Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Psychology Today contributors Sara Gorman, Ph.D., MPH, and Jack M. Gorman, MD, psychologists are united in their determination to help climate “deniers” face the need for urgent climate action to prevent imminent human extinction, though they are uncertain about how to deliver group therapy to millions of people in the same session.
Climate Change Denial
Facing a reality too big to believe.Posted Jan 12, 2019
Sara Gorman, Ph.D., MPH, and Jack M. Gorman, MD
Denying to the Grave…
But there are also many points that are clear and not subject to legitimate debate. We can affirm without doubt that anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomenon that is already apparent and will, if not mitigated, cause terrible suffering and destruction before this century is over. A recent report from the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us we can still hope to avert some of the catastrophic consequences of climate change, but only if we “abandon coal and other fossil fuels in the next decade or two.” Scientists may disagree about how fast the atmosphere is warming or what the best solutions are, but except for a small number of outliers, none doubt that we are rapidly approaching climate catastrophe.
That a few misguided politicians believe climate change predictions are exaggerated or even fabricated is lamentable. But perhaps more puzzling is the lack of alarm among the general public. As monumental hurricanes lash out in Houston and Puerto Rico and California forests burn out of control, it would seem that the evidence that climate scientists are right would be clear enough. Almost annually meteorologists tell us we have just experienced the warmest year in recorded history. Yet even people who experience extreme weather events often still refuse to report the experience as a manifestation of climate change. Polls tell us that many people are worried about climate change, but that does not seem to motivate much willingness to take action to mitigate it. Others deny that climate change is either occurring at all or that it represents any significant threat to civilization.
…
Too Large to Believe
Among the myriad reasons that we shun this problem is its enormity. We aren’t “merely” being told that unless we take action our identities will be stolen, we will lose thousands of dollars, or even that it will take a few years off our lives. What the climate scientists are telling us is that if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels the human race faces extinction. The fact is that many people born this year will not survive global warming if it continues at the current pace and exceeds 3.50C by 2050.
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Climate change denial is in some ways a new mental process for psychologists to understand. Of course, the concept of denial itself is well understood. Psychologists consider denial—the refusal to accept facts in order to protect us from uncomfortable truths—to be a primitive defense mechanism.
But despite the fact that psychologists know a lot about denial, they have never had to face denial on this scale before. Millions of people share the phenomenon of climate denial. This is clearly not something that is amenable to individual or even group psychotherapy.
…
Organizations like Climate Psychiatry Alliance and Climate Psychology Alliance have been formed not only to point out the severe consequences of climate change for emotional and behavioral health but also to lend expertise in determining how best to overcome climate change denial. For these and similar organizations, climate change denial constitutes an emergency that demands immediate attention. We need urgent attention to developing and implementing the best practices for overcoming public despair and inaction and increasing the motivation to demand large-scale climate change mitigation action.
Read more: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/denying-the-grave/201901/climate-change-denial
If Dr. Sara Gorman and Dr. Jack Gorman had even the most basic grasp of the science, they would know that the “current rate” of global warming, between 1-2C / century depending on how you measure it, is not even remotely on track to hit 3.5C by 2050. An enormous acceleration of the current rate of warming would be required to hit 3.5C by 2050.
The evidence for imminent climate catastrophe is far from unequivocal.
Even the IPCC leaves room for doubt about the significance of global warming. The IPCC’s lower bound climate sensitivity of 1.5C warming / doubling of atmospheric CO2 would make global warming a complete non-event, even if we burned every scrap of recoverable fossil fuel on the planet.
There is substantial peer reviewed evidence climate sensitivity is even lower than the 1.5C lower bound provided by the IPCC.
By making unsupported assertions about climate science and the future fate of the human race, and by attempting to dispel legitimate doubts about the urgency of the alleged climate crisis, in my opinion Dr. Sara Gorman and Dr. Jack Gorman are potentially doing unspeakable harm to the lives and wellbeing of people within their sphere of influence. Let us hope Sara and Jack realise the enormity of their error.
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I say we restart the Psychic Readers Network and bring back Miss Cleo.
I think they already have and they just took office in DC.
The data that is available for my review shows “without a doubt” that increases in CO2 levels TRAIL increases in temperature. Thus human consumption of hydrocarbon energy cannot be the primary cause any temperature change. This was affirmed to my by Murray Salby’s lectures and his use of the isotope data from open air testing of nuclear weapons about 60 years ago. There also exists ample record of epochs in earth’s distant past where levels of CO2 were far higher than today, yet glaciation occurred.
Advocates of human-induced climate change do not seem be interested in glaciation, and appear to treat it like something that was imposed on earth by aliens. The big question for me is what drove massive amounts of water into the atmosphere to make glaciation possible?
There is a rough rule of thumb about snow: ten inches of snow yields one inch of water. There is a rough rule of thumb about ice: one inch of water yields one inch of ice. So when I read that Wisconsin Episode glaciers (about 25,000 to 13,500 years ago) where about one mile thick over where Chicago is presently located, I am compelled to ask, where did ten miles of snow come from? Now, ten miles of snowfall is roughly 50,000 feet. Or five feet of snowfall a day for 30 years with no melting. Or a half foot a day for 300 years. Or a fraction of an inch a day for 3,000 years. The longer I drag this accumulation out, the easier it is for it to melt or sublimate away. Please tell me what mechanism of a normally functioning atmosphere makes that possible? Well the quick answer is that what was “normal” changed drastically without a single gallon of crude oil or a single lump of coal being burned. It then changed back again. Without human influence. I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.
To put these learned psychological professions at ease, I am not in denial that some 20,000 years ago, where Chicago sits was under a mile of glacial ice. It seems to me that if there is any denial, it is that the earth’s natural climate has has excursions in the past that make our epoch seem calm and peaceful by comparison. Apart from the fact that the climate trend of the past 20 years is only some 69% likely of not being random, if we are in fact in a positive trend, when compared to natural trends of the past, this trend is mere noise compared to those excursions. I thought that some phenomena needs to be 95% non-random to be significant. Only for climate are the rules different. Because “climate change” is a means to a higher-order ends, to impose the sustainable progressive Utopia.
Let me share some of the other things about the climate that I don’t deny::
I don’t deny that some 12,000 years ago mammoths were frozen in Siberian with green leafy plants still in their stomachs.
I don’t deny that some 1,100 years ago Vikings harvested barley and raised cattle on an island we now call Greenland.
I don’t deny that around the end of the 13th century, the Mesa Verde region of the American Southwest experienced a maga-drought so severe that the Anasazi who lived there died out.
I don’t deny that between 1309 and 1814, the Thames froze at least 23 times and on five of these occasions -1683-4, 1716, 1739-40, 1789 and 1814 – the ice was thick enough to hold a public festival called a “frost fair.”
To deny these things happened is real climate denial.
Because roughly 95% of all psychologists are Leftists, it’s not at all surprising Psychology Today is a rabid propaganda rag for the CAGW cult.
Moreover, pathological symptoms of: helplessness, depression, anxiety, anger, paranoia, fear, panic and malaise manifested by individuals with an irrational belief in the CAGW hoax is a huge boon for the psychological therapy business—a self-licking ice cream cone…
This Psychology Today article was inundated with blatant lies and utter hyperbole, which not even pro-CAGW scientists would publically espouse..
When (not if) the CAGW hoax is officially disconfirmed, I hope individuals and organizations who so strongly propagandized its certainty will be held responsible for wasting $trillions and inflicting so much psychological harm upon billions of people who actually took this scam seriously.
Actually this cr*p does not warrant attention of a serious discussion site like WUWT. Or if you must dub it “Ridiculae”.
Skeptics should stick with the data. CO2 rise follows temperature rise after a lag of several hundred years.
Most of the CO2 that we see is due to the temperature recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA) with a lag of 300 years . Coincidentally, a much smaller amount is being added by humans. It’s an accident that warmists, the IPCC and their much-amplified propaganda machine have taken advantage of.
“Climate change denial is in some ways a new mental process for psychologists to understand. Of course, the concept of denial itself is well understood. Psychologists consider denial—the refusal to accept facts in order to protect us from uncomfortable truths—to be a primitive defense mechanism.”
Just who is in denial here.
True climate change denial: “The climate should never change! CO2 is a pollutant! No species should ever go extinct! We must stop the planet from changing! Nothing should ever change!!!”
Now THAT’s denial.
Just include the mass therapy bill for services as a rider on the carbon tax bill. Everyone else is in it for money and very little real effort.
As an ex psychologist, I do apologise for this bunch of charlatans going off half cocked without regard to evidence. People always used to joke that psychologists were from a different planet – sadly, I think they were right, but not all of us are /were so dim, they give the rest of us a bad name.
Pretty sad when you have to confess the sins of a profession Angela.
Apology accepted though.
Yes, accepted
What’s with all these busted-arse psychology department back-room academic turnips and their neurotic anthrophobic climate-change obsessions?
I’m reminded here of a psychology convention I attended out of curiosity as an undergrad back in the early 70’s. The presenter was being openly and rudely heckled by a strict behaviorist. When the presenter, obviously annoyed by the unprofessional behavior of the heckler, asked him what was wrong with the paper, the reply was, “Your data is sh** and your procedures suck. That’s what!” At the time I considered the heckler’s behavior unprofessional and petty (he was a PhD in psych.) However now, 45 years later, I have only one thing to say to Gorman & Gorman — Your data is SH** and your procedures suck! The actual number of that “small number of outliers” is far larger than they realize, something they are in denial about.
Can we dump all the shrink subjects in with Wimmins Studies and the Yarts?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/01/american-psychological-association-warns-traditional-masculinity-is-harmful-and-oppressive/
Whatever happened to Self Actualisation through Macramé by the way? It’s all this new fangled pendulums and crystals nowadays.
It went the way of Underwater Basket Weaving 101 /s
Heh.
Here in Ontario, Canada, our new conservative government is making all the proper heads explode:
https://www.macleans.ca/politics/tracking-the-doug-ford-cuts/
Stay tuned…
Steven did you perchance attend Colorado School Mines? Underwater basket weaving was a favourite description of the curriculum at Boulder (U of Colo, home of NCAR) back in the day.
I have a leftist Psychology Ph D relative with a big heart who takes the AGW alarmism at face value and has a disdain for the oil industry (a true activist). I’ve pointed him to facts that shed reasonable doubt on the CO2 meme as the underlying cause of climate change. A quick history of the Quaternary glaciation on Wikipedia is a good place to put climate change into perspective. Also, a look at NOAA tide gauge trends going back to the 1800s, looking at ocean vertical temperature profiles, looking at the DMI Greenland mass budget especially for 2017 and 2018, educating on solar cycles and space weather, viewing sea level changes at the end of the last glaciation, showing evidence of the glacial lake Missoula floods, etc. He trusts sources like Wikipedia, NOAA, and DMI so at least he is seeing some of the data skeptics see. I don’t expect him to change his leftward leaning but at least he is understanding more of the history of climate change and has reason to question some of the AGW claims.
Ask him what he finds most convincing about the results. Should be instructive about how to continue his recovery…
After he looked at the sea level tide charts, he switched topics to social justice inequalities from the 1800’s. He’s a 2nd-generation university educator (friends call him a yellow dog).
I have only one question for the eminent Doctors Gorman, “Is the sky blue in your world?”
For a brief period of time, back in the late 80s, I was concerned about man-made global warming. Then I studied the science, and my fear vanished. The science was crap, and clearly driven by agendas. Some of the agendas concerned funding of the science, but the underlying agenda has been revealed to be a socialist movement.
Today, more than ever, there is no science that supports a doom and gloom scenario. In fact, the science has always supported a more benign and welcoming future climate, although modestly so.
Yet my fear has grown over the years and has never been more acute than it is now. My fear is of my fellow human beings. History tells me that such fear is well-placed, as it shows that human nature is far more dangerous than mother nature. And it is most dangerous under the guise of socialism.
At its core, socialism is a political and economic philosophy based on the dysfunctional human condition known as victimhood. Victimhood is a condition in which all choices are justified, due to the perceived injustices suffered by those in victimhood. In this delusional state, the victim feels morally superior when taking property, freedom and life from those who they blame.
So as the atmospheric climate grows marginally more benign and benevolent, the social climate grows evermore hostile and threatening! Sara and Jack are in the throws of victimhood, and they feel quite justified, indeed, morally and intellectually superior, in calling for ‘treatment’ for those who claim they are not being victimized at all!
These two spooks are a good example of “deniers of reality.” Do you suppose that they have never seen the graph that plots the estimates of temps by hundreds of climate models?
Psychosis over takes Psychologist
When I was taking pscyhology classes for my BA, the math classes for psych majors were very, very dumbed down. I wonder if they even have math classes any more, yet they make pronouncements about a math intensive subject. Charlatans is what they are. Worse, they push the idea that everyone has to think alike, which is so anti-science and so completely political it’s incredible they can do this with a straight face. What a disgusting bunch of losers.
IOW, they buy the 97% bait and switch.
Since there are 1 billion of us deniers and growing everyday, the psychologists will have lots of work trying to deprogram us.
Yesterday, we were all Briggled. Today we’ve been Gormaned.
What is it about leftist academics and their eagerness to make pronouncements about matters that are completely outside of their field?
We are so lost.
These guys are of course just pushing the party line. It is easy to be a mouth piece for the Left’s ideology.
Finding and speaking the truth is a different matter.
Psychologists are missing a real opportunity.
Long term studies support the assertion that drugs used to treat depression and other mental illnesses change the brain which causes chemical mental illness.
P.S. The most effective treatment for depression is exercise. Prior to the use of drugs this was the standard treatment. Most people recovered and did not relapse.
I would highly recommend Anatomy of an Epidemic.
https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing/dp/1491513217
In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Every day, 1,100 adults and children are added to the government disability rolls because they have become newly disabled by mental illness, with this epidemic spreading most rapidly among our nation’s children. What is going on?
Anatomy of an Epidemic challenges readers to think through that question themselves. First, Whitaker investigates what is known today about the biological causes of mental disorders. Do psychiatric medications fix “chemical imbalances” in the brain, or do they, in fact, create them? Researchers spent decades studying that question, and by the late 1980s, they had their answer. Readers will be startled—and dismayed—to discover what was reported in the scientific journals.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/113750692X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3
Psychiatry Under the Influence investigates the actions and practices of the American Psychiatric Association and academic psychiatry in the United States, and presents it as a case study of institutional corruption.
“They are uncertain about how to deliver group therapy to millions of people in the same session”. The BBC manages easily enough, though I would call it brainwashing rather than therapy.
The “Climate Blues” epidemic of depression suffered by a number of climate scientists half a dozen years ago ended the careers of the patients. This was a result of the extending “Dreaded Pause” that began sowing doubt in their minds. They rationalized, of course, that it was because they saw the horror of global warming coming and no one would listen. Psychologists like the Gormons, instead of recognizing classic psyche D*nile, became enablers that supported their D and left them suffering.
The disorder is most interesting for what it says about the brain and truth. The brain recognizes you are pushing back against accepting a reality that you don’t want to acknowledge and, not
responding to its nigglings and attempts to present your conflict with truth, it makes you sick. Wow!