Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to New Zealand Academic David Hall, climate deniers actually accept the climate crisis on some level, but can’t face reality.
Climate explained: why some people still think climate change isn’t real
David HallSenior Researcher in Politics, Auckland University of Technology
October 9, 2019 5.56am AEDTWhy do people still think climate change isn’t real?
At its heart, climate change denial is a conflict between facts and values. People deny the climate crisis because, to them, it just feels wrong.…
Negating reality
Sigmund Freud and his daughter Anna were the great chroniclers of denial. Sigmund described this negation of reality as an active mental process, as “a way of taking cognisance of what is repressed”. This fleeting comprehension is what distinguishes denial from ignorance, misunderstanding or sheer disbelief. Climate change denial involves glimpsing the horrible reality, but defending oneself against it.Contemporary social psychologists tend to talk about this in terms of “motivated reasoning”. Because the facts of climate science are in conflict with people’s existing beliefs and values, they reason around the facts.
When this happens – as social psychologist Jonathan Haidt memorably put it – they aren’t reasoning in the careful manner of a judge who impartially weighs up all the evidence. Instead, they’re reasoning in the manner of a defence lawyer who clutches for post hoc rationalisations to defend an initial gut instinct. This is why brow-beating deniers with further climate science is unlikely to succeed: their faculty of reason is motivated to defend itself from revising its beliefs.
…
Undoing denial
In sum, denial is repressed knowledge. For climate change, this repression occurs at both the psychological level and social level, with the latter providing fodder for the former. This is a dismal scenario, but it shines some light on the way forward.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-some-people-still-think-climate-change-isnt-real-124763
What is this awful reality we are supposed to be trying to escape?
If CO2 was a genuine issue, all we would need to do to dramatically cut CO2 emissions is copy the 1970s French nuclear programme. France generates over 70% of their electricity from nuclear. Sweden generates 35-40%. Sweden and France are living proof that going nuclear is affordable, safe and effective; the rest of the world could easily do the same.
Why is the prospect of going nuclear supposed to be so traumatic? I’m a fan of nuclear power. If I thought there was the slightest chance CO2 was a problem, I would be campaigning hard for more nuclear power.
Suggestions that climate skeptics can’t cope with the societal adjustments which would be required to substantially reduce CO2 emissions are lazy intellectual absurdities.
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We accept the reality of being surrounded by zombified intolerant climate extremists because we are polite and for the moment favor intelligent approaches to their rude invasive behavior.
The question is for how long ? Anyone with a serviceable common sens feels the pressure rising.
When they can’t win on the science they call on the pop psychologists!
this is the evil of unbridled stalinism, it will be much worse when implemented on a global scale, this is why they are so desperate to bring down President Trump and the USA
OT, but The Andrew Neil show on BBC tonight (Wednesday) featured an interview with an XR rep.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00095pr/the-andrew-neil-show-series-1-09102019
The interview starts at 20mins 30sec in and is the first one I’ve seen where the interviewer did more than pay fawning lip service to XR. How refreshing. I was almost embarrassed for the interviewee. I hope a well-followed Youtuber will pick this up and give it the circulation it deserves.
Ian, thanks for that, shame the clip finished before she did ; I enjoyed seeing her squirm; she has no idea how life works & just quotes fron the play-list, poor stupid sod.
“This is why brow-beating deniers with further climate science is unlikely to succeed: their faculty of reason is motivated to defend itself from revising its beliefs.”
Right back at you.
We want to be at 800 to 1200 ppm CO2 and at least 4deg warmer before this inter-glacial inevitably ends. Increasing temperature and CO2 should be a penultimate goal of modern civilization. The list should be: 1) Not have a destructive nuclear war, 2) Interplanetary colonization, 3) Cure cancer and several genetic diseases, 4) Support 10B people with a high protein diet, cheap energy, and the opportunity for a comfortable lifestyle, and 5) prepare to prosper when this cradle of humanity, this inter-glacial ends.
We should not even be conceding the point of argument that CO2 is bad. I’m afraid our knowledge of how our climate works is insufficient and effort wasted on CO2 is disturbing.
If we want to push back on the underlying presumption of all of it, we need to be clear that warming is not bad, it is good.
No one I know denies climate change, the problem is climate change does not equate to CAGW, on the other hand that is easy to deny
When it all boiled down, those frightened by models of future climate are no more than victims of powerful advertising campaigns sponsored by money grabbing greedy people. They are mostly ignorant of the poor science. Many are in the category Peter Murphy of Quadrant Online describes in his 8th October article “The Revolt of the Nobodies”. (One of the most delicious essays of recent times).
My experience is orthogonal to this: Climate alarmists accept, in reality, there’s no serious greenhouse gas threat. I know this for 2 sure reasons.
1. Their behaviour as people shows they don’t worry about “carbon emissions”
2. Their understanding of climate science shows they’re not alarmed because of any evidence they’re certain about. But only alarmed by narratives (like the one David Hall tells above)
I believe Sigmund Freud would probably explain climate alarmism as a manifestation of the death wish he hypothesized about.
Can’t face reality?
Really??
I know rhe estimation variance of their computerized GCM, which is what alarmist “climate scientists” base their fearmongering on, is so big that no real statician takes them seriously!
Who has the pea brain now?
HE’S ABSOLUTELY RIGHT…
about our modern response to the imminent threat of asteroid or comet impact.
Years ago there was a “study” published in Mother Jones, of all places, in which the author purported to have discovered a way to identify the way liberals and conservatives think by their eye movement. His method consisted of placing easels with many pictures of every day scenes in front of his victims, then tracking their eye movements withnsome sort of laser gadget.
Some of the pictures were “happy”: puppies, kittens, little girls in tutus, etc. Others were “unhappy”: homeless people, garbage in the street, doggie doo, etc.
The liberals only looked at the happy pictures.
Conservatives spent as much time looking at the unhappy pictures as happy.
His conclusion: liberals are happy people because they only looked at the happy pictures, while conservatives are unhappy people because they looked at the unhappy pictures. (You can’t make this stuff up.)
Could it be that liberals just can’t face reality?
Interesting study.
Also ‘interesting’ conclusions. Conclusions that fly in the face of all other observations, but hey, it was a published study.
The standard observation is that Lefts are angry people who struggle to get on with those outside of their immediate circle and who deal in absolutes, while Conservatives are happy, mentally flexible, pragmatic and easy to get on with.
I would put forward that this study confirms this observation. Conservatives accept their world is a big place with differing views. They are aware of ‘unhappy’ things, but also understand at some level that they can’t save everybody everytime everywhere and instead tend to focus on their loved ones. Lefts by comparison deal in absolutes. They are absolutely correct about everything and if you disagree with them it is some sort of person attack.
You can track a Left by how much they double down on a point of dispute. Challenge a Conservative on a ‘fact’ and if they are not in a position to defend it they will back off and concede that firstly they may need to research the topic more, and more importantly that their life is too short to lose sleep over it.
A Left will instead go to ever increasing logic leaps to deflect, because admitting they were wrong calls their entire personal mind set into question.
Used to contribute posts and comment here often.
Then realized was all political, so satire was in order. Not as good at it as Brad Keyes, so cede the field to him.
But, there are other venues and means to continue this basic fight. You can often find me there.
Where is that Rud?
Rud, I’ve never heard of allies ceding the field to each other. Not sure I agree 100% with your military science, dude.
I always thought you were every bit as good at satire as me (and my taste is pretty much law, because I’m the best), and wondered why you weren’t doing more of it. Now that I know I’m to blame, I think I’ll have to take up drinking again. Just kidding—nobody who tells a lot of jokes could possibly wrestle nightly with the demons of substance abuse, dysthymia and self-loathing.
What is the latest Climate Apostles’ Creed? Minus tipping point and catastrophism, I believe. So what climate denomination does that make me a member of?
It is tragic that during my single lifetime I have observed the slow collapse of western civilisation which brought previously untold wealth, security and extended life expectancies to minority ethnic communities worldwide as well as the culturally dominant white Christian culture.
In the 1950s there was so much optimism about science, democracy and global progress after the horrors of a World War and the apparent defeat of authoritarianism. That declining confidence was reinforced for a short while after the collapse of the Soviet Union but it has all turned to dust since then because the ‘winners’ then completely lost their confidence. The rot started in the 1960s and has been spreading ever since. The final peak of western cultural achievement was the moon landing but after that it all fell apart. The weak minded, spoilt 1960s educated ‘elite’ now permeate our societies at the highest level and have complete control of the political, media and artistic spheres. That is where the establishment kickback against the UK voters’ rejection of EU empire building is coming from.
Human differences are primarily a matter of culture and not ethnicity but the destroyers of all that has brought such benefits to everyone worldwide seek to divide us by raising ethnicity above culture and class above nationality in their efforts to destroy the achievements of millennia.
I hope to live long enough to see the vicious, ignorant and nihilistic deniers of reality defeated but I judge that to be unlikely.
Where does this ‘evil’ come from?
It makes me think that there is some truth in that fable of the Garden of Eden and the Serpent.
Maybe those old biblical texts contain some essential truth about the weaknesses of humanity.
So sad.
It could all have been so much better.
“Were does this evil come from” that’s the million dollar question ,my view is arrogance and hate, they the evil ones are losing power to a technology based human race who dont need the evil ones for direction and control,hence the excuse of c02 and a mantra of driving us back into the stone age,the biggie of course is freedom and choice of movement =banning of petrol diesel cars (UK 2040) a power generation system that is arguably never going to supply the needs of electric vehicles that are supposed to take there place, Depopulation the next on the agenda the un agenda 21 now I’m told agenda 30. We read every day in thinly disguised articles of a need to repopulate, forums are rather more crude and upfront in there quest for genocide.
Satellites, no thinly veiled threats here,they openly brag these next generation sats will spy on us the people,in the name of the environment of course, it’s no coincidence that as the GSM takes hold it creates the ideal conditions to launch satellites.for the last 20 years we have been seeing a huge increase in surveillance technology take over every street corner evry public buliding justified by fear.every time you use a computer your use is being logged for so called security and blatant targetted advertising,politicians afraid of being questioned so they hide behind more draconian laws to surpress their behaviour being questioned,I could go on but you get my point,c02 driven climate is a nonsense and cover for total control.
Look up “Frankfurter Schule”. Yes you need these double apostrophes to avoid confusion with processed meat products.
When you have read the top sources then search for “Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan”. That will make you understand why there are strong forces pushing for a malutto population all througout the European continent. Of course without a trace of original European peoples in there. Easy to control ..
These forces are creating the insane influx of large washes of criminals into Europe. Completely deranged Liberals welcome these timebombs and currently control the narrative on this one.
Oh dear Lord please give us hurting Europeans a 2nd amendment…
The reality is that the Earth’s climate has been changing for eons yet the change is so small that it takes networks of very sophisticated sensors, decades to even detect it. One must not mix up true global climate change with weather cycles that are part of the current climate. Based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. It is all a matter of science.
AGW is not a proven theory but rather a conjecture. AGW sounds plausible at first but upon a more detailed examination one finds that the AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and is full of holes. For example there is the idea that CO2 acts as a thermostat and the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming because CO2 has LWIR absorption bands that cause CO2 to trap heat. CO2 based warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which causes even more warming because H2O also has LWIR absorption bands and hence causes H2O to trap even more heat. So according the ths AGW conjecture H2O acts to amplify any warming that CO2 might cause. Al Gore in his movie, “The Inconvenient Truth” presents a chart showing CO2 and temperature for the past 650.000 years. There is an obvious correlation between CO2 and temperature which Al Gore claims shows that CO2 works as a thermostat and that more CO2 in our atmosphere causes warming. But a closer look at the data shows that CO2 follows instead of leeds temperature. It is higher temperatures that cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere because warmer water does not hold as much CO2 as does cooler water. Contrary to what AL Gore claims, there is no evidence that the additional CO2 causes warming. On the plot, Al gore included where CO2 is today. CO2 is much higher than one would expect form the warming of the oceans and the proximate cause of the increase in CO2 is mankind’s burning of fossil fuels. According to the chart, if CO2 were the thermostat of global warming then it should be a heck of a lot warmer that it actually is but it is not. If anything, Al Gore’s chart shows that CO2 does not cause global warming as Al Gore claims.
H2O is actually a stronger absorber of IR than is CO2 on a molecule per molecule basis. According to he AGW conjecture, the idea is that CO2 warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere which causes even more warming which causes even more H2O to enter the atmosphere which causes even more H2O to enter the atmosphere and so forth. This positive feedback effect does not really require CO2 based warming but will operate on H2O based warming alone. This positive feedback effect, if true, would make Earth’s climate very unstable with H2O based warming causing more H2O to enter the atmosphere causing even more warming causing even more H2O to enter the atmosphere until all the bodies of water on Earth boiled away. Such an event would cause the barometric pressure and temperature of the Earth’s surface to be much higher than it is on Venus but such has never happened. What the AGW conjecture ignore’s is that besides being the primary greenhouse gas, H2O is a major coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface to where clouds form and where heat energy is more readily radiated to space. The over all cooling effect of H2O is evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate in the troposphere. So instead of providing a positive feedback amplifying any warming that CO2 might provide, H2O provides negative feedback and retards any warming the CO2 might provide, Negative feedback systems are inherently stable as has been the Earth’s climate for over the past 500 million years, enough for life to evolve because we are here.
The AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect in the Earth’s atmosphere caused by trace gases with LWIR absorption bands. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the action of heat trapping gases but rather stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. It is entirely a convectime greenhouse effect that keeps a real greenhouse warm. No radiant greenhouse effect has been observed, So too on Earth where gravity and the heat capacity of the atmosphere acts to limit cooling by convection. Derived from first principals, the Earth’s convective greenhouse effect causes the surface of the Earth to be roughly 33 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be. 33 degrees C is the amount derived from first principals and 33 degrees C is what has been observed. Any additional warming caused by a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed. The radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, in the Earth’s atmosphere no on any planet in solar system with a thick atmosphere. The radiant greenhouse effect is nothing but science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is nothing but science fiction as well, This is all a matter of science.
Then there is the “scientific” consensus argument. But there is no real consensus. It is all is all just speculation. Scientists never registered and then voted on the validity of the AGW conjecture. But even if they had it would be meaningless because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation. Scientific theories are not validated by a voting process. The AGW conjecture must really be on shaky ground if “consensus” is one of the reasons for us to believe in it.
But even if we could somehow stop the Earth’s climate from changing, extreme weather events and sea level rise would continue unabated because they are part of the current climate. We do not even know what the optimum global climate is let alone how to achieve it. The previous interglacial period, the Eemian, was warmer than this one with more ice cap melting and higher sea levels yet no tipping points ever happened. In the past, the Earth’s CO2 levels have been much higher than they are today and no tipping points ever happened. There is no real evidence that a climate emergency exists. It is all a matter of science.
Precisely
“The climate has been changing for 4.5 billion years……
When the climate STOPS changing, then I’ll start worrying !”
‘Why do people still think climate change isn’t real?’
Because it isn’t defined. It means just what you choose it to mean — neither more nor less.
“they’re reasoning in the manner of a defence lawyer who clutches for post hoc rationalisations to defend an initial gut instinct.”
I think he is confused, he is describing climate alarmists.
Typical leftist projection.
“At its heart, climate change denial is a conflict between facts and values. People deny the climate crisis because, to them, it just feels wrong.”
This is a completely false assumption. It makes his argument worthless.
Most people I know, who deny the climate crisis, do so because the facts they see don’t support the emotional climate change alarmism. Indeed it is their hard analysis of the science and assumptions behind GCMs that is pitted against the ‘feelings’ of people like Thunberg. He’s got feelings and facts reversed.
“According to New Zealand Academic David Hall, climate deniers actually accept the climate crisis on some level, but can’t face reality”
Yes sir. That does make sense because denial of the unacceptable is a human trait. It’s called being “in denial”. As in the inability of climate science to deal with with errors in statistics because correcting them may leave them without the climate science they want or need.
Statistics issue: Detrended correlation analysis:
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/19/co2responsiveness/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/14/climateaction/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/02/20/csiroslr/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/09/28/sea-ice-extent-area-1979-2018/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/09/18/climate-change-hurricanes/
More …
https://tambonthongchai.com/
The paradox the Gretas of this world are not able to observe is that it is this sort of ‘study’ that helps reinforce what the rational people of the world already think – Global Warming(tm) is rubbish.
On one side of the argument you have hard science arguments willing to embrace and examine the ‘problem’ from every angle. These are the people trying to make sense of the observations in order to increase the overall understanding of our planet.
On the other side we get people like David, a politics expert, who are not willing to discuss the science, but instead put forward condescending statements claiming that anyone who disagrees with Global Warming(tm) is mentally and morally sub human.
Basically it has boiled down to “Let’s Discuss the Topic because it seems clear we Don’t Understand Everything” vs “Denial Man Bad”
It has become increasingly clear to me that the warmista/skeptic divide is actually a divide between informed/misinformed, educated/miseducated, canny/gullible, and very often simply a reasonably smart/not real smart sorting of people.
Exceptions exist, such as those that are simply liars, or those that are liars for reasons other than mere dishonesty, such as for money or power or acclaim, etc.
And some may merely be lazy, whether intellectually lazy or more of the physical kind of sloth.
I think it goes a bit deeper than just intelligence or education.
Some people are leaders, some people are followers and some people are independent, not caring one way or another.
The leaders may be cheats and liars, but they inspire leadership. The followers follow anyone who is willing to stand out and lead (even evil people).
Then there are the independents who don’t know or don’t care. They’re the ones who do investigate the situation and evaluate both sides of the argument.
I put this to you; people like Brian Cox and Neil De Grassy are not stupid, but they may be lazy. They know and accept the scientific method. But they refuse to investigate the objections of the argument, preferring to appeal to authority. They could if they wanted to, evaluate the science themselves. To my knowledge, they never have done so. Cox in particular is a nasty piece of work when debating a skeptic (youtube vids).
I agree, it goes many levels deeper.
But on a superficial level, I see the evidence of it everywhere.
On the other hand, it may take more intelligence (and obviously a lot of dishonesty) to make an at least somewhat convincing argument for something that is clearly wrong. Without naming names, I see some regulars here who appear to fall in that category.
I think when one side embraces a sixteen year-old person with a mental condition as a leader to present their side of a complex, scientific question, it’s pretty self-apparent which side is lacking mental acuity.
The true question is “why do people still believe in the climate boogeyman?” Perhaps their mothers didn’t love them enough, or drank before they were born. Perhaps it is even genetic. This could be a fascinating field of study. What went wrong, when, and why? A question for the ages.
“Why do people still think climate change isn’t real?”
The question really is why some people think that there is something wrong with those who disagree with them! The implication is that they can’t accept the possibility that they are wrong and they have to rationalize the disagreement by claiming that those who don’t accept their view must have mental problems.