Much of what passes for Science® these days is the construction of some focus groups given various subjective A/B tests, then followed up by detailed statistical analysis of subjective surveys of the participants. Not just “Climate Communications”. I’ve seen the same thing in other soft subjects, such as “Design Science” for years. The following is a classic of the genre.
Their conclusion seems to be that if you ask people to make sacrifices, they resist more conspicuously than if you tell people in passive voice that things must be done, especially by others.
Lots of math was involved in order to reach this spectacular and profound conclusion.
This study posits the hypothesis that the lack of an individual’s engagement in mitigating climate change might be due to reactance, a motivational psychological state that occurs when one’s perceived freedom to think or act is being threatened. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design (N = 623), we varied how mitigation recommendations for transportation were communicated (individual vs. policy appeal) in an online article. Additionally, we manipulated how directly the need to act was stressed (high- vs. low-controlling language). Outcome measures to capture reactance were perceived threat to freedom, counterarguing, and support for recommended mitigation efforts. Participants in the individual condition reported higher perceived threat to freedom, counterarguing, and showed lower support for the recommendations compared to those in the policy condition. In addition, high-controlling language increased perceptions of freedom threat. Results help clarify public responses to climate change mitigation appeals and offer insights about people’s perspectives on climate change mitigation.
Climate change is one of the most serious threats the world is facing today. Adequately addressing the issue and achieving an ecologically sustainable future, requires fundamental political and individual changes. Politicians are expected to introduce public policy initiatives designed to reduce humans’ impact on the climate, and individuals are expected to support those and take mitigative actions to reduce their carbon footprint. Despite widespread awareness and concern about climate change (European Commission, Citation2020), the global scale of mitigation action is slower than the pace required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement (IPCC, Citation2022). Hence, it seems crucial to appeal for climate action in the public discourse. However, such persuasive messages might be met with resistance when communicators strongly suggest a course of action, especially when they are perceived to restrict the public’s autonomy. One form of resistance against persuasion is psychological reactance, a motivational state aroused by the perception that one’s freedom to think or act in a certain way is being threatened (Brehm & Brehm, Citation1981). The goal of the present study is to investigate the impact of appeals promoting climate change mitigation on people’s psychological reactance and their perspectives on the topic in order to improve the effectiveness of environmental communication initiatives.
Psychological reactance
Psychological reactance theory (PRT; Brehm, Citation1966; Brehm & Brehm, Citation1981) posits that when an individual perceives a threat to a valued freedom, a motivational state called psychological reactance drives the individual to reassert that freedom (Brehm, Citation1966). The theory postulates that even when a message is not contrary to someone’s existing beliefs, efforts at influencing someone’s attitudes, opinions, or behavior can be perceived as a threat to their individual autonomy. The theory further predicts a so-called boomerang effect following state reactance: an individual might eventually engage in the opposite behavior being recommended in an attempt to restore their freedom (Brehm, Citation1966; Brehm & Brehm, Citation1981; Dillard & Shen, Citation2005). Empirical findings seem to support this notion: Bensley and Wu (Citation1991), for instance, found that anti-drinking messages triggered reactance, which, in turn, increased drinking behavior – the opposite behavior than intended by the message.
…
Emphasis mine below
The question of responsibility within the climate change discourse
Although effective solutions to mitigate climate change must address multiple actors, potential measures can be broadly divided into two main branches: those who encourage individuals to adopt behaviors that reduce their own carbon footprint and those who propose more systematic policy efforts to reduce or eliminate carbon emissions (Lubell et al., Citation2007; Zahran et al., Citation2006). Climate change mitigation is “an anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases” (Watson et al., Citation2001, p. 379), such as by introducing renewable energy technologies, minimizing waste, and embracing public transport commuting practices. With this in mind, behavioral efforts that can mitigate climate change comprise reducing emission-intensive consumption as well as supporting climate-related policies and mitigation technologies.
While previous research has shown that although individual and policy efforts have to go hand in hand (Brownstein et al., Citation2022), studies have shown that these two types of solutions to climate change can be perceived differently by the public. When it comes to taking personal responsibility for climate change, people might prefer a top-down solution that would not affect their personal freedom of choice directly: Unsworth et al. (Citation2016) found that people think companies and government have a greater duty to deal with climate change compared to individuals and families. Furthermore, even when the cost to consumers is kept equal, people seem to prefer producers rather than consumers of carbon to be taxed (Hardisty et al., Citation2019). Moreover, Palm et al. (Citation2020) found that recommendations for behavioral changes to address climate change, such as taking fewer plane flights, driving less, eating less beef, etc., decreased individuals’ willingness to take personal actions to reduce greenhouse gases, their willingness to support pro-climate candidates, and their belief in the accelerated speed of climate change, compared to messages emphasizing the adoption of public policy to address climate change.
The present study proposes that one possible mechanism behind the preference for policy in comparison to individual efforts to mitigate climate change might be psychological reactance, as recommending changes in one’s personal lifestyle and habits might arouse people’s perceptions of freedom threat and their motivation to resist such appeals more strongly than recommending public policy measures to mitigate climate change. Furthermore, the magnitude of a request can also have an influence on psychological reactance: Rains and Turner (Citation2007) found that when individuals were asked to perform a large task, they experienced more reactance than individuals asked to perform a small one. It is possible that for an individual, changing one’s behavior on one’s own is perceived as a task larger in magnitude than supporting public policy measures that aim to foster or regulate that same behavior. Hence, we proposed that appealing to an individual course of action increases psychological reactance, compared to appealing to policy solutions to mitigate climate change.
…
Communicating about climate change
While there has been much research on perceptions of climate change communication, less research has focused on how individuals themselves discuss about the topic and what they think about different mitigation measures. In order to take this research area forward, we were interested in examining if aspects of psychological reactance are reflected in the communication of reactant individuals, more specifically on their word use. First, given that reactance is elicited by a threat to an individual’s freedom, we were interested in examining how much people related the content of the climate change mitigation appeal to themselves by referring to themselves. Second, we were interested in how emotionally laden participants’ communication about the topic would be. Most of the research about psychological reactance has been conducted in the context of health communication (Ratcliff, Citation2021). Compared to health communication, climate change communication refers to a topic that is, for many people, less central to their day-to-day life and is often perceived as psychologically distant (Spence et al., Citation2012). Thus, we did not measure anger as a main component of psychological reactance as proposed by Dillard and Shen (Citation2005). However, we were still interested if it impacted the way individuals communicated about the issue.
Present study
In order to study the effect of different types of appeals and controlling language on perceptions of climate change communication, we constructed an online article ostensibly written by a climate scientist in which we manipulated these two factors as independent variables. The article discussed the newest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) results and included recommendations on how to mitigate climate change in the transport sector. We used transportation as a topic of interest due to the high CO2 emissions associated with the sector in Germany (Umweltbundesamt, Citation2022). Using a 2 (type of appeal) × 2 (controlling language) experimental design, we investigated the potential effects of (1) the scientist appealing either to individuals or to policy to mitigate climate change and (2) the scientist using high- or low-controlling language when communicating. We expected higher perceived threat to freedom (H1a), higher counterarguing (H1b), and lower support for the recommendations (H1c) when the scientist appealed to individuals in comparison to policy to mitigate climate change. Furthermore, we hypothesized higher perceived threat to freedom (H2a), higher counterarguing (H2b), and lower support for the recommendations (H2c) when the scientist used high-controlling language compared to low-controlling language when communicating.
The degree to which messages employing controlling language arouse negative persuasive effects might depend on the behavior being advocated. A previous study found the effect of high-threat messages to be more pronounced when the advocated behavior entailed a greater threat to the self (abstinence of alcohol consumption vs. controlled drinking) (Bensley & Wu, Citation1991). Hence, we expect the effect of controlling language on perceived freedom threat (H3a), counterarguing (H3b), and support for the recommendation (H3c) to be stronger in the case where the scientist appealed to individuals in comparison to policy to mitigate climate change.
In line with the idea that perceived freedom threat is an antecedent of psychological reactance, which in turn, influences attitudinal outcomes (Brehm, Citation1966; Ratcliff, Citation2021), we exploratively tested the serial mediation of perceived threat to freedom and counterarguing in the relation of type of appeal and controlling language on support for the recommendations. While we did not pre-register this idea, we were still interested in examining the full reactance model proposed by Dillard and Shen (Citation2005).
Additionally, we also formulated open research questions to examine how participants communicated about climate change mitigation when they were asked about their opinion on effective mitigation measures: Does the content (type of appeal) and language (controlling language) of advocacy statements influence the extent to which participants refer to themselves (RQ1), the number of negative emotional words they use (RQ2), and the type of mitigation measures participants see as effective (RQ3)?
Look…MATH!
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As someone who has argued with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormon Missionaries, dealing with religious enthusiasts requires knowing what they are preaching. And CAGW devotees are definitely a religion.
Preach it, brother!
I think bringing up Michael Mann and red noise is in the class of bringing up the minor little fact Indians look very little like Sephardic Jews to a Mormon.
I know.
I try educating CAGW zealots with some facts. They typically can never refute a single thing I bring into the discussion.
I think I am going to start leading with, “Is there anything I could possibly say that would make you question the consensus view?”
If they say, “No.”, then I am just going to point out what they consider to be “science” is actually a religious belief to them.
A second question could be exactly what they are personally doing to substantially lower their carbon footprint and support their position. Most people are not doing anything substantive anyway.
I try and convince them to divest themselves of every item they are wearing or carrying that was manufactured of or by the use of FFs!
Especially if they are young woman!
Personal carbon footprints are a ridiculous distraction.
Carbon Footprints in general are a ridiculous distraction.
Of course. But they are also serious virtue signaling, and they should be called on that.
Poor fungal, trying to downplay its ABSOLUTE RELIANCE on carbon based everything.
If you believe that while preaching the climate “emergency” – then you’re a fool and a hypocrite.
A relative of mine carefully conserves the amount of toilet paper she uses to help the planet.
I ask them if they are willing to stop exhaling CO2 into the atmosphere.
“Is there anything I could possibly say that would make you question the consensus view?”
Yes.
What is it?
Not even knowing what you “believe”…
… just doing it because it’s what you have been told to do.
Oh, minor little things like conservation of energy, paleoclimate, and fifty years of inane predictions (one was supposed to do the same things to deal with a return of the Ice Age as global warming).
FN, you should stop trying so hard, as you are being ridiculous per Alinsky rule #5 . Here is an irrefutable set of replies to your query,
“Anything would make you question the climate consensus view?”
Well, yes, quite a few:
Why don’t we switch it around a bit and, instead of us all trying different ideas, why don’t YOU tell US the things that are a bit shaky, that don’t seem to add up to you. Then, with a bit more to go on, we could probably find some information and sources that would provide you with all you needed for a more informed decision?
I’ve talked to many CAGW zealots here in Wokeachusetts. I like to ask them what they think the ECS is. Not one ever heard of it- never mind knowing the number or range. Yet they think they know a lot about climate science.
If the climate anxious want cooperation from normal men they need to adopt some of the tactics of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormon Missionaries. Sending beautiful young ladies into hostile neighborhoods with cold drinks and snacks, maybe pizza, and a pleasant lecture delivered on the lawn or deck would go a long way in bringing us around to abandoning our neanderthalian climate ideas and getting on the bandwagon.
They gotta get rid of this “carbon footprint” metaphor. The problem is up in the sky, not under foot. They’re confusing us.
“Climate change is one of the most serious threats the world is facing today.” Unnecessary hyperbole. Covid-like diseases are supposed to be the big one. Then there’s fentanyl. Bad TV. Uncomfortable airline seating. aggressive drivers, unregistered guns, car jackings, excessively bright oncoming headlights (Is dimming the lights covered in driver education and testing?), ,forgetting to take off shoes on entering the neighbor’s house and, worst of all, not putting the toilet seat down after finishing your business. Where does climate change rank in those threats?
“the goals of the Paris Agreement” I wasn’t involved personally and if someone signed my name without my permission it’s forgery.
Mormon missionaries are always painfully earnest young men, in my experience. Jehovah’s Witnesses are more varied in age and gender.
Invite them in …
Then tell them there are more people due to arrive for a no holes barred bisex swap party & to get their kit off ready; the looks of horror are a joy & they suddenly have to be somewhere else.
You’ll get no more callers for years.(:-))
Just tell them that you’re a Muslim and watch them run for the door.
I’ve been told that on some porn sites- there is a genre, “Mormon porn”. Of course I didn’t bother to investigate. (I might have but I like to practice safe computing)
Us old-style software guys call it ‘safe hex’. 🙂
You are mixing JWs and Mormons with Scientologists.
A JW came to my apartment 40 years ago. When he asked me my religion- I said I was a Muslim. He bolted out the door. 🙂
Can’t for the life of me think why. Islam is the religion of peace isn’t it – well, yes you do have to ignore the thousands they have murdered but it could have been worse.
Islam is the religion of peace – in the sense of Kant’s joke about “Perpetual Peace” being the sign above a graveyard.
The Math! The Blinding Statistics! The Citations!
Sigh.
From the outset, this piece is filled with the usual psychological mumbo-jumbo with no shortage of claims that we’re in a climate crisis. Except people aren’t falling for this alarmism any more and beyond North America and Europe, never did from the outset. That’s why the expanding economies of Asia and beyond are continuing to use whatever amounts of fossil fuels necessary to benefit their GDPs. That’s the reason that the US, for one, has developed more advanced methods to extract more oil and natural gas in Texas and New Mexico. That’s the explanation for the increase in air travel and the decline in EV sales as well as well as the withdrawal of investment in green projects. In short neither businesses nor consumers intend to make any major operational or lifestyle changes to combat a non-problem, especially when global populations, life expectancies, and food production keep growing, despite the climate change “threat”.
Just to add some factual color to an excellent comment:
I think C4 plants experience less drought stress as the level of atmospheric CO2 increases. Lots of corn/maize in the third world is planted on some marginal acres.
(It is getting more difficult for me to research topics like this on the internet. Almost every single article is “spun” to fit the preferred narrative regarding CAGW, instead of just giving a discussion of the basic biology.)
Some simple biology. C3 was the original photosynthetic pathway from the beginning of life, which evolved under generally much higher CO2.
C4 pathway evolved about 40 million years ago, mainly for semi arid grasses (which corn ancestor teosinte once was).
The biological difference is physiologically profound. C3 have to keep their leaf stomata open more, to get enough CO2 for photosynthesis. That means they lose more plant tissue water via transevaporation.
The ‘newly’ arid evolved C4 ‘grasses’ learned to be more photosynthetic efficient, so losing less stomata transevaporation water.
The food greening issue is that all shrubs, trees, fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuffs except the new ‘grass’ cereals maize and sorghum are C3.
There’s another thing which is generally missed: all these plants evolved when CO2 concentrations were much higher than they are today. They don’t just happen to do better with more CO2, evolutionarily speaking they are actually designed for much higher CO2.
Everything, including us, evolved when CO2 concentrations were far higher. At some point, when all this silliness has gone away, there will be a serious scientific study that shows even humans benefit from a CO2 level of 800-1200 ppm!
To your point 1, all that extra flora will be supporting extra fauna, so that’s even more carbon-based life on the planet that more than cancels out our “emissions”. The notion that it’s only CO2 created by our burning of coal, oil and gas that stays in the atmosphere and accumulates year on year is abject nonsense. What we add to the carbon cycle is dwarfed by mother nature herself.
South Koreans also believe strongly in CAGW. Japanese also profess to believe in CAGW, but are not doing much to mitigate it. What is really surprising is the number of true believers i n the Middle East.
So – many of the countries that might, one imagines, have a good reason to watch the West implode also have a strong belief in something that is being used to cause the West to implode?
Well, gee, that’s shocking news, I’d not have believed it possible, frankly.
You tell people all sorts of convincing tales of Climate catastrophes but when they can look out the window and see that the weather is much the same as it was last year they are less inclined to rush out and follow instructions to buy an exploding EV, eat bugs, or go on holidays on foot.
Milder winters in New England are to be cheered- not something to panic over.
It is not as if they have a good track record on getting their predictions right – or indeed their ‘facts’.
Arrogance, delusion and blind faith – how can people actually believe this sh!t.
These morons have to be stopped!
It is the agencies that fund them that have to be stopped. The morons are making big bucks.
Interestingly they do not mention who paid!
So many words to describe a
hypothesisinsighttheorythought-bubblebrain fart fantasy.I genuinely feel sorry for the people who feel obligated to lose themselves in this kind of intellectual wanking.
I’m sure that many of them look around their basement confines each day and think –
“I never wanted to do this in the first place.
I always wanted to be –
A LUMBERJACK!”
😂 😂 Love it.
How recent is all this survey-masquerading-as-science nonsense? Were there any of these “try this to convince the doubters” articles in science journals 50 years ago? 30 years ago? Even 15 years ago? Say … “How we can convince skeptics that tobacco causes cancer” or “How we can convince skeptics that sewage needs to be treated before being dumped in a river”.
I had subscriptions to both Science and Nature (IANAS) for a long time before getting tired of their increasingly political agenda, and I don’t remember a single such article posing as science.
All they convince us to do is ROFLOAO !
They continue to make a total mockery of themselves, without even realising it.
I’ve known many lumberjacks. They’re far more intelligent and decent than the clowns who write such “research articles”.
That might be because they sleep all night and work all day.
This is what happens when gobbledygook is blended with psychobabble.
I just learned I have a severe psychological reactance to pseudoscientific papers on psychological reactance theory. Who knew?
Take a lesson from Missouri which is the show me state. Stop telling us that we are wrong and show me where I am wrong. It took me year to be sure that I am not wrong and you simply telling me I am wrong isn’t enough. This will require you spend the time going over what I know and finding the flaw in my logic. More likely you will find the error in your ways once you know what I know.
Perhaps the real question should be WHY are we being led to believe that climate change aka global warming is human caused? The HoW is obvious!
From what I found about them online, Laura Bilfinger and Regina Jucks appear to on the staff of the University of Munster in Germany. So at least I can take solace in knowing that my American tax dollars did not pay for this pseudo-psychology gobbledygook.
But I still lament for all my U.S. tax dollars that do pay for garbage like this.
We’ve had a wonderfully mild winter where we are. Home heating costs can be horrendous here in the winter – no wonder so many supplement with wood heat. Most of us are relieved by this unusual weather.
There are still a (decreasing) few who worried ask “Do you think this could be climate change?”
And the standard answer is now “Oh, thank God, I sure hope so.”
Like Canada going manic on the anti-CO2 nonsense.
A very large proportion of the population live within 100km of the US border…
Because everywhere else is TOO COLD !!
It totally defies any rational or logical thought process. !
If we extend the WA/B.C. border eastward to the Atlantic Ocean, many Canadians would be in the USA. Eh!
My winter has been so mild that I am already thinking about putting the thermals back in storage! For anyone who wants to celebrate the moderating weather of the Modern Climate Optimum, I recommend that we all get together and sing the CO2 Song, by Minnesotans For Global Warming; that’s M4GW on YouTube!
My horse has decided not to shed out her very thick winter coat yet. Maybe she knows something we humans don’t know and you should keep the thermals out for a few more weeks. (As an aside, the horses have been pretty accurate on how the winter is going to go. She is in western Missouri.)
The El Nino circulation seems to be keeping the very cold, arctic air out of the United States and Europe, for the most part. I love it! Great weather this winter!
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2024/02/19/2100Z/wind/isobaric/500hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-116.17,54.38,264
I feel a whole lot dumber now than just a couple of minutes ago before I read this.
WUWT will do that to you
You cannot possibly get any dumber….. so you are safe.
WUWT posts these idiocies from your DUMB mates..
….. to show how dumb they are.
Only people that actually “believe” them become dumber.
You need to stop insulting other commenters. I don’t care who it is.
Any chance I could possibly ask for a similar notice for TheFinalNail as he’s insulted every commenter on WUWT, the website content and, by extension, you and Anthony as well?
Just a thought, in the interests of keeping all sides civil.
Not to mention the rampant insults continually coming from Richard Greene !
When I see them I will act. However, your egregious behavior yesterday was way over the top.
I’ll be policing a bit more. TFN can criticize the site. It is the decorum between users I will be monitoring.
Got it.
who let you out of your basement, troll.
You need to stop insulting other commenters. I don’t care who it is.
There are better ways to address him than a simple insult such as tear into his climate crisis religion with facts and evidence instead.
Attack what he writes not him personally that way you can make a fool of his slavish devotion to the nonexistent climate crisis they irrationally continue to push.
Because they firmly believe that C02 can cause BOTH drought and flood, even in the same place, like California, that is religion.
“Because they firmly believe that C02 can cause BOTH drought and flood, even in the same place, like California, that is religion.”
Can you provide some examples to support this claim, please?
Ask the attribution clowns. They are the ones making the claims.
Rain, drought…. pestilence…. all attributable to CO2 under their phony computer games.
Truly biblical..
You really should pay more attention to what your AGW-cult comrades are saying.
Can you please share some photos of your solar panels on the roof and your wind turbine and your big storage batteries and how you have given up fossil fuels and how you walk and bicycle and wear a grass shirt and so on and so forth? NO?! I did not think so, as you use FF every day of your life, so what do you expect others to do? Have you really not figured out that it is not about the climate? I hope you travel to China and lecture them about using fossil fuels, go do the good work.
I cannot provide exact references, but our Noble Governor, Gavin Newsom, and many other folks in State government, plus the MSM, regularly have stated that California has slipped into a mega-drought and it will become The New Normal. They have become very quite on that front since last winter’s storms and the significant rain we have so far this winter has kept them from repeating their “projections”.
As to floods, there have those in the California nattering class attributing those to Catastrophic Climate Change
The reason I cannot provide specific references is that I am on vacation about 7500 miles from my computer. However, others should be able to provide with detailed links to the pronouncements.
Google broken for you again?
AGW causes drought: 168,000 results
AGW causes floods: 178,000 results
Of a religion? Zoroastrianism, Eastern Orthodox Christian, Modern Norse (really, it’s a thing), Confucianism, Hinduism, Sikhism.
So who wrote this article? It just says “guest blogger, with no identifiers.
My mistake. Fixed.
What kind of person writes this gobbledygook?
The kind that firmly believes the CAGW nonsense and will write any old tosh in support of it. ‘The ends justify the means’ is something that has been used as a basis for some of the worst excesses in human history and this, here, is how it starts; by identifying a ‘problem’ and then justifying all means necessary to remove it.
the way they use that word “mitigate”. I can not imagine the day they proclaim, “It is all mitigated! We did a good job and can all rest now, thanks everyone!” It is NOT about C02, we all know that.
You would think someone among the 100s of thousands
doing this kind of mind numbing scientifically illegitimate work would trip over the in-your-face possibility that hard core dissidents might believe crisis anthropo climate is very very mistaken. If this is the case, then no amount of honeyed cajoling will ever change their minds and certainly these individuals aren’t going to think a “top-down” gov regulatory framework would be more acceptable to them.
That none of these studies even tangentially acknowledge that scientifically trained sceptics are convinced that crisis climate promoters have not made their case. Among them are Nobel Prize physicists! Also such as MIT’s Richard Lindzen, a highly decorated atmospheric physicist with a large peer-reviewed literature portfolio, Princeton physicist William Happer, possibly the world’s top specialist in radiative physics of GHG molecules in the air – the foundation of the global warming theory espoused by consensus climate. Wouldn’t a sociologist think he should be queried on the whys and wherefors of dissent? That they haven’t been nor have they questioned any of the Twitterors. What could be easier than that? No, it’s the elephant in the room they have been instructed to avoid. That would be empirical data points instead of relying on remote sensing and a giant bibliography of of the same old truncated and skewed speculative ramblings to extrude more guesses from. Clearly, they all-in with the government decree method.
I just tell those with climate panic to read “Unsettled”.
I look forward to the exhaustive analysis, with the necessary psychobabble, and math! that will convince China, India, Brazil, etc to stop building coal fired power stations at the rate of one per week.
The underlying premise that CAGR is real and 97% of scientists agree is falsified by the actions of about half of the world’s population. Clearly, scientists in China, India, etc do not agree with the CAGR premise. If they did, they would not be committing suicide by dramatically increasing the use of coal.
“… if you ask people to make sacrifices, they resist more conspicuously than if you tell people in passive voice that things must be done, especially by others.”
So what things do they want to tell people in a passive voice to do? Buy EVs? Eat bugs? Put a windmill or solar panel in your backyard? Don’t act like them and stop flying? None of their solutions to climate change actually work. Some of their solutions are actually worse for the environment. Driving an EV that must be charged with electricity produced from coal is not better than driving a traditional car. It just allows people to virtual signal so they can pretend they are doing something good.
Until they can come up with solutions that actually work, are affordable, and do not damage the environment, there is nothing they can tell us to do in their “passive voice” that will amount to anything, except waste gobs of money. In the meantime, the best thing we can do is to save our money and use it to adapt to climate change should it be necessary. We don’t even know if a little climate change will be net harmful or net beneficial for the planet. All they have are unproven theories and fantasies that are unlikely to pan out. All their predictions have come to nothing so far. The last thing I want to do is spend tons of money on a cure that turns out to be worse than the disease.
Methinks the author name are fake.
To summarize: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”
Here’s an summarized translation of the above article:
Mimsy are the borogoves and the momraths outgrabe and the slithy toves did gyre and gymbal in the wabe
Beware the jaberwock my son….
Nobody would even notice the 1.5C warming they are going Climate Crazy about without thermometers.
I moved from Cleveland Ohio in the US to Los Angeles in the winter and it was 15C warmer and still nice but rainy.
Four years later I moved back to Cleveland where it was colder.
Both places were fine. In LA you need an umbrella in the winter in Cleveland you need a coat in the winter, big deal.
Who needs convincing and all of the psycho-babble?
If you make people poorer, their emissions are reduced. This is indeed the elites’ strategy, and so far it is working.
Maybe we need a “progressive” wealth tax. That is, if a person is a “progressive,” we tax their income and assets at 99%.