Strategies of Communication on Climate Change

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Losing the debate on climate change: why climate activists are their own worst enemies



September 27: Despite near certainty in new UN report, a climate of denial persists


From the blog of Peter Sandman


When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its new report – claiming more certainty than ever before that the global warming threat is dire – Marco Werman of PRI’s “The World” interviewed me about why I thought many people might find the report’s conclusions hard to accept, and might go into a kind of psychological denial instead. The interview lasted about ten minutes, but was cut to less than five for airing. I made too many minor points that got used, albeit in abbreviated form. So my main point got almost completely lost – that climate change activists were their own worst enemies because they kept saying things that were likely to provoke or deepen people’s denial instead of things that could help people overcome their denial.

For example, I told Marco, too many environmentalists were greeting the IPCC’s bad news triumphantly, almost gleefully – sounding more pleased that they were being proved right than devastated that the world’s in deep trouble. People who like their SUVs and are having a hard time accepting that they may have to give up their SUVs (that’s a kind of denial) may just barely be able to believe it if a fellow SUV fan sadly tells them so. They’re not about to believe it’s exultantly announced by someone who has hated the internal combustion engine since before global climate change was even an issue. For several better explanations of my thinking about climate change denial, see any of the other entries with “climate” and/or “denial” in their titles in the “On Environmental Activism” section of my Precaution Advocacy index.


10 comments:

  1. Same w peak oil and debt overshoot. People are more concerned about being right than they are worried about future. Relative fitness trumps absolute, when (perceived) basic needs and novelty are met

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    1. Correct. Although "people" might be replaced with "men". It is so typical for males of the homo sapiens species to reason using organs which are not the brain.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. Ugo, yes, on average men have higher discount rates than women.
      http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4469#.UkgvlD-4hTY
      I think we'd probably have a better chance of warding off the worst of environmental problems if more women were in decisionmaking roles. Men are better as diplomats

      also, in nature, when resources get scarce (times get tough) 'dispersal' is a biological mechanism, whereby mostly males leave the original tribe and 'disperse' to form a new one. (or fail to). I think in modern human internet era, 'being right' correlates with status in a new offshoot tribe. Even though 'right' in the end means less stuff, walking instead of driving, nothing growing in oceans, and alot hotter...

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  2. Is it very surprising? The environmentalists (most of whom knew already that the threat was dire) prefer the short term gratification of glee and of "I told you so you stupid denying fool" instead of some fool's behavioral change fifty years down the road.......and the SUV drivers prefer to keep driving their SUV's now and not give a damn what the environmentalists say or don't say.... and let the devil take tomorrow....So short term immediate gratification is IN and long term thinking and patience is OUT....

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  3. The internal link from my website reproduced here (in the last line) won't work externally. To find the climate change denial articles/videos/audios I think are better than today's, go to http://www.psandman.com/index-PA.htm#env.

    --Peter Sandman

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    1. Fixed. Thanks Peter. And thanks also for the good work you are doing!

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  4. "So short term immediate gratification is IN and long term thinking and patience is OUT...."

    Max,
    I remember as a kid, my mom "nagging me" with the phrase "Instant gratification..." because whenever I wanted something I would always make a big to-do if it didn't happen straight away.

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    1. Lucas
      http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2243
      http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/10/16/the_marshmallow_study_revisited_kids_will_delay_gratifcation_if_they_trust.html

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