Essay by Eric Worrall
“… we assumed that if the climate worsened enough, people would act, but instead, we’re seeing the ‘boiling frog’ effect …”
People Better Understand Climate Change When Shown Stark, Binary Data
The researchers looked into ways to communicate the true impact of climate change and found a solution.
Published: April 25, 2025
Slowing human-caused climate change requires decisive action, but the slow upward creep of global temperatures contributes to apathy among people who don’t experience regular climate-driven disasters, psychologists say. In a new study from UCLA and Princeton, researchers looked into ways to communicate the true impact of climate change and found a solution.
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“People are adjusting to worsening environmental conditions, like multiple fire seasons per year, disturbingly fast,” said Dubey, senior author of the study. “When we used the same temperature data for a location but presented it in a starker way, it broke through people’s climate apathy. Unfortunately, compared to those who looked at a clearer presentation of the same information, those who only looked at gradual data perceived a 12% smaller climate impact and cared less.”
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“For years, we assumed that if the climate worsened enough, people would act, but instead, we’re seeing the ‘boiling frog’ effect, where humans continuously reset their perception of ‘normal’ every few years,” Dubey said. “People are adjusting to worsening environmental conditions, like multiple fire seasons per year, disturbingly fast. My research examines how people are mentally adapting to the negative changes in our environment.”
Read more: https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/people-better-understand-climate-change-when-shown-stark-binary-data-398948
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The abstract of the study;
Article
Published: 17 April 2025Binary climate data visuals amplify perceived impact of climate change
Grace Liu, Jake C. Snell, Thomas L. Griffiths & Rachit Dubey
Nature Human Behaviour (2025)
Abstract
For much of the global population, climate change appears as a slow, gradual shift in daily weather. This leads many to perceive its impacts as minor and results in apathy (the ‘boiling frog’ effect). How can we convey the urgency of the crisis when its impacts appear so subtle? Here, through a series of large-scale cognitive experiments (N = 799), we find that presenting people with binary climate data (for example, lake freeze history) significantly increases the perceived impact of climate change (Cohen’s d = 0.40, 95% confidence interval 0.26–0.54) compared with continuous data (for example, mean temperature). Computational modelling and follow-up experiments (N = 398) suggest that binary data enhance perceived impact by creating an ‘illusion’ of sudden shifts. Crucially, our approach does not involve selective data presentation but rather compares different datasets that reflect equivalent trends in climate change over time. These findings, robustly replicated across multiple experiments, provide a cognitive basis for the ‘boiling frog’ effect and offer a psychologically grounded approach for policymakers and educators to improve climate change communication while maintaining scientific accuracy.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02183-9
This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so shocking.
The obvious interpretation for climate apathy is the climate change people are experiencing is not a big deal compared to other issues they deal with in their daily lives, and is not disruptive enough make people care. That “apathy” is ordinary people correctly concluding global warming is way down on their list of priorities.
But instead of accepting climate change isn’t a problem for the people they investigated, the scientists concluded they have to spice up the message, to make the data look more frightening.
I disagree with the study assertion that the “binary” approach maintains scientific accuracy. In my opinion the proposed approach to climate communication amounts to deliberate deception. Omitting the information that people are unconcerned and apathetic about the changes they experienced, because they occurred over a long period of time, and people comfortably adapted to changes, in my opinion is lying by omission.
I believe future historians will look back on this kind of behaviour, this apparent normalisation and casual acceptance of misleading the public through in my opinion deceptive presentation of the facts, and wonder how our scientists and societal institutions so profoundly lost touch with morality.
Simple, money.
No, it is a bat sh!t crazy mass movement, much like Millenarianism. Everyone is about to face judgement for their sins, right soon now.
Both Christian Millenarians and Environmentalists have been predicting imminent doom my whole life, and I am not young.
Yes I see nothing to wonder about except why this brutal social movement is occurring? Social movements often involve a suspension of morality so that is no surprise. But a great saying is “Social movements expire from an excess of their own principles” and this may be happening now.
But then I have been tracking environmentalism since the late 1960’s. It grew ever more powerful until it was a natural step to seek world domination.
There’s been a relentless battle between the enviros and the wise use movement. Enviros want to lock up the environment and the wise use folks want to manage nature intelligently. In recent decades the enviros have been winning. They tend to be smarter politically with propaganda. The wise use folks are just too busy doing their work- farming, forestry, fishing, mining, etc. to focus on manipulating public opinion.
“Social movements expire from an excess of their own principles…” and yet the Climate Catastrophe Charade keeps chugging along like a runaway train! Perhaps the main reason is that it has NEVER been a social movement!
One only has to look at who benefits; cui bono? Tom Steyer, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Al Gore have ALL made millions, if not billions, from promoting their solutions for a nonexistent problem. There are thousands more, like the “scientists” who compromise their ethics and integrity, who fight for their pace at the trough of money and positions that are available to any who stay firmly on the bandwagon! This has never been anything more than a Marxist ploy to finally end Western-style freedoms and prosperity while wrapping themselves in an environmental sheepskin!
The Carter era EPA commissioned a study on the origins of Environmentalism, and could find no real cause. Other than books like Carson’s Silent Spring, and a few oil spills, nothing.
Declines in evangelical religions? Despair over not dying in a nuclear war? Dastardly Commie/Right Wing plot?
It’s probably built into the human race- there’s always something to fear- going back hundreds of thousands of years fearing lions and cave bears and starvation and other tribes. All that fear resulted in religion. And the fear was and is exploited by politicians.
and tigers….
About 50 years ago I was at the Bronx Zoo. There was a tiger in a cage. I got as close to the cage as possible. The tiger had been walking back and forth then stopped in front of me- stared at me – then let out a growl that horrified me. It was far louder than I thought possible. I then realized I never want to be wandering around any place with large cats.
And when the common folk see the climate clergy being hypocrites. It’s been said by some historians that Americans in particular greatly dislike hypocrisy. It’s everywhere of course but in many other nations, the people there just assume it’s the norm and they tolerate it. Americans by contrast have a touch of idealism going back to the pioneer days- so hypocrisy is considered especially vile.
Socialist movements…
The climate cult puts both together. Cut your carbon emissions or Earth becomes Hell.
No it’s about money.
Specifically, AGW etc is a massive taxpayer funded gravy train for the universities and researchers and they don’t want it to stop, so research will only be published if it supports the AGW narrative, anyone arguing against the narrative will be destroyed, thus the only people in “climate science” will be true believers, and those who don’t care either way, but just want the cash.
Without the money there is no climate science, without the science the eco-activists really are just another loony cult predicting the end of the world.
Other comments above are relevant, but the core issue is clearly money. The amount of money flowing into the coffers of willing is immense – taxpayer money.
‘Both Christian Millenarians and Environmentalists have been predicting imminent doom my whole life, and I am not young.’
I don’t have any problem with ‘premillennial’ religious movements that passively wait around for the world to end, because they typically fade into oblivion when the predicted event doesn’t occur.
The problem with the Environmental movement, like the Progressive movement from which it sprang forth, is that its adherents have no qualms about using government coercion to achieve their objectives. Ironically, the roots of both these mostly now secular movements can be traced back to the ‘post millennial’ religious fervor of 19th century America.
https://mises.org/mises-daily/kingdom-come-politics-millenium
This is why most Western nations are so intent on suppressing free speech and their native-born populations! They know that they have only a few more years to institute a “1984” style system to keep the public perpetually fat, dumb, and lazy. The populist movements arising in Europe and the US are a direct threat to their control, and as such MUST be subverted or destroyed!
A commentator elsewhere: “I followed the science and there I found nothing. Then I followed the money and there I found the science.”
Climate Apathy is Outpacing the Climate Crisis
Or in the case of the UK…
Climate alarmism is outpacing our ability to pay for it.
The only things propping Britain up are banking and what is left of your world class high value added manufacturing.
Banking is on the way out because Britain can’t supply the cheap energy required to power trading AIs, and manufacturing is dying under the weight of costs, taxes and regulations.
When all* the climate catastrophes predicted since the global cooling scare have been wrong (at least the last 30+ years) it’s easy to understand why Mr. and Mrs. John Q Public don’t that climate change is a serious issue.
*all: As an old engineer, I don’t use “all” and “never”; however, since I can’t think of a single correct catastrophic prediction, I will use “all” in this case.
Climate science and the newly rechristened “Legacy Press” NEVER say how much global warming increasing methane will produce.
Let’s hear it for old engineers.
It began before Earth Day, 1970, now 55 years of ‘sky-falling’ baloney.
It began at least as early as the 1950s when the Club of Rome decided to use environmentalism as the means to scare people into the One World Order they were pushing for.
the scientists concluded they have to spice up the message
Scientists don’t spice up messages to scare the people. Politicians do that, and this author is on the s**t list for misusing the word ‘scientist’.
the scientists concluded they have to spice up the message
Scientists don’t spice up messages
Is that so? Stephen Schneider put it this way after deciding global cooling wasn’t the way to go:
We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. — Stephen Schneider
We must have been commenting at about the same time. 😎
“Nobody’s honest. Scientists are not honest. And people usually believe that they are. That makes it worse. By honest I don’t mean that you only tell what’s true. But you make clear the entire situation. You make clear all the information that is required for somebody else who is intelligent to make up their mind.”
— Richard Feynman, “The Unscientific Age” in The Meaning of It All.
My son contends that all scientists are honest and devoted to the truth.
He does not accept that loss of funding and employment and financial hardships might affect pure honesty.
Some ‘scientists’ become famous for the wrong reason, and Schneider is one. I just mentioned him in a reply above, and won’t repeat it here. He was already 2nd generation, since he was selected by Kellogg for just the purpose you mention and given a platform for his distortions.
What about political scientists?
Why are you defending liars?
They already tried the “scare into action” approach.
— “We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” – Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports.
Not one of the authors appears to be remotely involved in climate studies. They are all just students of propaganda.
That has change now since we are in the 3rd and 4th generation of indoctrinated, activist students. Their funding has been guaranteed by their affiliation.
The people are not reacting to climate change for two reasons.
Those are the reasons rational people are not buying into man made climate change.
The champions of misinformation Dr Mann, Mr Gore, Ms Thunberg and every ignorant Hollywood band wagon jumper are seen for what they are.
Wrong at best and liars at worst.
Well considering the Models are written to be Hot and the real temps are significantly cooler than what the models predicted this Frog is not being boiled.
Boiled? It’s just a warm bath.
With bubbles!
So they are admitting that Climate Change is not a crisis in the minds of the people and the people are not believing their stories. This is a clear sign that climate alarmism propaganda has run its’ course and the people are on to their scam. Good luck to them with unwinding decades of false claims.
“We need to dumb down the climate propaganda even more than it already is, so people can “understand” it..
…”we’re seeing the ‘boiling frog’ effect …”
No, what you’re seeing is the “We’re sick and tired of your climate crap, now go away” effect.
And the follow up to that is, “Your climate crap was a scam, so now you owe us compensation.”
😎
Didn’t they say the oceans should having been boiling by about 10 years ago?
(Or maybe I’m thinking when the Arctic would be ice free?)
Either way, all us “frogs” are fine.
PS I just came across this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1e5HAZo4iw
(The “Predictions” on WUWT’s title bar is more thorough but this is quicker.)
It had to come to data manipulation in the end. People can see that there is not really a problem but the these guys have mortgages to pay. Cancelled projects are the worst thing they can get imagine
“Slowing human-caused climate change requires decisive action, but the slow upward creep of global temperatures contributes to apathy among people who don’t experience regular climate-driven disasters, psychologists say.”
It’s so wrong it is hard to comprehend. What human caused climate change? If you can’t measure it you can’t tell if you slowed it. What is a climate driven disaster? How can humans experience climate which is a long term average of weather characteristics? These goofy psychologists don’t know what they are studying.
“People are adjusting to worsening environmental conditions, like multiple fire seasons per year, disturbingly fast.”
Actually, they’re adjusting quite well to improving conditions. When conditions, environmentally, economically, or any other way are getting worse- people don’t fail to notice. We aren’t like those dumb frogs in slowly boiling water. People may not complain because it’s often not appreciated by those in power.
” multiple fire seasons per year, ???
WTH.. I live in Australia, the land of eucalypts and bushfires…
.. .we haven’t had a bad fire season since 2019,
and if this darn rain doesn’t give us a break, unlikely for another couple of years at least.
“People Better Understand Climate Change When Shown Stark, Binary Data”
Just what the hell is meant by binary data in this context? Data is data- why call it binary data? What’s the implication- that its sciency? And…. calling it STARK. More fear mongering.
Orwell understood the concept:
”Four legs good, two legs baaad!
“Slowing human-caused climate change requires decisive action … “
Yet, our friends at Greenpeace refuse to take decisive action to move forward with the only reasonable, rational, reliable, affordable, safe and proven-at-scale carbon-free technology available — clean, safe, reliable nuclear power.
(links removed)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States
Greenpeace? What is that?
“urgency of the crisis when its impacts appear so subtle”
Pretty much by definition, if the effects are “so subtle”, then there is no crisis.
Whatever happened to the “C” in CAGW?
“misleading the public through in my opinion deceptive presentation of the facts”
It’s the same technique that socialists have been using to sell more government intervention for over 100 years.
Invent a crisis, proclaim that only government intervention can solve the crisis, and then get your allies in the media to hype both the problem and your solution.
“I will give up all of my freedoms if it means I will be safe.”
— engineer post 9/11
While active on this site- I just now heard someone knocking on my front door. I go there and see 2 men and a woman. I instantly knew what they want without them saying anything- selling solar systems. Every year several solar sales people knock on the door. I always get rough with them. The second I opened the door I said, “I have zero interest in solar panels- the entire green energy thing is BS so good luck and move on”. The woman said, “oh, just like my father”. The 3 were all young- probably college age. But, amazingly, while asking them to move on, I see a huge hawk fly over the house across the street and over my house- maybe up only 30′ or so. It seemed like a message from the Gods letting me know I did the right thing by pushing them along. 🙂
amazon sells warning signs for your yard saying, “due to the increased cost of ammo, there will be not warning shots.”
Did the hawk ‘bomb’ their auto, or were they riding bikes?
An exercise in manipulation, nothing more.
Very nice Eric. Yet more proof that the CAGW clowns have nothing to shore up their beliefs. We have been hounded for decades that we are in serious trouble and if we don’t hand over our freedoms, our money, our way of life we are all doomed. We may have been skeptical in the beginning but thought it wouldn’t hurt to go along with them for a while and see what materializes. As time went on we observed that we weren’t all going to die and the earth wasn’t on a path to destruction. Our own observations proved they were lying, cheating and taking our freedoms and money for no good reason. The only thing left for them is to double down and lie and cheat even more to us, that we are not truly intelligent enough to know the danger we are bringing on ourselves. I have news for these low life scoundrels, we are more informed than they think, we know they are dishonest, we have been screwed over for to long and we don’t give a damn what they say or think. They can go to hell.
It is the insistent infatuation of overweening climate delusions is what makes people profoundly stupid and never progresses with available knowledge since they are convinced, they are doomed already.
Oh yes? Climate is the statistics of weather observations. Fairly obviously, eight billion people generate more heat than one billion people. Thermometers respond to increased temperatures due to heat by getting hotter.
Decisive action? Destroy all thermometers? Exterminate seven billion people?
Oh well, good for a laugh, anyway.
Do not laugh about the ‘exterminate’ part. Those people are more than willing for that to happen, believing their ‘holiness’ will protect them.
Ref. The Population Bomb from the 1960s.
“… we assumed that if the climate worsened enough, people would act, but instead, we’re seeing the ‘boiling frog’ effect …”
or more likely the freezing frog effect …
One of the greatest myths is that a large segment of the population anywhere subscribed to the climate crisis exaggeration in the first place. They considered any extreme weather events to be just normal fluctuations and certainly weren’t going to accept new taxes laws and mandates to fight a non-issue. Only governments, alarmists and producers of green products have tried to con the public about what is largely a scam..