Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study “Brief exposure to Pope Francis heightens moral beliefs about climate change” claims looking at a picture of Pope Francis is more likely to cause Republicans to view climate change as a moral issue.
The Lasting Effects of Pope Francis’ Climate Change Edict
New research finds thinking about the pontiff changes the way we frame the issue.
By Tom Jacobs
Last fall, a study reported that Pope Francis’ much-discussed encyclical on climate change largely fell on deaf ears. Researchers from Texas Tech University found the appeal “failed to rally any broad support on climate change” among Americans, whether or not they were Catholic.
But newly published research suggests the pontiff’s call for taking care of the Earth has had a more subtle impact on American public opinion. It finds brief exposure to a photograph of the pope “increased perceptions of climate change as a moral issue.”
What’s more, this shift in how the issue is perceived was particularly strong among Republicans — a group that has traditionally been resistant to acknowledging the fact that humans are affecting the Earth’s climate in dangerous ways.
“The pope’s message may transcend political boundaries and fundamentally reshape how the issue is conceptualized among the public,” a research team led by Jonathon Schuldt of Cornell University writes in the journal Climatic Change.
…
This gap was particularly large among Republicans. Thirty-nine percent of those who were exposed to the pope’s image said they considered it a moral issue, compared to 30 percent among those who were not. That’s a potentially important shift, as pondering about the ethical consequences of environmental destruction may shift behavior more effectively than thinking in utilitarian terms.
…
Thinking about the pope did not increase the percentage of Republicans who felt personal responsibility for climate change, which stayed steady at 36 percent.
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Read more: https://psmag.com/the-lasting-effects-of-pope-francis-climate-change-edict-89e5c111159b
The abstract of the new study;
Brief exposure to Pope Francis heightens moral beliefs about climate change
Jonathon P. Schuldt, Adam R. Pearson, Rainer Romero-Canyas, Dylan Larson-Konar
In his recent encyclical letter Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis issued a moral appeal to the global community for swift action on climate change. However, social science research suggests a complex relationship between religious concepts and environmental attitudes, raising the question of what influence the pope’s position may have on public opinion regarding this polarizing issue. In a national probability survey experiment of U.S. adults (n = 1212), we find that brief exposure to Pope Francis influenced the climate-related beliefs of broad segments of the public: it increased perceptions of climate change as a moral issue for the overall sample (and among Republicans in particular) and increased felt personal responsibility for contributing to climate change and its mitigation (among Democrats). Moreover, prior awareness of the pope’s views on climate change mattered, such that those who indicated greater awareness of the pope’s position showed stronger treatment effects, consistent with a priming account of these effects. Results complement recent correlational findings and offer further evidence of the Vatican’s influence on climate change public opinion.
Read more: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-016-1893-9
Unfortunately the full study is paywalled, but the statement in the press release that thinking about the pope did not increase feelings of personal responsibility for climate change is intriguing.
Looking at a picture of Pope Francis stimulates my concerns about climate morality; but I doubt my thoughts about the morality of Pope Francis’ climate posturing will lead to the outcome the study authors appear to want.
I guess if you believe this pope you also believe in communism as the way to run the world. From his support of Maduro to the Castros he has shown his true colors. He cloaks the brutality of totalitarianism in a shroud of Christianity. It’s really a shame to see, especially after John Paul II.
chilemike,
That’s one of the most concise, accurate descriptions I’ve read.
The damage this Pope is doing to the Church and the world is tragic and historic.
Knowing the opinions on Pope Francis on a wide range of issues, my vision of his image has only caused disgust.
Let’s see who the authors are:
Jonathon Schuldt: Assistant Professor of Communication, Cornell University since summer of 2012.
Adam R. Pearson, Ph.D:Assistant Professor of Psychology, Pomona College. Ph.D., Social Psychology, Yale University, 2011.
Rainer Romero-Canyas, PhD:Adjunct Associate Research Scientist, Columbia University , Social Behavioral Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund.
Dylan Larson-Konar: Could not find definite info. Found Dylan Larson-Konar who is an English major at Princeton University, but would fit in with Psych and communications BS.
So, NO climate scientists among them. All psychology, communications, behavioral, or otherwise unqualified. They did, however, manage to achieve the goal of their propaganda in the conclusion:
That is what this is all about, politics. There is no real science behind it.
Climate “Science” on Trial; The Consensus is more Con and NonSense than Science
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/climate-science-on-trial-the-consensus-is-more-con-and-nonsense-than-science/
Exhibit V: Climate “Science” isn’t science at all. Some described it as “Politicized” science, but in reality, it is just cleverly disguised politics.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/climate-science-on-trial-the-forensic-files-exhibit-u/
Near the bottom left of the chart is the word “High” and everything is relative to that.
Translated to common sense language “High” means “almost none” — I have no idea what “Level of Scientific Understanding” implies on the horizontal axis. I think it means a lot of money and time has been used and we still know next to nothing.
LOL, that chart comes from the IPCC. Funny how they claim this “science” is settled without understanding many of the factors.
co2 old soul,
Whilst appreciating your efforts, I note that the IPCC seems to have omitted the Sun.
I know they were charged with ‘the human effects’ pon climate, but, even so . . . .
Highlights the political mission from the very start.
Non-watermelons need to be savvier about the politics, I think.
WUWT, although excellent, may – for a start – need to include more persuasive memes.
Auto – terminally unpersuasive as a personality . . . . . . .
When carbon-based life forms are taught their very breath is carbon pollution, it appears to me the church of CAGW uses the same ‘flaw’ in the human psyche the Catholics do; ‘original sin’.
God creates a carbon based ecosystem, and the leftists make carbon the doomsday bomb of life. The absolute insanity of this issue is beyond comprehension.
Graphic #1: Repent
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/climate-science-on-trial-the-consensus-is-more-con-and-nonsense-than-science/
Graphic #2: Inquisition
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/climate-science-on-trial-the-consensus-is-more-con-and-nonsense-than-science/
Graphic #3: What this is all about
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/climate-science-on-trial-the-consensus-is-more-con-and-nonsense-than-science/
Graphic #4: This is how confident the IPCC is concerning this nonsense, it is a purely undefined “science.”
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/climate-science-on-trial-the-consensus-is-more-con-and-nonsense-than-science/
Very good. #2 above is relevant to the Climate Religion vs scientific inquiry historically.
The substance of the Inquisitions trial of Galileo was that 97% of scientists thought that the earth is the immovable center of the universe.
Then as now, the consensus of men who call themselves scientists is irrelevant to the truth of a claim about a matter of fact.
Yep, it is shocking how they don’t see the analogy. Those who fail to study history…
I always see the skeptics as the inquisition and climate science as Galileo…
While skeptics are busy cherrypicking and denouncing things as leftist conspiracies, the climate data continues to tick on, pointing at only one conclusion.
“Eppur si muove”
Griff,
Once again, Griff buries his head in the sand and posts an irrelevant comment that completely misses the point of this post, but staunchly supports his religious beliefs (hey, maybe it is relevant). This post is about a pseudo-scientific behavioral psychology study of the Pope’s encyclical letter Laudato Si’ that comes to a completely irrelevant, political conclusion. This has nothing to do with climate data. That was completely debunked in the Karl post.
That’s why you are the definition of ‘useful idiot’ Griff. Correct me if I’m wrong but the government is the one saying ‘the science is settled! We need not look at your arguments! The debate is over!’
Griff: I think you deserve the “Cherry Picker of the Year” award for putting in only those ideas with which you agree.
Also, this is NOT about climate science, it’s about the MARKETING of an idea. It has nothing to do with the science, only how to trick people into going along. You member the old gypsy wagons and tonics and elixirs? This is the same thing. Who can cry out the message and entice people into buying the product? The worth or truth of the product is 100% separate from this action.
It wasn’t so much the scientists (the few there were in that day), but the academic philosophers, especially the Aristotelians. They pursued Galileo’s indictment because his work, based as it was on experiment and observation, threatened their entire theoretical edifice. They were the equivalent of today’s intolerant academic left.
Pay,
Galileo might have been able to get away with ridiculing Aristotelian philosophers, but not Pope Urban VIII (Florentine noble Maffeo Barberini). The pope asked Galileo to include his (Urban’s) geocentric arguments in the “Dialogue”, which GG did, but the heliocentric scientist put them in the mouth of the sputtering dunce character Simplicio. Urban was not amused. Hence GG was tried by the Roman Inquisition, convicted of heresy and sentenced to house imprisonment.
In case you have not noticed what is going on among the leftist academics it is this —
THEY ARE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW GOEBBELS DID IT!!!
Somebody needs to study these people. They could call the study — Propaganda Envy Among The Climatologists — or — Channeling Goebbels.
Eugene WR Gallun
Good grief, they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel now. Who signs off on this crap?
Desperate times calls for desperate…papers?
Further proof, as if any more were needed, that belief in CAGW is a matter of religious faith, not of scientific inquiry.
More of the same:
“Faith leaders reframe climate change as moral issue” By Marion Renault in The Columbus Dispatch on Jan 13, 2017
http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170113/faith-leaders-reframe-climate-change-as-moral-issue/1
“In recent years, faith-based advocacy has emerged as a powerful tool in the environmental movement. By reframing climate change and sustainability as moral issues, religious leaders hope to advance environmentalism by elevating it above the political fray.
* * *
“Americans report fairly high levels of spirituality, but most do not view climate change as a moral issue, according to a 2015 survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
* * *
“Hitting people in the head with science doesn’t get them in the heart,” said Deborah Steele, … “What gets people is a matter of conscience and not the logic of science.”
* * *
Did they perform the null experiment where they show flash cards of Al Gore and Christopher Monckton?
Methinks they have not been ‘scientific’ in their approach to unraveling their own self-inflicted confusion.
Nobody in the UK knows who either of them are…
Lots of UK schoolchildren have been shown Al Gore’s movie, which features him on a lift and at a lectern.
How about the Pope being a flash card for child abuse?
Some three billion people lack reliable electricity to refrigerate food and meds, cook their food, pump clean water, and light their homes after dark.They live in or close to poverty.
THAT’S the moral issue.
“The poor you have always with you”. Seems Francis is determined to keep it so.
It’s not science, it’s theater. All costumes and drama.
Here is the only image you need to summarize Pope Francis.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421133/why-pope-francis-keeping-his-hammer-and-sickle-crucifix-dennis-prager
Notice, in case he handed off the larger version he was also given one to hang around his neck. This is a gift from a fellow South American. We are known by the company we keep.
This drek and the “Lew etal” paper. These studies “analyze” anyone who could examine evidence and form their own conclusion and not blindly follow. These types of true thinkers are painted as odd and wrong and in need of their help.
Their hubris is sickening.
The last thing I want to be exposed to is papal briefs.
This Catholic does not follow this non Catholic “pope”. He is the antithesis of John Paul I I. One fought commies the other is one
If the Global Alarmists hope to win over Catholics with church sponsorship they are making a huge tactical error.
As a lapsed catholic, I can attest to the fact that my skepticism over CAGW is founded in the uncomfortable similarity of the fear and guilt tactics that I was raised with in the Catholic church, now practiced by World Governments through the UN-IPCC .
People can believe that the climate changes as sure as they believe in God. The Catholic Church preached that you could only reach God through Catholicism. The UN-IPCC Preaches that you can only be saved from Global Warming through Government. Neither have proof of their theories.
What the paper did not address is that such “improvement” is never lasting. Why do you think it takes multiple times of seeing an advertisement before it moves you to buy? You may think “What a great idea” but odds are you’re not rushing out to buy. You wait, see the ad again, consider further. Odds are good no one thought a thing about climate change after this “study”, whether or not they were “moved” by the picture of the Pope. Many probably cranked up the furnace if it was cold outside, drove around in their SUV and never gave this a second thought. It might come back to them next time they see a photo of the Pope, but unless the picture is in front of them 24/7, the idea just doesn’t stick, if it ever does.
Only moral issue I see when looking at a picture of the Pope is his complete moral failure in cleaning up the sexual deviants in his church.
Such a man hold no ground to tell others how to behave and what to think.
If the pope could bother himself to clean up the world-wide & ongoing priest sex with little boys issue, he might have more credibility on other issues.
In any event, you’d think the church would have learned it’s lesson on the divide between science and religion with the Galileo incident.
This is absurd. The pope just this week applauded “liberation theology” which has been roundly deplored by Christians as Marxism in disguise. His Argentine roots are showing. For the good of the Catholic Church, it’s time for this time to go.
What these authors are attempting to measure is the effectiveness of using the Pope as an alarmist propaganda tool. What is the morality of this? What is the morality of the Pope participating in, or acquiescing to, being used for propaganda?
Also, the Pope (and the alarmists) are fretting about the morality of a hypothetical – that human behavior is causing “dangerous climate change” – a hypothesis for which the evidence is thin to non-existent. What about the morality of doing economic damage by “fighting hypothetical climate change” This is already doing real harm which disproportionately affects the Pope’s supposedly beloved poor.
The pope + catholic = religion
Griff + CAGW = religion
The vast majority of Catholics don’t revere, worship or listen to the Pope.
Western reporters and western politicians like promoting the Pope, because the old church model of sheep and shepherds aligns so well with their own preference for how the world should work, i.e., Do what your leaders say without question, for you are too stupid to think for yourself.
An establishment “skeptic” at the The Age newspaper in Melbourne once asked his audience what they thought kids should be learning at school to immunize them against stupid ideas. When his small audience repeatedly suggested “the logical fallacies” and “reasoning skills”, the writer of the “skepticalscience” column had nothing to say…
…not a word. It was as if he didn’t like the idea at all.
And that’s the truth of the matter: the ruling-caste don’t want the “great unwashed” eating fruit from the tree of knowledge. Just believe what we say and obey.
Pope Frank and Prince Chuck can be ecumenical idiots together.