Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Greens have finally worked out how to promote climate action: Create more greens, by “ingraining” children with their worldview.
Study: inspiring action on climate change is more complex than you might think
People have to grasp how climate change impacts them, and we need to value environmentally sound behavior
John Abraham
Friday 19 May 2017 20.00 AEST
We know humans are causing climate change. That is a fact that has been known for well over 100 years. We also know that there will be significant social and economic costs from the effects. In fact, the effects are already appearing in the form of more extreme weather, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and so on.
So why haven’t humans done much about the problem? Answering that question may be more challenging than the basic science of a changing climate. Fortunately, a new review just out in Science helps us with this question. Lead author, Dr. Elise Amel, a colleague of mine, completed the review with colleagues Drs. Christie Manning, Britain Scott, and Susan Koger. Rather than focusing solely on the problems with communicating the science of climate change, this work takes a wider view on the hurdles that get in the way of meaningful action.
…
The authors identify a variety of strategies for moving forward with human limitations in mind. Since they acknowledge humans tend not to protect those things they either don’t know or don’t value, ingraining a sense of value in the natural world may be critical. In fact, there is a strong relationship between an individual’s connection to nature and their ecological behavior. In today’s world of growing industrialization and severing of the nature/human connection, the challenge may be to find and create new connection opportunities.
More immediately, the authors encourage efforts to change the social norms surrounding environmentally sound behavior – making it cool again.
…
I think the summary of the paper does a great job encapsulating the work’s important lessons. The authors write:
Psychological research suggests that humans can move toward a sustainable society by creating conditions that motivate environmentally responsible collective action – conditions that help people surmount cognitive limits, create new situational drivers, foster need fulfillment, and support communities of social change. Individuals whose actions are informed by a deeper understanding of how the planet really works can galvanize collectives to change the larger systems that drive so much of human behavior. To radically alter the way humans think and live; educate the next generation; and design physical, governmental, and cultural systems, humans must experience and better understand their profound interdependence with the planet.
…
The study referenced by The Guardian;
Beyond the roots of human inaction: Fostering collective effort toward ecosystem conservation
Elise Amel, Christie Manning, Britain Scott, Susan Koger
Science 21 Apr 2017:
Vol. 356, Issue 6335, pp. 275-279
DOI: 10.1126/science.aal1931
Abstract
The term “environmental problem” exposes a fundamental misconception: Disruptions of Earth’s ecosystems are at their root a human behavior problem. Psychology is a potent tool for understanding the external and internal drivers of human behavior that lead to unsustainable living. Psychologists already contribute to individual-level behavior-change campaigns in the service of sustainability, but attention is turning toward understanding and facilitating the role of individuals in collective and collaborative actions that will modify the environmentally damaging systems in which humans are embedded. Especially crucial in moving toward long-term human and environmental well-being are transformational individuals who step outside of the norm, embrace ecological principles, and inspire collective action. Particularly in developed countries, fostering legions of sustainability leaders rests upon a fundamental renewal of humans’ connection to the natural world.
Read more (paywalled): http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6335/275
Sadly the full study is paywalled, so we don’t get to see how the authors plan to deal with parents, when they discover their kids are being “ingrained” in climate madrassas instead of receiving a balanced education.
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Here is what I wrote in response to a virtue signaler who writes a column in the local free news weekly…
I borrowed some things from WUWT comments.
Dear Peter Maurer,
Re: Your article of May 11, it is hard to tell what you want, wind and solar power are simply not up to the task. You went to Ann Arbor to “March for Science” and I presume that you drove a fossil fuel powered car, to raise awareness about reducing C02 emissions. You ought to step up the hypocrisy and fly around the world to tell others not to fly. Both C02 and temperatures have been higher in the past, and life thrived quite nicely, but facts do not matter to climate alarmists. There have been warmer periods recently, the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval warmings.
Coal never went away. You and I both use coal every day, to make electricity; coal is solar power made from plants grown under the sun. There is ample evidence that warming is beneficial and little, if any, that it is harmful. There is NO evidence that C02 (a trace gas) has any effect on climate, and biased computer models are not evidence or data. Water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas, and far more abundant. All the carbon in our bodies was once C02 blowing in the wind. There is no acceleration in warming, in fact it has been cooling lately, the El Nino of 2016 has waned. You may have heard about South Australia, the renewable energy crash test dummy, and their blackouts, as they are tearing down their coal power plants in a quest for an energy free future.
I saw some signs at the climate parade that said “THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED” and that tells me that the marchers do not even know what science is because science is never settled. The same democrats who were quite willing to throw science under a bus in order to pretend their political agenda had a founding in science are now marching to save “science”. If they wanted to save science, they should have remained neutral, objective observers instead of playing politics whilst claiming the authority of science. Such marches are blatently political and by their nature offend those with the opposite political bent. The “public support for science” issue is a faux issue, designed solely to smear climate skeptics/realists as anti-science. It has all the earmarks of a religious sect, and the fact that several people (Shekla, Nye) have even suggested and/or demanded that those with opposing views be prosecuted (or persecuted, take your pick).
I have no doubts that all this climate alarmism is coming from frustrated leftists, just look at the report from the Oakland climate march in 2014;
http://www.zombietime.com/climate_movement_drops_mask_admits_communist_agenda/
You ought to boycott the sinister fossil fuel industry and stop using their products.
Regards,
John Bell
Rochester Hills
Letters to local papers are a great strategy, John. They reach people who have never heard of the blogosphere. My area’s papers have crippling word limits, so here’s how I dealt with a recent virtue-signaller.
The Editor
(Newspaper)
How wonderful that Rod Dickson ((Newspaper) 28/3) will, at his own cost, demonstrate his belief in catastrophic man-made global warming.
Expect Rod to immediately cancel his electricity and get rid of his car. Then he’ll grow all his own food and carry all his water from the nearest creek.
Doing without all the other things that evil fossil fuels contributed to will be harder, but for the true believer going without tools, cooking pots, medicines and clothes is no hardship.
Rod’s transition to a totally carbon-free life will be an example for all the other virtue-signallers who spout empty rhetoric but who never, ever make any sacrifices.
Perhaps the (Newspaper) could document Rod’s epic journey?
Yours etc
Needless to say, Rod was never heard from again.
Parenthetical mine.
Psychological research suggests that humans can move toward a sustainable society by creating conditions that motivate environmentally responsible collective action (we want everyone, but us elites, to waste time & money on behaviors we elites condone) – conditions that help people surmount cognitive limits (support the useful idiots), create new situational drivers (criminalize normal behavior), foster need fulfillment (religionize environmentalism), and support communities of social change (band together and direct environmental wackos to protest). Individuals whose actions are informed by a deeper understanding of how the planet really works (how we elites preach the world works) can galvanize collectives (insulate little commie groups from critical thought) to change the larger systems that drive (that controls) so much of human behavior.
A large part of the problem is that opinion is being represented as fact, and very few distinguish between the two. Almost nothing we know about the world is true. Instead, we have approximations, rules of thumb that help us to survive.
The problem in human history comes when these “rules of thumb” are taken as Gospel. As great truths that are above question. At that point, the rules no longer serve our needs. They become a threat to our survival, because breaking the rules itself becomes punishable.
Before a rule becomes Gospel, if you broke the rule you suffered the consequence of the rule itself. But once the rule becomes Gospel, you suffer the additional consequence of breaking the Gospel when you break the rule.
Over our history this is one of the greatest failings of human society. We fail to recognize that rules are created to serve our needs. Rather, we elevate rules until we and up servants to the rule.
Consider a simple rule: “Do not poke a bear with a stick”. The consequence of breaking this rule is self evident. But now imagine over time that this rule becomes elevated to Gospel. Now if you poke a bear and survive, you have the added penalty of having broken the Gospel. The reason not to poke a bear is no longer that the bear might kill you, rather that other people might kill you for having broken the Gospel. For having broken the “sacred law”.
This is what is happening with Global Warming. The name was changed to Climate Change and at that point it was no longer a survival rule, it was elevated to Gospel. And to speak against the Gospel became heresy, an Act of de Nile.
We know humans are causing climate change. That is a fact that has been known for well over 100 years.
What??? Where do these idiots get their facts?
Too late, they’ve already tried it: Captain Planet anyone? Cheers –
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098763/
What a load of garbage passing as a salad. Hopefully we will find the strength to run a cleansing river through this fetid stable. Just the fun of attempting it is worth the effort.
I substitute teach hs science and math, mostly. My take is that by hs most ideas about political issues have taken root due to the ideas pushed at home, not in school or by the msm. The complexity of this issue revolves around whether the kids are adopting or rebelling against what is pushed at home. I suspect that the choice made is the one which produces the least anxiety for the child in question and is dependent to a large degree on peer group pressure, but not always. How’s that for a psychoanalytical bs answer? But then this is a small rural community and effects may be much different in a more metropolitan situation.
Vote. Every cycle on everything. Charter schools. Vouchers.
Yup. That’s the way to break their power. Cut of the easy money and make them work for a living.
Voting does little good when exactly the same people are sent back to Washington every election. Witness the last election where Wisconsin gave us Paul Ryan. The press controls most of the country and what they say, people seem to believe. The Republicans now have the House, Senate and Presidency and still, they can’t do anything to fix anything. (Trump’s Executive Orders can only go so far.) I don’t see voting doing anything.
That’s why during mock elections organized in schools “to supposedly foster democracy”, the Green candidate comes out on top: imagine how protecting the white and fluffy wins over saving to get roads built…
these people are LYING to school kids and causing many DEATHS……they paint a picture of hopelessness and MANY teens see they have no future so they live briefly for today and then kill themselves……..
Meh.
Is it Gang Green or spoiled vegetables?
The lead (paywalled) post is on par with the Pedesta Email, about having created an ignorant and compliant society. Cracks are showing in the compliant aspect.
The Emperors of our time are still naked and stupid.
The Tale of vanity,self delusion and appeal to any authority are timeless.
Human nature is as stable as Climate.
This tales of doom and the mass hysteria following from it would make Chicken Little proud.
Sadly there are adults who have fully subscribed to the madness and are living very miserable lives.
While surrounded by peace and plenty, they fret and agonize over Man Destroying Nature.
This CAGW is a madness of the City.
People who live with weather are mostly immune.
According to the Greens, action by the next generation will be too late. Won’t we already be under water or blown away by hurricanes?
Why not just say humans are causing climate change a fact known for over 10,000 years? Why just 100. If you’re going to make crap up, go big!!
A very old progressive/leftist narrative – “Check your brains at the door. We’ll do all the thinking for you.”
Psychological research [Pavlovian behavioral conditioning] suggests that humans can move [be forced] toward a sustainable society [totalitarianism] by creating conditions [social engineering] that motivate environmentally responsible collective action [eco-communism] – conditions that help people surmount cognitive limits [get over their stupidity], create new situational drivers [taxes and penalties], foster need fulfillment [energy starvation], and support communities of social change [targeted funding]. Individuals whose actions are informed by a deeper understanding of how the planet really works [brainwashed children] can galvanize collectives [kibbutz?] to change the larger systems [capitalism] that drive so much of human behavior [common sense].
There, I fixed it.
Quoting》》》
Griff May 20, 2017 at 3:40 am
“Who is winning when most of the world’s largest commercial companies are investing in renewable energy and energy saving?
when the world’s largest economies increasingly move to renewables without an impact on economic growth?
there’s a second industrial revolution going on out there and you seem to be missing it…”
–
Ummmm, lets look at the numbers and frame your assertion properly.
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/05/matt-ridley-wind-power-makes-0-of-world-energy/
And geothermal is 34% of that 1.3% (geothermal, wind, solar and tide)
And only 1/4 of renewables (3.5%) , are wind and solar, and that probably doesn’t include the fact that nameplate capacity often doesn’t at all match the capacity factor, nor the fact that it requires backup power, so its actual useful power is way less than what is stated. The vast majority of renewable power is from biomass, and that includes dung and any scrap fuels those in poorer countries have to rely on, which is unhealthy.
It’s not that those using dung and other natural sources for heat are causing their health problems. It’s that they don’t ventilate their abodes with proper methods to control the smoke. Sure, part of the problem is that large villages are going to have a cloud of the smoke hanging over them. But the biggest problem is doing it in enclosed structures.
Please pardon me Eric, but I just could not resist…….
..I hate remakes, never as good as the original…
Remake?
You have an original aside from this?
Please share accordingly. Thanks
The Canadian Government is well along in the “next” transition to scare the public into doing what the leftist government and pretty boy wants.
It is no longer Global Warming, or Climate Change; they have changed it to “POLLUTION CONTROL”.
Bold added.
She was interviewed on the radio this morning and continually used the word “POLLUTION”. Clearly their tactic to force a “CARBON TAX” on the country saying that it is “Pollution Control”.
Sadly, the public will probably buy it since they have been so inundated with this cr@p.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/canada-ready-impose-pollution-caps-fuel-tax-provinces-211215659.html
As if anybody doesn’t know, we had 3 feet of global warming. “a rare and exciting event… ” I was selling spaces out in the yard so those that wanted to experience this rare and unusual event could, but nobody showed up. Spring keeps getting later and later. It used to be that you could plant by May 11, and now not until June 1. If this ” lack of heat ” keeps up, it may be even later. Oh!! this global warming..
No matter how strong and heroic this lot tries to show they are at this point, by lighting up the light house in their island, and putting them selfies on this great map clearly, even at the point of their nymph, sirens singing melodies of enchantment, it does not really matter or really count unless the fail of theirs and their methods is very clearly accepted with no much controversy….otherwise no “parley”, for such as……
The fail must be very very clearly accepted if that is to be considered as a way of approach….
If they have failed up to now, that is it, regardless of their wishful thinking, their dreams or their nightmares, or their silly imaginations, or their bolshevik ideology…….is all about what up to the present, now…..simply, clearly all these suckers, all this bolshevik ideologues have failed, no matter what……
They have to consider that they have just lighted up one more lighthouse and put on the map, one more of their precious islands, and one more such of a place it has being revealed ………think carefully, sirens………very very very carefully.
The matter and subject of that study and especially the introduction to it is very very loaded……as it stands, but very one sided, very much favoring one side, by trying to scare the whole shit on the other side, typically unfair business of this lot, and also very devious……by PH.D people who do not deserve to even be considered as simply common philosophers, especially when such as, do recognize that the main point of their stupid creed failure is,,,,,,,,,, philosophy…….
If you do not believe me, please do just ask Mosher..:)
cheers
From the article: “Psychologists already contribute to individual-level behavior-change campaigns in the service of sustainability,”
Oh, really? I wonder if the psychologists tell their clients that part of their therapy is to be brainwashed about the environment?
TA
May 20, 2017 at 10:42 am
The problem with brainwashing is that it really is not such a bad thing, until you have to consider the abuse of the expert towards the subject, when and where the main intention is for the expert to turn the subject into a brainless drone….
Teaching has a lot to do with some kind of brainwashing, so does conning…..
But still there is huge extreme divide and separation in between, Making one completely the opposite of the other…..
cheers
The word “collective” is so insistently repeated here as to pretty much give the game away.
The remedies demanded by advocates of “climate change” converge far more towards socialism than they do to really improve the environment. The evil of socialism is how easily they presume the power to own and control the property and even the lives of their fellow citizens. Did I mention how evil and dangerous this is?
They’ve been pushing this crap on school children since the beginning of public education. The good news is that generation Z are probably going to be the most conservative since WW2. Simply put, the cultural Marxists have been force feeding this nonsense and they’re going to vomit it back up on them.
absolutely won’t matter – the millenial kids have no sense, no skills and are utterly dependent on the 1% who can find a way to make them worth their keep – when that does occasionally happen.
this doesn’t end until it hits the wall.