Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; A study from University of Bonn attempted to determine whether climate deniers are bending the facts to suit their narrative, or are simply misinformed.
01. February 2024
Why Are People Climate Change Deniers?
University of Bonn and IZA study reveals unexpected results
…
A surprisingly large number of people still downplay the impact of climate change or deny that it is primarily a product of human activity. …
Motivated reasoning helps us to justify our behavior. For instance, someone who flies off on holiday several times a year can give themselves the excuse that the plane would still be taking off without them, or that just one flight will not make any difference, …
…
At the center of the experiments was a donation worth $20. Participants were allocated at random to one of two groups. The members of the first group were able to split the $20 between two organizations, both of which were committed to combating climate change. By contrast, those in the second group could decide to keep the $20 for themselves instead of giving it away and would then actually receive the money at the end. “Anyone keeping hold of the donation needs to justify it to themselves,” says Zimmermann, who is also a member of the ECONtribute Cluster of Excellence, the Collaborative Research Center Transregio 224 and the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Individuals & Societies” at the University of Bonn. “One way to do that is to deny the existence of climate change.”
As it happened, nearly half of those in the second group decided to hold on to the money. The researchers now wanted to know whether these individuals would justify their decision retrospectively by repudiating climate change. The two groups had been put together at random. Without “motivated reasoning,” therefore, they should essentially share a similar attitude to human-made global heating. If those who kept the money for themselves justified their actions through self-deception, however, then their group should exhibit greater doubt over climate change. “Yet we didn’t see any sign of that effect,” Zimmermann reveals.
…
Zimmermann advises to be cautious, however: “Our data does reveal some indications of a variant of motivated reasoning, specifically that denying the existence of human-made global heating forms part of the political identity of certain groups of people.” …
Read more: https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/025-2024
I can’t help wondering if the study authors may be inferring meaning where no meaning exists, because of a cultural misunderstanding.
“… Anyone keeping the donation needs to justify it to themselves …” – but is that really true, outside of Germany?
Personally I would not experience an overwhelming need to justify my actions. I would pocket the $20, because someone just offered me $20 no strings attached and told me I could keep it. I mean, why should I hand a free $20 back to a bunch of researchers?
Maybe this is just me. What would you have done in this situation?
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A $20 donation to WUWT would seem a very appropriate way to dispense the money.
Now that would also be a good option. 🙂
I would pocket the $20.
Firstly, $20 isn’t much
…A gallon of milk $5.99
…A loaf of bread $3.55
…A dozen Eggs $4.19
…A pound of Butter $6.19
(with 10¢ for the bag, There goes the $20)
Why would I give it to climate researchers who are greatly compensated from my tax dollars already?
That’s a delicious idea, but you must tell them your plan, then step back to avoid the splatter from their heads exploding.
You’ve gotta marvel at the religious intensity of these political activist ‘researchers’. They KNOW that climate realists are either stupid or criminal.
They BELIEVE that climate realists are either stupid or criminal.
The religion of <i>Anthropogenic Climate Change</i> is definitely a belief system.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good, will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven, yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very “kindness” stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease, is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
– C.S. Lewis
Well the idiots call it “heating”. They are loons. Give me the money.
I will then call you out for your insane global heating rhetoric.
My only question is why would ANYONE donate that money to some “global heating” organization?
That should be addressed to the participants of the WEF.
No. Participants in the WEF use private or chartered aircraft. The planes wouldn’t have flown if there hadn’t been some international gabfest in the Swiss Alps. So they have no justification the way a hard-working business man flying from Baltimore to Boston would have.
Any reason X where the solution is Y, is not credible when Y is lowering standards of living, reducing individual liberties, and giving world organizations more power to dictate how people live. “Climate change” is an X. So how about jogging right off you absolute cockwomblers.
The description is not very clear. The second group did get an actual $20 to keep. It does not say the $20 for the first group was actually sent to those two organizations, nor does it say what the two organizations were, only that they were “committed to combating climate change”.
If someone said to me, “You can keep this $20, or you can tell me to give it to two organizations which are committed to combating climate change and which I will choose and you will not know about,” damn straight I’d take the $20. It would be exactly the same decision if the two groups were “committed to combating climate alarmunism”. If I don’t get to choose the two groups, especially if I am not told what the two groups are, it’s not my money.
WUWT is committed to fighting Climate Change…
Climate Change Rhetoric
Climate Change Stupidity
Climate Change Misinformation
So it sounds as though they didn’t actually donate the $20 to the greenies as they told the first group. So their study is fundamentally based on a lie. Fits right in with the alarmist propaganda crowd. They seem to not consider the outrageous possibility that those who took the free money might possibly be aware of the lack of convincing evidence of a climate problem. Maybe if they’d given the subjects the choice of donating to say WUWT or Greenpeace, they would have gotten more useful insight.
Ah, but why do you make that claim?
Probably the ‘two organizations, both of which were committed to combating climate change’ were Researcher #1 gGmbH and Researcher #2 gGmbH
I think I’d blow my nose it and who am I trying to kid.
I’d keep it because, no strings attached!
I’d have identified as twins and put both my hands out for $20 in each hand.
And if they tried to deprive me of my claimed identities, I’d have threatened to do a tik-tok on them and get them ‘canceled” (which for them would have been a greater fear than compulsory conversion to climate denialism).
I’d identify at all 156 genders and request remuneration for each gender
Omg you’re so stuck in the past! 156 genders is like pre-pandemic, you dinosaur. I don’t want to cite a number here because by the time some people read this the number would have doubled.
😚 😉
How stupidly contrived and idiotic.
Should have had a third category, who had give it to a fossil fuel company, in exchange for something they could use.. eg petrol
If selected in the first group..
I would say I couldn’t find any worthwhile organisations to give it to…
…. And then spend it on petrol.
Unfortunately, unlike the majority of you highly paid (by big-oil etc) climate deniers…
(that’s what I heard, anyway 😉 )
… I seem to keep giving money to fossil fuel companies, just so I can live a reasonably comfortable life.
“… I seem to keep giving money to fossil fuel companies, with an added layer of taxes used to prop up EVs and unreliables”
There, fixed.
>> What would you have done in this situation?
Gimme a twenty and you´ll find out in am minute..
Uh, can you once more explain me in simple words what exactly the researchers learned from that?
It could not be that a skeptical person is less likely to donate for the cause.. it´s kinds implied by aww being skeptical about it..
Uh how much money was wasted on t his? (I don’t mean the $20, but the researcher salaries room rent and so on..) Like so many cases, where is good journalism when you need it. .this is quite scandalous actually!
Unfortunately journalism majors no longer require critical thinking nor training in verification of sources
When I was a flight instructor back in the 1973-75 time frame, my squadron had two rather bad accidents. At the time, I was in the safety department of my squadron. I was aware of many of the finding of the accident board, and the news media were reporting half-truths and made-up nonsense. I knew back then to not trust the news media.
If I had the choice of keeping the money, or donating it to groups I disagreed with, I would keep the money.
That’s my thought exactly. What a stupid study.
“Anyone keeping hold of the donation needs to justify it to themselves,”
Oh ,I can do that…
This climate clown just gave me $20 for some idiotic and juvenile study.
Thanks, bozo. now naff-off.
“Send in the clowns.” I guess Sondheim already knew about these knucklehead climate alarmists.
Ah, but they don’t understand clouds.
“Behavioral Economics”.. wt* is that !!
Not one skerrick of science, physics, engineering in his background.
A dreamer, a wastrel.
“Maybe this is just me. What would you have done in this situation?”
Kept the money and bought a Mr Bill doggy toy that cries Oh No! When squeezed.
Interesting experiment. They start with untested underlying assumptions, hand out free money, and don’t require any explanation from whoever just stuffs the money in their pocket. The only test of whether keeping the money is subjective.
I don’t see any science in this experiment at all. But the experimenters actually think they are doing real science, while the responding scientists here (me included) are, justifiably saying, “I’d just pocket the money with a clear conscience.” That is within the parameters of the experiment.
Does this reflect a pattern? A group of people convinced that mankind is destroying the planet denigrate, as a primary assumption, those who do not agree with them as “climate deniers.” They make up a “scientific” test which is very unsound, believing that their poorly designed test will prove something important about those scoundrels, something about being motivated only by money perhaps. In fact their experiment proves nothing, but nevertheless it shores up their cognitive bias.
Where have we seen this pattern before?
Guys, this is Social Science.
As someone with a Social Science degree I have to strongly object that what this fellow is doing is social science. Or perhaps it is social science nowadays. I got my degree back in the 1960s and I suspect that things have changed a lot since then. And anyway, there is no mention of the researchers ensuring that the groups were fully diverse, equal and inclusive so any findings cannot be valid.
Aka Non-science. Or “nonsense” for short.
But the chances of a “Just take the money and run” guy is the same in both groups. They have a control.
It’s the difference that they are arguing about. The difference in behaviour that they subsequently correlate with the reasoning.
When a researcher starts with a limiting premise (whether climate deniers are bending the facts to suit their narrative, or are simply misinformed) they are biasing the possible conclusions of their study.
It may be a stretch, but it just may be possible that there is a third alternative that drives “deniers” – that their opinions are backed up by facts and reality.
“Anyone keeping hold of the donation needs to justify it to themselves”
Well that’s easy enough. 20 bucks will get me a 30 pack of Hamm’s at the local Kroger store, with a couple of bucks left over.
If it was $20 US, I could buy a new house at the current exchange rate.
With inflation being what it is, I’ve come to look at $20 as being a threshold for impulse spending, where the consequences are negligible. It doesn’t require any great amount of introspection or rationalization. Therefore, I think that the conclusions of the researchers is not valid. They read too much into it. Hand me $20, and I’ll accept it with a polite, “Thank You,” and be on my way with no sense of guilt.
Yep, to be valid they need to do it again with at least a hundred dollar bill. Then they can tell me to keep it, or use it to save the world from climate change. When I keep it, because CAGW is a crock, and harms millions of people, well, since they paid me a hundred they can call me selfish one time.
I’d donate to Mark Steyn for any legal bills he has to pay out of his own pocket.
That’s a classic of poor experiment design.
There should have been a third category which involved splitting the $20 between two organisations which are opposed to Net Zero actions.
That applies to any for/against “motivated reasoning” study involving opposing causes. e.g. pro-DHMO/anti-DHMO.
If I was young again and offered $20 by some dodgy academic “researchers” on those terms, I would use best endeavours to shove their $20 notes up their arses and set fire to them.
I’d rather do a pull up for $100. I’m sure there’s a YouTube video on it.
News tip:
Hard to believe Gavin Schmidt doesn’t like cherry picked data:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/02/05/climate/sponges-climate-limit-study/index.html
Gavin says
“Claims that records from a single record can confidently define the global mean warming”
Yamal, anyone ? 😉
One tree to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.
You’re really on-the-ball today.
In the land of D.C. where the shadows lie
Mordor on the Potomac.
Lol I reacted before I read below!
‘“Claims that records from a single record can confidently define the global mean warming since the pre-industrial are probably overreaching,” he said in a statement.’
Maybe he should tell that to Michael “One Tree” Mann…
$20? Sure, I’d donate it to FAFO.
These type of studies are generally afflicted on college freshman in entry level psychology courses, 18 year olds whose primary interests are beer, pizza and sex, two of which are sure things with the money.
“One way to do that is to deny the existence of climate change.”
Unless I’m misunderstanding this study, it has to be one of the stupidest pieces of research ever devised. They gave people $20, then concluded that they “deny climate change” if they kept it? That doesn’t follow at all, and importantly, they are missing one very important issue. Climate change may actually not be an issue, or at the very least not one that is caused by human activity in any significant amount, and for which attempts to stop or reverse it will be utterly fruitless. Their assumptions that people who do not believe in the “global boiling” cult are either misinformed or willfully ignorant is, it would seem, willfully ignorant of the distinct possibility that they are not wrong.
Even if you did believe in the “global boiling” cult, you could logically keep the $20 if you concluded that you could take direct action that would be more beneficial to “the cause” than if you donated it to a bloated bureaucratic “philanthropic” organization. Maybe you could buy a few trees and plant them, or sponsor a manatee for a month or something. But, your choice to not donate the money would provide no insight into your views on Earth’s climate systems.
“Their assumptions that people who do not believe in the “global boiling” cult are either misinformed or willfully ignorant is, it would seem, willfully ignorant of the distinct possibility that they are not wrong.”
I think you have nailed it.
These people assume too much with regard to Human-caused Climate Change and with regard to the reasons why other people don’t believe in it the way they do. They are convinced that Human-caused Climate Change is real and obvious, and cannot understand why everyone doesn’t look at it that way.
It doesn’t occur to them that they may be wrong about humans causing the weather/climate to change. These are people who see what they want/expect to see.
There is no evidence showing humans are causing the climate/weather to change, so one has to wonder why these people are so convinced there is evidence. And the reason for that is they have been indoctrinated and propagandized into believing something that cannot be shown to be true by the promoters of the Human-caused Climate Change narrative.
These researchers have been brainwashed into believing in a false reality.
I would keep the $20 and use it toward filling my 5.7L RAM PU, and drive about fertilizing.the neighborhood with copious amounts of CO2, and feel very good about helping feed the poor.
A couple of justifications come to mind right away…
– Why on earth would I want to combat climate change when warmer is better?
– Has any organisation with a stated goal of “combating climate change” made even the slightest impact on the climate? Why would I waste the money giving it to useless organisations? Haven’t we spent trillions so far with nothing to show for it at all?
If I knew (which I do), that climate change was not a problem, then it would take no thought whatsoever to decide to keep the money, rather than give it to a group dedicated to solving a problem that doesn’t exist.
The “experiment” is so poorly thought out, that only a climate scientist could have come up with it.