, much better, morally, than anyone who disagrees with him. Nothing can be allowed to shake that central tenet of faith.
“Nothing can be allowed to shake that central tenet of faith.”
You can imagine what happens when they are given money and status to boost their “faith” (let alone having the lightspeed-fast echo chamber of belief reinforcement that is the internet plus the electronic cheering squad that is main stream media).
That is the path of research that begs for attention. Yet would our self declared “progressive” friends be able to handle the results?
Sheri No money for that:
Question to Dr. Richard Lindzen: Is it possible for a young person today to get tenure in one of these institutions (universities) if they disagree with global warming alarmism?
Lindzen: … NOT OPENLY. …and in your grant applications you can’t say “I want to check whether global warming is real or not” [laughs].
So I suppose if the grant application said the study was to “find out how to rid liberals of the misconceptions they have been sold concerning climate change and how to get them to embrace the 21st century and learn to love humanity,” that wouldn’t get any funding either.
Sorry, stopped reading at vox.com…
Ha… Yea, me too.
“…..but not by future-……” You can not build a future based on a lie. It’s that simple.
It might be that one of the characteristics that conservatives have that the warmists are trying to fight against is LOGIC.
They just don’t get it, do they? We are sceptics/sceptics because the “science” is not convincing. That’s it, that’s all there is.
“You can’t buy off everyone” is why Trump has appointed so many billionaires to help the cause.
It is a good thing to see so many involved that are not part of the political establishment. We may actually get something done during this term.
Side note, did anyone notice the recent admission by the current administration that 94% of the jobs created were part time jobs over the last 8 years? The BLS and the household survey count all part time jobs as new jobs if you want to know why the unemployment rate seems artificial. It is……… sell something on Ebay, your employed.That is called buying off the statistics. 🙂
From the article: “Conservative climate denialists are a source of immense frustration to [some] scientists and liberals — and have been for decades. As long as I’ve been writing, there’s been a perpetual quest to find just the right argument to appeal to conservatives and pierce their denial.”
They just don’t get it, do they.
They think the problem is a conservative mental affliction which makes skeptics unable to understand simple science. They assume this because they absolutely believe what they think is true about climate change, and cannot understand why others don’t see it their way.
Just show the skeptics a little bit of evidence, is all it would take to change their minds. Speculation is not evidence, and all the skeptics get from alarmists has been speculation for all these years. This particular skeptic has been looking for evidence since the 1980’s. Haven’t seen any yet. In fact, it appears that human-caused climate change is getting even more unlikely as time goes along.
Evidence is the key. Skeptics say you don’t have it. Alarmists say they do. But they never produce any. All they do is make claims and speculate, and distort surface temperature data. Skeptics are not going to accept such arguments.
Just the facts, please. Speculation is ok, but don’t present it as fact.
The global warming climate hustle was fun (for Libs bashing Conservatives) while it was getting warmer… and no real human-cost downside while promoting their taxation and redistribution schemes.
Now what happens to their happy little climate charade as the global climate is about to descend into another 30 year cold phase? Luckily, we’re about to put the grownups back in charge here in the US. Hope you guys in UK and SA can stay warm when your power goes out. Here in the US we’re fracking baby come January 21st.
And if it keeps getting warmer?
Then you can move to Siberia.
Then life will get better.
It hasn’t for 17 years now Tony. It’s not looking good for the long term forecasts.
Tony if the world gets warmer it will be better just like it was the last time it was warm, you know that warm time about 1000 years ago called M.W.P.
You guys are so intoxicated on kool-aid.
It’s not happening,
but if it is, it’s got nothing to do with humans,
but if it does, it’s a good thing,
but if it isn’t, well it just isn’t, ’cause 1000ya it was ok.
Or if it really is and Big Carbon had me suckered in all along – then we’ll just move to Siberia.
Meantime the canary fell off it’s perch.
I know, you think this is actually a good thing.
Going by the global sea ice chart from Wipneus, it looks like global warming “finally” started in September of this year. Just as a record El Nino hit. Who would have thunk it.
But this global warming sure took its time. It was supposed to start long ago. Why did it pick “September 2016” to finally show up.
But then we have this curious thing where just 18 months ago. the Antarctic sea ice went to record highs. We must have had record global cooling in “June 2014”
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/Antarctica/1.gif
So how do we have record cooling and record warming just a few years apart?
Global Sea Ice, another carefully selected statistic for advocacy purposes, just a blip in Antarctic sea ice this year.
I suppose an ice free Arctic next September will be “another carefully selected statistic for advocacy purposes, just a blip”?
Next Sept is not far off…
tony,
several lines of evidence show that the arctic has been ice free in the past during this interglacial period. The problem isn’t whether or not there is ice in the arctic, it is what is the cause and whether the anthropogenic theory holds any water when ice-free was likely in the 1000AD period as well. We are not outside of natural variation, so if there is a man-made signal to find, it is being drowned out in the noise of natural variations. (except for the temperature databases – those are definitely man-made!)
“tony mcleod December 29, 2016 at 3:02 am
I suppose an ice free Arctic next September will be “another carefully selected statistic for advocacy purposes, just a blip”?”
Al Gore made that claim and the target year was ~2013. 2013 came and went and the Arctic was not ice free. So we have just 9 months to wait for September 2017 to come and go and the Arctic will still not be ice free.
Put your money where your claims are and if after September 2017 prove you wrong, make a donation to our host here at WUWT.
This “conservative” makes up her own mind about everything. She listens, watches, reads, questions, evaluates the sources of all this, and then makes up her own mind. No amount of green-washing or “influencing” “conservative leaders” will change that. And therein lies the real problem for left-leaning greens – they can’t bamboozle independent thinkers.