“… talking to your friends and family [about climate change] … is a great place to start. You might be annoying. But you’ll be helping.” – Sammy Roth [1]
Sammy Roth, climate columnist at the Los Angeles Times, might need an intervention from a loved one. He wants us all, like him, to annoyingly talk about climate change. I doubt many will take him up on it, and his next family get-together might hang in the balance.
Roth states in Boiling Point: Want to fight climate change? Then talk about Climate Change (February 25, 2025):
When people ask me what they can do to support climate progress, one piece of advice I give again and again is to annoy their friends and family by talking about climate change constantly.
Here’s the thing: Large majorities of Americans understand that global warming is real, dangerous and caused by humans. Even so, it’s not a threat that most people prioritize in their daily lives.
Polls, polls. Ask the right questions to get the desired results. Roth continues:
For proof, see the latest edition of Climate Change in the American Mind, a twice-yearly poll from George Mason and Yale universities. Researchers talked with 1,013 adults, releasing the results this month. They found that 73% of Americans think global warming is happening. Sixty percent know it’s mostly human-caused.
Also illuminating: Nearly two-thirds of Americans are worried about climate change consequences. Between 61% and 77% think global warming is affecting problems such as electric outages, water pollution, reduced snowpack, air pollution, hurricanes, droughts, fires and extreme heat, the poll found. All that tracks with the science.
And then comes this statistic that Roth seizes upon:
Despite those concerns, 62% of Americans say they rarely or never discuss global warming with friends or family. Just 27% say they hear about it on social media at least once a month. Not even 1 in 3 consumers are, even occasionally, making purchasing decisions based on the steps companies have taken to reduce pollution.
He blames such passiveness with the myriad failures hitting the wind and solar industries:
It’s no wonder tech giants Microsoft and Meta are backing away from their renewable energy goals and rushing to build gas-fired plants to power artificial intelligence. If President Trump loves fossil fuels, and consumers don’t care, what’s the harm? Same goes for fossil fuel giant BP, which is planning to scrap its renewable energy goal.
Roth then conflates CO2 emissions with pollution, the latter being the criteria air pollutants, all declining with fossil fuels now being environmental products at the point of combustion.
It’s also no wonder the U.S. has made such slow political progress addressing oil and gas pollution. Polling has found that while voters know the climate crisis is real and dangerous, it’s relatively low on their priority list.
The grand consensus is unravelling. But Roth wants to reverse all this to the point of being a pest.
There’s no easy way to get more people to prioritize climate. Especially not when traditional media is less trusted than ever. Especially not when Trump and Elon Musk are working frantically to dismantle the federal government and undermine American democracy. It’s hard to pay attention to much of anything right now.
But talking to your friends and family? It’s a great place to start. Remind them that climate still matters. Send them articles and videos. Point out that even as democracy hangs in the balance, a planet ravaged by ever-deadlier heat waves, fires and storms isn’t a place any of us want to live.
He ends by all but refuting himself:
You might be annoying. But you’ll be helping.
Comment:
Climate alarmism is old, stale, and a turnoff. What if Sammy Roth had a family member or friend who set him straight with the economic and environmental case against climate exaggeration and forced energy transformation? Is his mind open? In California, he can easily get confirmation bias, but maybe even that state can get real and go free-market green.
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[1] Mr. Roth has been the energy reporter of the Los Angeles Times since 2018. His bio states:
- Cover the business and politics of the energy transition, in a climate context; key storylines have included gas industry opposition to electrification, rooftop solar panels vs. big solar farms and environmental consequences of renewables
- Write Boiling Point, a twice-weekly climate and environment newsletter
- Launched Repowering the West, an ongoing series exploring how California’s demand for renewable energy is affecting rural towns and sensitive landscapes
- Regularly appear on TV and radio, and moderate climate and energy panels
- Became The Times’ first-ever climate columnist in September 2023
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There are no long-term climates that have changed recently. The polar climates of the Arctic and Antarctic are still too cold for people to live in, the Tropic climate is still warm, and the temperate climates are in between with protection from the cold needed most of the year, the deserts are still dry and the rain forests are still wet.
The new “climate” made up of the 30-year weather is always changing because the weather over 30 years is always changing.
Greta wants climate change lipstick so it’ll be on people’s lips.
I would love to invite this guy to come to my house to make his silly arguments…he’s welcome to claim “…Americans understand that”
“global warming is real” – maybe, what’s your proof, crappy temperature measurements that can’t be justified as an ‘observable’, but ok, let’s assume it is.
“dangerous” – nope, 1.5 or even 3 or 4 degrees of warming is not dangerous. Humans thrive in warmth more than cold. Indeed the historical record unequivocally demonstrates that life thrives on a warming planet & dies on a cooler one.
“and caused by humans.” – sorry but there is no measurable degree of warming that can be linked to human causes. Models are not evidence & the IPCC themselves clearly indicate that there is NO, ZERO signal of ‘human caused climate change’ in any of their measurables (drought,fires, hurricanes, etc., etc.)…
I would love the opportunity to show this guy out for the complete idiot and charlatan that he is.
You could give him all the data all the facts, it would make zero difference to his position, because he does not want to know about truth. He has his career to think about and if we are being generous he has his belief. Belief is always beyond the reach of reality so your efforts to enlighten Roth with facts would be dismissed as pointless..
You can never dispossess anyone from a strong religious belief by using facts. Science and religion are entirely different ways to explain the cosmos, and the one cannot affect the other. Religion is part of self-identity. Science is a tool. Forcing one into the other is self-deception.
Rob & Mark…yup I get it. But its a bit like fobbing on Jehovah’s Witness’ that come to the door…its fun to mess with them…if they didn’t want it they shouldn’t be at my door.
Same with this guy, if he doesn’t want his world shattered than keep your mouth shut…
Even if one accepted that the climate models produce valid projections of future warming (which I don’t think is true), prediction of the climate consequences of warming are pure speculation. They are not based on either observations of validated models. It is very evident from the now decades long string of failed climate disaster predictions that there is no valid science behind the doom and gloom catastrophes that ‘scientist warm” about.
If this Sammy Roth character showed up at a gathering I hosted and started harassing people I’d toss him out on his ear.
I’m 100% in favor of Sammy Roth annoying his family.
Bless his little heart!
I worry about his poor parents. They want to talk about their grandchildren and he want to talk about the weather.
Please be precise. He doesn’t want to talk about the weather. He wants to talk about the “climate” or even worse, “apocalyptic climate change.”
No, he is talking about weather, and lying.
Daddy’s little joke. sorry.
My bad, I don’t disagree. I meant a little sarc but my wording could have been better.
He annoys me. He probably annoys everybody. Success!
Rather than be annoying Roth should spend his time learning about CO2. CO2 slows the cooling at night, it doesn’t control our climate, it can not cause catastrophic global warming, it can not raise average global temperatures.
“CO2 slows the cooling at night,” Very true – water vapour slows it even more. Doesn’t stop all the heat of the day fleeing to space at night, though. Otherwise the earth’s surface would have remained molten, if the atmosphere prevented cooling over time.
Arid desert temperatures drop really fast, and really far. Little H2O in their atmosphere.
Both the hottest and coldest temperatures are found where supposed GHGs are least. Antarctica has the coldest temperatures to be found. Arid, you see.
Ranging between roughly -80 C and 60 C. No need at all for a “greenhouse effect”, a “negative greenhouse effect”, or one I only heard recently, the “anti-greenhouse effect”.
Just conventional physics is sufficient explanation.
Ah! That fluffy cloud duvet that keeps us warm at night… You really notice the difference when it isn’t there – as in the UK recently.
“CO2 slows the cooling at night, …. it can not raise average global temperatures.”
Average of something that starts at the same value and declines at a slower rate is higher.
Ask Roth if he believes in the Little Ice Age. And why he believes any warming from that point is dangerous.
Or ask how wind and solar can maintain a stable electrical grid.
He will probably make Kamala Harris seem rational and articulate. Unless he just screams “denier!!”.
Let Kamala fade into the sunset. As with Greta, it is the other team that wants her to stay on the field.
And Gore… I keep thinking it would be fun to go back and watch that awful movie again. I remember the iconic scene where he rides a lift upward to follow the chart projection. If someone “edits out” the most inaccurate or embarrassing parts there might be nothing left.
I believe that careful and intelligent examination of his own sentence here would easily answer his dilemma.
1. Polling ‘finds’ what voters ‘know’.
2. Their priorities don’t actually reflect this.
Hmmmm….
Something may be wrong with the polling, perhaps?
I think something is wrong with his interpretation of the poll.
I don’t think people would think climate change is “real and dangerous” if it is low on their priority list. If they don’t care about it, then they don’t think it is real and dangerous.
People often respond to polls in a manner to appeal to the pollster or to their vanity. They say what they think they are supposed to say.
I would love to talk to friends and family about climate change, but they won’t listen. They are firm believers but that belief is based entirely on the fear mongering they hear in the media. They know nothing about the science and they are apparently aware that I know the facts. It’s like they know they’re wrong but don’t want me to confirm it for them, so they refuse to hear it.
Kind of like this climate change reporter.
My family is a mixed bag. I often wear my “THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS” T-shirt and that has inspired some real discussion. I do think I have influenced most to at least question the worst claims of the narrative.
Not sure how its a reply to your point but you inspired the thought – there’s and entire generation, now about 20 years old, who have never seen anything on tv news except one channel saying the orange man is perfect and three channels saying the orange man is pure evil. Both messages delivered by senior citizen newsreaders with smooth, paralyzed expressionless foreheads. No wonder they’ve abandoned television.
I watch Fox News every day. I’m watching it now. I do so to stay informed.
These scientifically illiterate alarmists wouldn’t know an actual “climate change” if it bit them on the a$$.
Go to a rock outcrop and looked at the preserved geologic history of the Earth. The rocks will show you very dramatic climate changes.
NOTHING like those changes is currently happening on the planet. Except for dramatic delta switching of major rivers and some volcanic action, the pre-geology of every environment on earth is chugging right along – essentially unchanged.
Actually, the gaps or unconformities in the rock layers (assuming sedimentary rocks) represent missing periods of geologic history and may indicate even more dramatic climate (and even sea level) changes.
That outcrop can record millions of years of earth history. Our species has only been around for a mere eyeblink in time, and most of our species think that if it hasn’t happened in their lifetime, it is unprecedented. Getting too old to fight the fight anymore, so I tend to ignore it as much as possible.
Wrong Mr Sammy Roth.
Here’s the thing…
IF “Large Majorities of Americans” truly believed that GlobalWarming™ was real, dangerous and caused by humans
There would be no reason to talk about it with your friends to their annoyance. With that Large Majority simply refusing to make use of any FF energy source or petrochemical derived products the emission levels would plummet. (Ambient emissions would still increase as the high energy industries that drive emissions would simply relocate to countries that allow them)
That “Majority” needs to stop being hypocritical and stop consuming FF energies.
Just keep in mind you need to…
Sever from grid sourced energy (electric and gas), the grid is fed by FF energy.
Eliminate any rubber (tires, shoes, elastic (waistbands) etc.)
Eliminate any plastic (prescription bottles, pre wrapped food, cell phones, computers, EVs, insulated wires, glasses, fans, alarm clocks, house phones, etc)
No Solar (solar PV requires Coal to reduce Silica to Silicon)
No Wind (turbine blades depend on petrochemicals to be light weight and turbine masts require Coal to purify and strengthen the steel)
No LiIon batteries (they’re 80%+ refined, processed, manufactured in China and require Diesel Shipping to move from one country to another)
I suggest looking at the Amish to start.
“When people ask me what they can do to support climate progress, one piece of advice I give again and again is to annoy their friends and family by talking about climate change constantly.”
He won’t keep his friends for long if he does that!
I visited Amish country in northern Ohio recently. Turns out some are huge fans of e-bikes (even the Amish can’t agree on everything and there are different sects).
No synthetic clothes, no elastic waist bans, unless it is homespun hemp or cotton, it is EVIL. Go naked if you are a tru believer!
And by all means, throw away your smart phone and all electronics.
Time to invest in Burlap Sacks…the new Sacks 5th Ave
And also when polled the average American will pay less $X per year to ‘solve’ climate change. X is an amazingly small number- less than $120 per year. Well that isn’t going to pay for two complete power generation setups to cover dunkelflauts.
“For proof, see the latest edition of Climate Change in the American Mind, a twice-yearly poll from George Mason and Yale universities. Researchers talked with 1,013 adults, releasing the results this month. They found that 73% of Americans think global warming is happening. Sixty percent know it’s mostly human-caused.”
***********
I have said this before about opinion polls of this nature, and I’ll say it again.
The overwhelming majority of the American people have little or no scientific background. Asking them their opinion on the subject of a changing climate and who (or what) is to blame is largely a pointless exercise for that reason. Govt policies on scientific issues should be based on the known science, not public opinion polls. The poll takers might as well ask the poll participants to explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (or their opinion of it) while they are at it.
If Roth and his ilk believe in the so-called “climate crisis” and that human CO2 emissions are going to start going down or stop anytime in the foreseeable future, they are living in a fantasy world. I would suggest to him that he is in a doomsday end-of-the world cult. Living the rest of your life believing in the “crisis” and the phony demonization of CO2 and fossil fuels is no way to live at all.
Propaganda and indoctrination all the way down.
“The overwhelming majority of the American people have little or no scientific background. Asking them their opinion on the subject of a changing climate and who (or what) is to blame is largely a pointless exercise for that reason.”
That says it all.
All these polls are measuring is the level of climate change propaganda. They are not informed opinions.
“All these polls are measuring is the level of climate change propaganda.”
……and the effectiveness of that propaganda.
There’s also the problem with push polling. Polls worded in such a way as to push people towards the answer the pollster wants to hear.
Yup. I’ve heard of this before Mark. Wording the question in such a way that it serves the purposes of the poll taker.
Polls do not address what respondents know, but rather what they feel. Polls are measures of emotionalism.
“environmental consequences of renewables”
Does he go into the huge amount of mining and the toxic manufacture and waste products from the production of wind turbines and solar panels?
Does he cover the avian and other environmental damages done by the installation and operation of wind turbines, and the harm to marine life from off-shore wind turbines?
Does he cover the farmland loss and other plant life and avian problems from the installation of solar factories?
Does he cover the massive amounts of landfill volume that is required to dispose of wind turbines and solar panels at their end-of-life, and the toxic chemical that can leach from them.. and the great lumps of concrete left in the ground at removal ? ?
Wind and solar are probably the most polluting forms of energy supply there is.
Rhetorical in his brain, no one asks him that.
I thought the same. “again and again“? Not many people ask for advice from anyone about anything. Maybe the newspaper gets letters.
Why would anyone ask him what they can do to support a non defined term that he made up?
“Climate progress” is a meaningless meme. If one defines it as a reduction in atmospheric CO2, which is what I think it means, then its obvious to everyone who looks at the Mauna Loa data that no “climate progress” has ever been made by humans anywhere at anytime.
“Do you know climate change is an existential threat?”
–
I don’t know that, and you don’t know that either. In fact, I know otherwise.
One existential threats is that insurance companies are starting to believe him.
I think that insurance companies are simply reacting to the huge increase of people living in vulnerable places, and just like Democrat politicians find the climate crisis narrative to be a useful scapegoat to avoid liability for bad policy and financial exposure.
When your entire existence depends on promotion of a lie, then we can be sure the dependent will continue doing that.
You would think, after the past thirty years of hype from the Climate Alarmists all of which has been shown by observations to be false rhetoric, they would start to question their beliefs?
The usual alarmist tactic of listing a series of straw men arguments has run its course and is now seen for what it is, hype,
Roth can invoke wild fires, hurricanes, weather events that make the headlines etc. claiming they are all increasingly out of control thanks to man made inputs. That is easy.
The thing he can’t do, is show evidence his alarmism is correct, because the actual data does not show it.
Wife (Biological female – she/her): “Who would you rather I didn’t invite to our annual party for all the world’s journalists, darling. We are one chair short at the dinner table?”
Husband (Biological male – he/him): “That complete bore, Sammy Roth from the LA Times, thanks dear. If I ask him how his family is he replies ‘not too good, the climate is killing them, and did you know that 97% of scientists agree man is causing warming, tipping points blah blah, big oil blah blah, hockey stick blah blah’ he’s like a stuck record and everyone heads into the kitchen when he traps some poor sod in the living room for hours”
Wife (Biological female she/her): “OK dear, that’ll be a No then…..”
And,
If anyone has a liberal-progressive family member (full disclosure I have one but still love my sister dearly) then they know that if nothing else liberals can be annoying. I don’t think they need any outside advice from Mr. Roth.
People who use party politics as a hobby are always annoying and boring.
And I don’t care which party they support.
What Sammy needs is for one of his family members to punch him in the head till he shuts up.
“might need an intervention from a loved one”
If he has any left.
The choice of words is interesting
They found that 73% of Americans think global warming is happening. Sixty percent know it’s mostly human-caused.
If you “think” that something is happening, then how can you “know” what’s causing it?
talking about climate change constantly.
is the fastest way to get people to tune you out.
And that will change the nano climate of your living room.
Apparently the young Mr. Roth is a great example of the modern American educational system. That is to say he was taught what to think rather than how to think, and to always believe the official narrative because we all know the government would never lie. Seems to be an epidemic of that sort of thing going around.
Poll question: Did you beat your wife again last night?