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.
There is wonderful argument to peirce conservative “denial” unfortunately it’s the only one unavailable to liberals. It’s called reality.
This writer gave a very big “tell” in his piece, which jumps out more when you remember that the left is hopelessly addicted to projection every time they try to “understand” their opponents.
He wrote:
“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.”
Think about that! He is writing about what he knows, in other words he is describing the way the vast majority of leftist voters think and act! They are so used to the masses only doing what they are told that he has no other mental model by which to explain the way in which people come by their opinions.
No wonder they cannot possible figure out how to approach us – they cannot conceive of the existence of people who actually think for themselves.
@wws: I was surprised to get this far down-thread before seeing projection. You have put your finger on the most vital issue. As a catalyst for evil, projection has no peer.
“I am convinced that exploration of the psyche is the science . . . we need most of all, for it is gradually becoming more and more obvious that . . . man himself is the greatest peril to man, just because there is no adequate defense against psychic epidemics, which cause infinitely more devastation than the greatest natural catastrophes.” – Jung (1944)
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.—CG Jung
Climate “science” is entirely dependent on sheep. Nobody with critical thinking skills will tolerate it. The sheep happen to live in the coastal Moonie states. The states the Moonies choose to “fly over” happened to control the last election.
Make this a lesson.
Do these kooks realize just how ignorant and crazy they are? Probably not.
Projection is a serious handicap to communication with strangers.
The apparent difficulty these “experts of a liberal bent” seem to have when faced with a point of view different from their own, is quite revealing.
The motives they ascribe to strangers, the reasoning they impose upon their perceived enemies is most uncomfortable to encounter.
I do not go through life seeking to embrace the madness of such small frightened creatures.
How did I become their enemy?
For simply asking questions?
What world view drives their hostility?
And I would be shamed to broadcast to the world, that my point of view on matters of science, my ability to separate fact and fiction, is for sale.
However the cited article is a soup of liberal speak, I suspect most words as used have little in common with their dictionary meaning.
These ethically challenged mental zombies are not Liberals in any historical sense and thinking is not a skill they seem to value.
Herd Beasts, birds of a feather.
What ever happened to “making your case”?
They seek to “pursuade “using no common language, no defined terms, no agreed facts.No verifiable measurements..
Then shriek;”BUT SCIENCE”.
+10
If you want to know anything about a liberal, look at what they say about their opponents.
Projection is an infallible way of forecasting their behavior.
See graph above.
The only idiots “denying climate change” are the idiots who deny that the climate changed prior to industrialisation and continues to constantly change – all on its own.
…and that it changed due to natural forces that human beings have absolutely no control over. And that such natural forces continue to be the drivers of climate change. Nature hasn’t declared a holiday so that human beings could become the drivers of the Earth’s climate.
The most telling thing is this – when the “global cooling” scare occurred in the ’70s, it was supposedly caused by particulates, from the burning of fossil fuels (of course), reducing the amount of solar energy the Earth was receiving, thus causing the temperatures to go down. The solution was (of course) the reduction of the use of those (evil) fossil fuels.
SO,
The environmental catastrophe du jour about faces 180 degrees (no pun intended) from cooling climate to warming climate, BUT the supposed cause (human fossil fuel burning) and the supposed solution (reduction or elimination of human fossil fuel burning) remain EXACTLY THE SAME.
Essentially, the political elites have been searching for a salable excuse to regulate energy usage for decades, using pseudo-science as their excuse. Why? Because if you can control ebergy use, YOU CAN CONTROL EVERYTHING. The fact that they come up with the same “cause” and same “solution” for diametrically opposed climate “catastrophes” is as pure an indicator there is that it’s all complete BS.
Hal….lelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelu…u…jah.
Going back to Tillerson for a moment… I am not concerned about what he will do related to Climate. I am, rather, quite hopeful that his international experience, and the fact that he is already known and respected around the world, will bring big time gravitas to any meeting where Trump would send him. This, IMO, will immediately distinguish him from the last 2 persons to hold that position.
This is an especially important time for the US to re-establish its international credibility. I believe he could be a persuasive presence speaking in any context (corporate, or political) where he may be sent to make a difference on our behalf. Especially, now tha the US is positioned to be energy independent, and an exporter to boot.
Our studies describe in words and pictures what the past used to be like, an almost Eden-like version of the planet
Question; Where did they find enough participants stupid enough to believe that any such thing ever existed?
“Where did they find enough participants stupid enough to believe that any such thing ever existed?”
Within ivy-covered institutions?
Reminisce about the past? I am a huge fan of Classical History and the Roman Empire. I think we ought to go back to those days — the Roman Warm Period. It was a couple of degrees warmer than than it is now. More SUVs people.
What I find amazing and amusing is that there is a lot of evidence on the southern coast of England, and elsewhere, that ocean levels were 3 – 5 feet HIGHER during Roman times, than they are now. Google “Saxon Forts of England”” – a string of late Roman coastal fortifications which still exist, and which are almost all high & dry and miles away from the coast today.
I’ll save them the $millions of taxes spent on research and surveys. I don’t care about Gerbil Worming for the following reasons:
– only 0.3C had been reliably measured (by satellite since 1980)
– given the 60 year cycle peaking in 2005, some of this may be natural
– unadjusted data shows nothing that I would attribute with high confidence to pre satellite AGW
– therefore, I estimate AGW at 0-1C per century with a high degree of confidence
– this is dwarfed by UHI, which I have dealt with through accommodations such as fans
– statistically, cyclones have declined during the Carbon Era, as have tornadoes
– therefore, the only adverse consequence of 0.3C of warming I have observed is 0.3C of warming
– plants grow 10-20% faster in CO2-rich environments, with high confidence
– I consider the lives of 0.5-1.5bn people more morally important than 0.3C of my personal comfort
– reliable petrol and electricity has other positive externalities
– I have seen no post-carbon solutions that are consistent with reliable and affordable operation for a mass grid (albeit that they might work on isolated islands)
– therefore I find no merit in direct action (A666ott-Obama) towards renewable energy
– existing carbon pricing schemes incentivise emitting activity moving to Chindia from Kyoto signatory countries; I find no policy merit in this outcome
My position that CO2 is a net positive is supported by almost all peer reviewed research that supports up to 2C or warming.
2C will never occur given the logarithmic property of GHG and the likelihood of economic thorium-U233 cycle fission within 300 years.
Hope this helps.
This website is one of the large impediments to the liberals having more sway over the masses regarding the belief in AGW. Thanks Anthony for establishing and maintaining WUWT! (I have referred many conservatives to this site who needed to read the give-and-take on many climate topics to become educated enough to make up their own mind.)
Conservative climate denialists are a source of immense frustration to scientists and liberals — and have been for decades.
I think almost all of the “cognitive dissonance” in this screed can be removed by refusing to allow the author to refer to the “progressive” socialist party to call themselves liberal. They’ve been doing this for years and real liberals and libertarian/conservatives have to stop letting them corrupt the word. The difference between Progressives and Neo-Cons is so small as to make no functional distinction possible, in reality they just represent two groups of different people with the same goals and tactics so asking them to complain about it is pointless.
Throughout the comments so far people have wrestled with defining why “liberals” seem enamored of sheep-like group think and leader worship; that’s the natural state of affairs for socialists; they are, by definition “herd animals”. The people the author refers to as “conservatives” are more aptly described as individualists, and most are socially liberal even if they are financially conservative. The axis that distinguishes their politics in general is collectivist/individualist. The terms “conservative” and “liberal” have lost all meaning in contemporary political discourse.
Convincing people who think for themselves to join in supporting the AGW hypothesis is, as so many have already pointed out, very simple. All that’s needed is compelling physical evidence. Any other approach to the problem is doomed.
You mean the “regressive” socialist party?
The call themselves “progressive” Paul, that’s why I put it in quotes. I understand what you mean though.
The Communist/Socialist parties adopted “progressive” back in the 40’s becaus they didn’t want to call themselves by their real names, and for obvious reason. Since then they’ve co-opted the label “liberal” and people just started using it to describe them, but they aren’t liberals. Propaganda and “branding” are well known socialist/communist tactics. Don’t let them do it.
As an aside, it’s my guess the reason the study the author cites concerning “conservatives” favoring arguments based on the past over forecasts of the future is rooted in simple demographics and could be explained if the age of the person responding was accounted for.
It’s often true that people over the age of 50 are more concerned with the past than the future, an effect easily explained by life expectancy. Perhaps this was just too obvious for a sociologist to grasp? It also happens to be true the majority of “liberals” are under 35 years of age.
Notwithstanding that bias, I recall the society of my childhood being much more individualistic. We also didn’t have a helmet for every activity, staid out after dark without adult supervision, went trick or treating without our parents after the age of 8, and didn’t have cell phones we could always be reached on. There weren’t any metal detectors in schools. If we got in schoolyard fights we were sent to the principal’s office and the police didn’t get involved. There wasn’t any debate about who used which restroom.
Sometimes I despair for the children and young adults of today. They have better TV I guess. Maybe that works for them?
“stayed”. Don’t you just hate homophones?
The strongest possible method for convincing me of something is to not be wrong.
Also, not lying to me helps.
Not that I think of it, not insulting me would also be worth trying.
This science needs to develop some integrity before I am going to believe it.
At least 80% of the time I look inndepth into a climate science paper or an IPCC position on some impact, I find they have completely fudged it some manner. The basic data they collected completely contradicts the conclusion they reached or they somehow manipulated.
We are being asked to buy something from people who prefer to make stuff up, build “communication messages”, anything BUT just some good old fact-based science proof.
Anthony and Willis did more basic science research recently in their AGU presented paper, than climate science has done in 35 years. They did this on their own dime. Yet the climate scientists have done nothing except spend $200 billion.
Don’t just believe anything you hear or read. Conservatives look to the past and realize that all kinds of made-up things have turned out wrong in the past. Some things, however, have generally been proven over time. And all kinds of schiesters have tried to sell things in the past and people fell for it. Conservatives know to make sure something actually works before adopting it. While the liberals will just jump onto the latest thing without it be proven. Look to the past if you want to understand climate science.
LOL + 1,000
I’m so sick of people spewing “climate change” twaddle as if they’ve proved anything, and cherry-picking and/or adjusting data when it doesn’t fit their pre-conceived conclusions, and describing those who don’t accept their BS in terms that attempt to liken them to those who deny the Holocaust occurred.
“Conservative climate denialists are a source of immense frustration to scientists and liberals”
I do not know anyone who denies climate, liberal or conservative.
What he should say is those who frustrate him (and other of his belief structure) are those who are not completely accepting of computer projections that show that man made carbon dioxide emissions will cause global warming which in turn, some speculate, will lead to catastrophic global conditions.
Therefore his opening line is a lie, and an often used bullying technique of labeling. What he offers is a combination of sales, marketing and messaging techniques combined with an interesting theory of brain function followed by persuasion through means of greed and force.
I must say the bullying technique, at least in my corner of the States has been quite effective. Especially for those that don’t have either the time, math skills, scientific training, interest or even mental capacity to become familiar with the complexity of the planet’s climate system. Many people are simply amiable and want to go along to get along. They would rather agree with the bully rather than be ostracized. This happens more than we would all like to admit. Perhaps it has happened to some of the readership here.
The bullying technique has been coming up rather short lately.
As the liberal grip on power ebbs and fades, their frustration will increase to a fever pitch and pass not so gently into that good night.
Perhaps this is the real source of his frustration.
“Chris December 28, 2016 at 11:17 pm
“Conservative climate denialists are a source of immense frustration to scientists and liberals”
I do not know anyone who denies climate, liberal or conservative.”
Given “climate” is the “average” of ~30 years of weather (IPCC), I would say “climate” is totally made up!
I am not a “conservative denier”.
I am a neo-19th century liberal with a degree (1962) in geophysics and that adds up to being a skeptic.
A remarkably ambitious political movement has corrupted “liberal” and “science”.
It is now failing.
Exxon was targeted for a reason . Oil companies don’t care if there is a carbon tax it’s just one more tax added to those they already collect for government . Exxon had to considered a soft target and that would not be surprising if the top guy is promoting or supportive a carbon tax .
Like any sports team that starts the season full of bravado till the first game, cabinet appointees who don’t fit will be gone . Tillerson’s judgement on the climate hoax may see him as one of the first off the team .
Never understood the pick . Miscast and motivation don’t add up .
I love the way some people without a second’s thought can use “science” to refer to any nutcase academic who just happens to have views that agree with their own. But they will use “denier” to refer to even the robust scientific argument they disagree with.
Their use of “science” is just “science-wash” of appalling bad ideas based on appalling bad data, in the same way as “Green-wash” takes the most environmentally destructive ideas and gives then a thin “green-wash” to make them acceptable to the naive greens.
“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.”
I wonder if this moron thought to accurately describe his “Eden-like” environment as one in which people die early deaths due to famine, mosquito-borne diseases, lack of modern medicine, etc. It never ceases to amaze (and disgust) me how foolish liberals (sometimes masquerading as scientists) overlook the almost unfathomable benefits mankind has extracted from the industrialization that cause the pollution and other environmental costs they are so concerned about.
Moreover, these silly authors make the logical mistake of conflating the real environmental costs of pollution and deforestation with the purely theoretical costs of CO2-emissions. How precisely do these guys think they are going to illustrate the harm to the “past purity of ecosystems” from climate change when the “climate change” they are talking about is something that has only recently emerged and will only cause noticeable harm in the distant future?,By definition, there can’t have been any harm to the “past purity of ecosystems” from climate change.
Until one day there are 9 billion of us all crapping in the nest.
Really, you need to take a break from your alarmist claptrap.
Alarming yes
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1611.0;attach=39715;image
claptrap no.
No alarm what so ever.
Source link not clear.
Conservatives are housebroken, tony.
Conservatives are housebroken, tony. Lol.
And we tend to be under the impression that flushing it makes it just disappear.
They don’t have a clue as to how America works. We don’t kneel, cow tow, bang our heads on the ground, bow, kiss the ring, or lay ourselves out prone on the ground. Nobody is above or below. If you are buying positions, then it’s corruption not a change in direction.
As far as I can tell, the planet seems to be doing a lot better, at least in the US. It depends on how you spin a picture. They could just as easily showed how efforts to clean up the environment have worked. They could also show how trade laws have worked to pollute other countries.
In 20 years how would they change my mind regarding co2 causing temperature increase ? They could buy me off, but that wouldn’t change what I think. They can pass laws limiting association between people that have the same thoughts, still not going to change. They can limit access to data. Corrupting the data only reinforces that I think they are lying.
The only way is that reality matches the models and projections/predictions. In at least 20 years not one has occured. I can predict with accuracy a chemical reaction. I can predict with accuracy the movement in time and space of objects. I can predict with accuracy many things in physics. That’s science. That has credibility. When climate science makes fundamental flaws in those sciences, lays out reasoning and math that is fundamentally flawed, lays out political changes in the system that must take place in order to avoid catastrophic disasters, then they don’t happen during the maximum amount of time for those events to occur, where is there credibility? Do they really think they can change a scientists mind with smoke and mirrors ? No matter how ardently they believe AGW, that doesn’t make it so. As many have stated over the years, AGW is a religion and not a science. I think corrupting the data, failed predictions/projections, and failed models more than prove that AGW is a dead theory. That’s the scientific part. The religious part is how do they get a public confession that AGW isn’t a dead theory.
They are still refusing to bite the bullet and recognise that many people of both the political left and right are simply not convinced by the unending and, now boring, failed predictions of imminent disaster.
That the matter became politicised long ago was as much due to the left’s choice as the right. The ‘evil oil corporations’ mentality is often the first recourse of the left, and this fits very well with global-warming proponents who wish to see a conspiracy against them.
Perhaps they should devote a bit more thought to why middle-ground swing voters like myself have abandoned them. Unfortunately I see no sign of this happening.
AW said:
It’s been moderately successful. About a year ago three bigshot financial names (Paulson and two others) came out as alarmists and issued a statement. I suspect this was after thy been subjected to alarmist consciousness-raising (or razing?) sessions. And there have been other instances, though I can’t remember the details. It’s a high-payoff / low risk game for the alarmists to play.
In part, it is an instance if the “mirror fallacy”. The watermelons have not realized that the RINO “elites”/”establishment” losership are not leading a monolithic “political identity” easily crammed into a cubby-hole. Nor that the classical liberal citizenry e.g. the constitutionalists like Mark Levin, the philosophical rational capitalists like Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, Randall Holcombe…, and the citizenry who voted in Trump, are not like the leftist sheep. We feel more comfortable thinking for ourselves and escaping from over-crowded irrational herds, from group-think, and comfortable with the scientific method of positing questions, conjectures, theories, hypotheses and then letting the refutations rip.
“AGW Alarmist nutjobs” versus “Climate denialists”
What a poisoned swamp. How can those two groups ever agree on anything?
Here’s my take.
The AGW proponents *know*:
+ the average global temperature for the last 200 years within a tenth of a degree
+ the average global temperature has been increasing for the last 200 years
+ the increase in average global temperature is outside natural variation, which is small
+ humans are responsible for the increase in average global temperature by adding CO2 to the atmosphere
+ the increase will continue at the current rate if CO2 emissions are not reversed
+ the resulting increase will be catastrophically bad for the biosphere
+ the science is settled and there’s no room for doubt
+ society must take drastic measures to avoid this future calamity
The AGW skeptics don’t think that any/most of the above has been shown well enough to justify any far reaching actions by society at this time. They believe it is OK to admit “I don’t know – yet”. They don’t think that the precautionary principle should be universally applied, especially without considering all the costs. They do know that when faced with uncertainty, it is often best to take no action rather than act rashly.
To me, it is the difference between thinking emotionally (AGW proponents), and thinking rationally (skeptics).
PP
“…skeptics don’t think that any/most of the above has been shown well enough to justify any far reaching actions by society at this time.”
Not true Paul. Most so-called skeptics here don’t believe any action should be taken, let alone far-reaching.
“They believe it is OK to admit “I don’t know – yet”. They don’t think that the precautionary principle should be universally applied, especially without considering all the costs.”
Doesn’t “considering all the costs” include the cost of taking no action?
They do know that when faced with uncertainty, it is often best to take no action rather than act rashly.
To me, it is the difference between thinking emotionally (AGW proponents), and thinking rationally (skeptics).
It would be irrational not to consider all the costs IMO.
“Not true Paul. Most so-called skeptics here don’t believe any action should be taken, let alone far-reaching.”
All the solutions proposed are drastic and far reaching, so what I wrote was true. Give me an example of something that will “solve” AGW that is not far reaching. Small pieces of a larger “solution” don’t count.
“Doesn’t “considering all the costs” include the cost of taking no action?”
Since I was talking about the Precautionary Principle, the cost of taking no action is by definition very uncertain or not known. However the costs of taking action are almost always quite quantifiable. A good analogy is extended warranties on items you buy. Often times the probability of something failing is very uncertain, so how much should you spend up front to protect yourself? Spending $1 to get a 10 year warranty on a $100 item is probably worth it, but $100 for a 3 year warranty on a $120 item clearly is not.
“It would be irrational not to consider all the costs IMO.”
I agree. It would also be irrational to not consider all the benefits of a warmer climate or to deny that there will be any.
Based on the data that I have at hand, and those that have been involved in this non debate settled science catastrophe for some time, and however corrupted the data actually is, co2 isn’t causing the warming or catastrophic events as promised. That’s not a ” I’m not certain ” .
The real arguments began in 2004 with temperature not rising as predicted and co2 levels were still increasing. Proving the disassociate connection between co2 and temperature.