Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Guardian social scientist Rebecca Huntley, climate activists have to get even more emotional to convince the rest of us of the importance of global warming.
Stop making sense: why it’s time to get emotional about climate change
Rebecca Huntley
Sunday 5th JulyIt took me much longer than it should have to realise that educating people about climate change science was not enough. Due perhaps to my personality type (highly rational, don’t talk to me about horoscopes, please) and my background (the well-educated daughter of a high school teacher and an academic), I have grown up accepting the idea that facts persuade and emotions detract from a good argument.
Then again, I’m a social scientist. I study people. I deal mostly in feelings, not facts. A joke I like to tell about myself during speeches is that I’m an expert in the opinions of people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Over the 15 years I’ve been a social researcher, I’ve watched with concern the increasing effects of climate change, and also watched as significant chunks of the electorate voted for political parties with terrible climate change policies.
There is clearly a disconnect between what people say they are worried about and want action on and who, when given the chance, they pick to lead their country.
The science behind climate change has been proven correct to the highest degree of certainty the scientific method allows. But climate change is more than just the science. It’s a social phenomenon. And the social dimensions of climate change can make the science look simple – the laws of physics are orderly and neat but people are messy.
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In an article for the academic journal Risk Analysis, the head of Yale’s program on climate change communications, Tony Leiserowitz, showed that in 2003, when respondents were asked in surveys for their first reaction to the phrase “global warming”, only 7% reacted with words like “hoax” or “scam”. By 2010 that had risen to 23%. There was a parallel trend in the UK: between 2003 and 2008, the belief that claims about climate change had been exaggerated almost doubled from 15% to 29%.
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Rebecca Huntley is the director of research at Essential Media. She is an author of numerous books and a regular commentator on radio and television. She is an adjunct senior lecturer at The School of Social Sciences at The University of New South Wales.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/05/stop-making-sense-why-its-time-to-get-emotional-about-climate-change
There is an alternative to trying to persuade people with emotion. Green activists could try making sense.
If climate activists had embraced nuclear power from the start, I would never have questioned global warming predictions. It was the absurdity of the proposed renewable solution which first raised questions in my mind about climate claims – if the proposed solution doesn’t make sense, maybe none of it makes sense.
The handful of green activists who are now embracing engineering sanity does not make up for the rest of them.
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As always for these “social scientists” they believe that they have the moral highground and have no sense of rational thought based on facts. Adding to that the “religious” righteousness of their alarmism means that they no longer need to debate anything. The social science is settled.
Read her title as “Socialist Scientist” the first time.
Rebecca Huntley has a very high opinion of herself.
I’m not sure it’s warranted.
Yeah…that’ll work. Like a spoiled brat at a supermarket checkout screaming because his parents won’t buy him candy….he thinks that if he screams LOUDER, he will get his way…..but he might just be hauled out of the supermarket only to get his just reward when his parents get him hone.
”It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
Paul Watson,
Co-founder of Greenpeace
So I guess the highest scientific standard in her eyes is this type of Marxist indoctrination agenda. It had nothing to do with science and people like her should stop giving science a bad name. Conversely scientists need to defend their integrity by denouncing the “horoscope” science of alarmism.
for a self-diagnosed well educated, highly rational academic, she demonstrates quite eloquently that she hasn’t got a clue what she is talking about when she pontificates about climate science.
If “ha”= laughter, then the above quote = “ha”^1000.
Here, I’ll start the expansion of the expression: hahahahahahahahahahahaha …
You can finish it, but make sure you end with lots of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, and while we’re at it, why not make the “!” indicate the factorial operation, which makes “ha” go on even longer. I guess it’ll take several lifetimes to finish, then. Oh well, you gotta start somewhere.
Start using emotion? When has climate change hysteria been anything but emotion? When James Hansen conspired with the Media Party in the Senate to testify about Global Warming with the air conditioning off over 30 years ago, was that a scientific argument or an emotional one?
While the Guardian my have no credibility at all, the story does suggest you are all just lab rats to the social engineers. When can we form the class action lawsuits based on mental torture?
I’m not so sure anymore that the NK methods of indoctrination and starvation in the name of the Kim lineage of leadership are that much worse than the climate crusaders.
That is all.
Is this an early manifestion of a ‘Shellenberger Effect?’ When the facts aren’t on your side it’s time to crank up the emotional stuff to 11.
I’m glad there was some left over to talk about the subject after getting through all the talk about herself.
Climate Change should stop pretending that it is science and admit that it is marketing.
Their basic problem is trying to sell the public something that they don’t want to buy.
If you look in the Daily Mail over the weekend, you will see heatwave headlines -104F (don’t ask me why DM uses Fahrenheit) as if this is something awful, while a picture on the same page show crowds of people at the beach enjoying themselves. I don’t think anybody on the beach is considering going to Siberia for their winter holiday.
“Stop making sense: why it’s time to get emotional about climate change”
This is a change???
Quick – hate-bait and then act on a temper tantrum – don’t think. Knee-jerk.
Yep. Progressive MO. Every time.
Here in the USA, we are being treated to alot of emotional arguments about how tearing down statues of Lincoln vindicates the murder of George Floyd. These folks don’t see the slippery slope before them. Maybe it would help if they watched film of Nueremburg rallies- that painter with the little mustache was, like, the best emotional arguer ever! Dr. Huntley might wonder where “winning with emotional arguing” could lead.
Great album by the talking heads “Stop making sense”, almost as good as “The fear of music”.
As an aspect of rhetorical persuasion not so much.
Next album should be “The fear of affordable reliable electricity”.
Their best album was Remain in Light. Quite possibly the best album of all time.
Same as it ever was.
There is water at the bottom of the ocean …..
… and so on
Philosophically I am opposed to ad hominin attacks. However, after reading the comments here, I realized it really is fun to demean such an arrogant fool as Ms Huntley.
You’re not an expert. You’re a practioner.
Ms. Huntley: We’re past the dawn and now going into the Age of Aquarius. Each astrological time period lasts an average of 2,150 years. Our planet is leaving behind the Age of Pisces and entering the Age of Aquarius. Oh, the wonder of it all! I get soooo emotional when I think about this. Won’t you join me?
From the full article:
“The third and final bias is cognitive dissonance. When people encounter actions or ideas they cannot reconcile psychologically with their own beliefs, they experience discomfort. They then try to resolve their discomfort by arguing away the new evidence.”
Well. There we go. If you disagree you are in denial of the truth. The author should know. She is a Social Scientist and has studied! You do not. You are just an angry cis white male trying to resolve your discomfort.
Or… Our brave author might just be displaying her own inability to take advantage of the Conservative Advantage. She believes that because ‘deniers’ and their arguments upset her, then they must in return be upset by her and her arguments. Since she is a Social Scientist, she clearly knows that SHE is correct in which case ‘deniers’ are only arguing because they refuse to see/accept the truth.
Our poor misguided child.
What she fails to understand is it is not the ‘ideas’ that Conservatives are concerned about – Conservatives are by nature curious about new ideas, because their immediate goals are to advance themselves and those in their immediate care and they wish for improvement. A Conservative will observe an idea and embrace, reject or monitor it based on what sort of advantage it will give them. Ideas that are of no advantage and don’t affect them are at best watched with mild bemusement, but idea that will damage their existence are pushed back against.
Examples
Leftie – I like nuts
Conservative – apathic towards nuts
Result: Shrug. That’s nice I guess.
Leftie – I like nuts
Conservative – I like nuts
Result: We should share a bowl
Leftie – Nuts are great and everyone MUST eat them
Conservative – Nuts give me a life threatening rash
Result: I seriously need you to stay away from me. Honest. Go away. Please.
The problem with a Leftie Mindset is that they have developed the idea that things are absolutes. Nuts are good, or Nuts are bad. Once they have reached an absolute they struggle to understand how someone could disagree. They like nuts, therefore you must also like nuts or there must be something wrong with you. The act of there being a non absolute answer to a situation bothers them to the extent THEY are the ones to start to filter their social circles into those who agree with them (Nuts are good) and those who are simply WRONG.
Rebecca herself jokingly indicates that at some level she accepts and embraces this. She is an expect on understanding the opinions of people who don’t know what they are talking about. It is not that you have a different opinion, you have a WRONG opinion so clearly you have something wrong with you that can be unwrapped and discussed by clever people who are Social Scientists. The fact you just don’t like nuts does not enter into it, you have much deeper mental biases.
The other manifestation of thinking in absolutes is why the Left always ends up turning on itself. A Conservative rarely will spend their entire day worrying about nuts. There is SportsBall to watch. Bills to pay. Ungrateful offspring to supervise. Races to Ism. Women to oppress. Minorities to push down stairs and/or whatever us nasty Right Wingers do with our spare time. Lefts on the other hand are focused on the absolutes and ally with the other absolutes… right up until one of them deviates from the officially published script and embraces a different absolute.
By the way, is the Guardian still running at a loss?
Also I love the way that the photo of How Dare You Greta has become visual shorthand for Angry Leftie Having a Hissy Fit.
Face it, Greta and her script writers owe Conservatives for the publicity. If it wasn’t for the memes everyone else would have forgotten she was even in the US. A Left talking point lasts until the next hashtag comes out, but a meme can keep on giving and giving.
When did it ever make sense and who declared the start and stop points for the science process.
But this raises new questions. Were the Brits…
A. More literate (at least those encountered in places where the polls were taken)?
B. More used to not giving a damn about wannabe O’Briens without proper electrical appliances?
C. More bold due to more milquetoast answers proposed?
D. Have the poll takers less experienced at operating thimble rigs?