Nature: Main Climate Message is Backfiring
Captain climate doom (also known as Mr. Hell & High Water) is sure to snarl at the headline of this new Nature article and its lead sentence:
The use of dire predictions to encourage action on climate change may be backfiring and increasing doubt that greenhouse gases from human activities are causing global warming.
Question: If people are tuning out the incessant climate catastrophe drumbeat, then what might be a more constructive way to engage with the issue of climate change?
Note: The main study (and early reaction to it) discussed in the current Nature article was taken up here in early December.
UPDATE: True to form, it didn’t take long for Romm to deliver his verdict.
The message I get from the warmists is that this is a world ending event. And we have to act now. And there is no time for questions or discussion.
And yet, their behavior does not match their rhetoric.
So in a world of wikis, of PBS/Nova, of libraries with meeting rooms, of community colleges, of MythBusters reality shows, of facebook forums and other forums….
I don’t seen any real outreach to the people. I do find lots of contempt for the people when they ask questions.
I don’t see websites that bring the science down to the layman, I don’t see Mathematica Player style simulations explaining how climate models are made and studied and tweaked, I don’t see wikis showing exactly how tree ring samples are analyzed, I don’t see facebook forums were actual people are encouraged to ask questions about tree rings, about carbon taxes, about cap and trade, I don’t see local library seminars or community college courses, I see only: fund us and listen to us buy CFLs and let us put in economic policies that seem to redistribute any of your wealth away to 3rd world countries that refuse to cooperate anyway.
I don’t see end of the world aliens are coming comet is smashing outbreak is outbreaking web 2.0 medium is the message scientists scientize and public and politicians decide on policy like communications going on.
So their actual RL behavior does not match their message.
Perhaps it is similar to your war post. What do Americans know of our wars? For the most part it’s back to GWB’s admonishment: our role is to shop and be scared.
Oh, and one thing I really don’t see is any actual buy in from the scientists and enviros themselves. If they really bought into this, they’d be holding all of their cancuns and copenhagens via webex and local meetups not by big splashy bono private jet partying.
Take a look at what the Navy did to Captain Honors and how quickly they acted. And look again at Phil Jones….
If you want people to believe this is a world ending event, they may wish to act like they believe it themselves.
‘If people are tuning out the incessant climate catastrophe drumbeat, then what might be a more constructive way to engage with the issue of climate change?’
This was somewhat strangely answered in an article recently linked to via WUWT.
Some solutions…
A new messiah
Sex Appeal
Advocacy Journalism
A new ‘scientific language’- with an emphasis on suppressing words such as uncertainty and risk.
…
Robert Zimmerman is right to ask here, and we should too…
“Sadly, the article never asks the fundamental question: What do “mind bombs” have to do with facts, data, and proving your theories are correct in the real world?
The answer of course is obvious: Nothing.”
PS- I think HD has it, above.
Is it really any surprise that dire warnings aren’t effective? After all, such issues are addressed in stories we learned as children, such as “Chicken Little” and “The Boy who cried Wolf”.
As to how to more constructively engage the public on the issue of climate change, I think you have hit upon it here on many occassions – Focus on the need to develop non-CO2 producing energy sources and emphasize the long-term benefits of such a change-over, both economically and in terms of minimizing the potential for unacceptable levels of climate change. It really has to be more of a carrot than a stick approach, IMO.
“Question: If people are tuning out the incessant climate catastrophe drumbeat, then what might be a more constructive way to engage with the issue of climate change?”
The old standby, energy security. But that’s going to mean a compromise from a ‘purest’ position.
An energy security bill that doesn’t include at least token support for off shore drilling, clean coal and nuclear won’t sell. Of course when Nancy Pelosi was running the House and energy security bill with token support for off shore drilling, clean coal and nuclear would never had made it to the floor for a vote.
The first part of more constructive approach is to stop lying. Common people are uninformed and (especially) scientifically uneducated but not necessarily stupid. With the help of skeptics they get to see and understand a lot more than the high priests of climate science intended.
When a big guy takes a podium and declares that the science is settled it’s the end of conversation but not in the sense that he meant. When a 1,000 guys get together and declare that they know something with 95% probability they are preaching to the quire at best. Few people know enough to call it what it is on their own but far more people can go to Judy Curry’s blog and understand it from her explanations. The genie is out. It’s time to change the tune.
So, once again, stop lying. Don’t say you know something you don’t. If you claim that something could happen put an uncertainty bracket on it and explain how you quantify this uncertainty. If you do economic analysis don’t use zero interest rate just because this is the easiest way to arrive to the desired result. And so forth.
Second, drop this attitude that the opposing team is a bunch of idiots, ignoramuses, industry shills and what not. While this is true to some extent, the import part is that to some extent it isn’t. The opposition (in part) consist of very intelligent, educated and (importantly) well-meaning people. They just don’t want to take anything for granted. The good conversation cannot be build until the activists learn to talk to skeptics on equal terms even though they think they have very good reasons to feel superior. The superior approach had been extensively tried already and we all know how well it worked.
Third, get real. Remove the narrow focus from mitigation and include adaptation as a viable and at least potentially major part of the solution. Then the activists could create an impression that they are not just out to railroad their agenda but to have a constructive discussion.
@ harry
Irrespective of political expediency, the off-shore drilling is the most idiotic idea that has been around.
This is because the country with 14-trillion debt, trillion/year deficits, ballooning medical costs and soon-to-be-broken social security system will not be able to maintain strong currency forever. 50 years from now the dollar will lose much of its value and we end up owing trillions of near-worthless dollars to the Chinese and to Arabs. Therefore it is much wiser to pay soon-to-be-worthless dollars for oil today and save our off-shore reserves until later when we are in dire need.
When this point will become mainstream please remember that you heard it from me first 🙂
Just. Stop. Lying.
People are definitely numb to the predictions of doom and gloom. Especially when the suggested remedies are carbon-pricing or Cap & Trade.
Now that the price of oil taking off, our hopes of economic recovery are dashed. My suggestion is to just drop the whole climate change rhetoric and focus on energy independence. Bring back the tax credits for homeowners who make energy efficient improvements. If another Al Qaeda attack occurs, God forbid (sorry, I forgot you’re an atheist. It’s just an expression), present energy independence as our patriotic duty. They blew a golden opportunity after 9/11. Bin Laden would have had to earn an honest living if not for his family’s fortune. A chunk of the money we’ve pumped into the Middle East economy by importing their oil made its way into his pockets.
I’ve said all this before. Then again, you frequently raise this question. But this is what makes this blog unique. We need to move past the eternal feud over climate change ideology. Everybody is pretty much aware of both sides of the debate and has chosen which one to believe. The global warming issue basically started out on the foot. If we are truly facing catastrophe, it’s our actions, not our thoughts, that matter. Find reasons for action that resonate with the most people.
As I predicted.
But Keith don’t you think Romm has a point here, as he did in his earlier post? Or is the substance of his critique less interesting than the opportunity to poke him in the eye?
Cognitive psychology certainly can offer some useful insights for pols and engo’s on effective messaging tactics wrt to climate change and other env. problems, but that doesn’t mean that this study is the end all and be as suggested by some. Further, your contention that mainstream ENGOs and Romm are responsible for an ‘incessant climate catastrophe drumbeat’ begs for some evidence don’t you think?
#7@Sashka
@ harry
Irrespective of political expediency, the off-shore drilling is the most idiotic idea that has been around.
Idiotic? I disagree with your description that borders on flaming.
When GW Bush threatened to start drilling for our own oil, prices dropped pretty quickly. Whether we actually go through with it or not, it’s good strategy. The price for a gallon of gas at the USA (no frills, usually the cheapest place) was $3.48 here where I am. Yikes! It’s threatening to crush our feeble prospects of economic recovery by jacking up the price of everything. From my amateur perspective, the economic collapse was initiated by the last time fuel prices went sky-rocketing up. And it’s not just the obvious crunching of household budgets. The psychological impact of the uncertainty causes people to hunker down. Notice how the executive order for a moratorium on off-shore drilling (or was it just deep water?) made us sitting ducks for OPEC price gauging. If Lincoln was able to spin winning the Civil War as a victory for “Liberty,” surely Obama could fire us up for energy independence. We’re under attack economically and must rise to the occasion to defend ourselves! People need viable solutions. If CAGW is truly a problem, making it an even bigger problem by exporting our wealth just isn’t going to fly. Too bad if some wealthy dude’s ocean view is a little messed up. It’s better than going back down the recession rabbit hole.
We also must not overlook natural gas and nuclear options.
@ laursaurus
Even smart people sometimes have dumb ideas. That’s a fact of life, deal with it. No personal offense intended. I am attacking the idea, not the person.
Short term market reaction to Bush’s threat to drill is completely irrelevant.I’m sure you can find authoritative explanation of how little this effort would shift the structure of global supply. Offshore drilling won’t get us much closer to energy independence – it’s a red herring. The drill-baby-drill message is produced by the people who stand to benefit directly (in a big way I might add) and supported by people who think it’s silly to pay 100 dollars for a barrel of foreign all when we have our own. I explained above why exactly the opposite is true. They just cannot add two and two together. Think about it.
Question: If people are tuning out the incessant climate catastrophe drumbeat, then what might be a more constructive way to engage with the issue of climate change?
Focussing on AGW is a distraction. There are many more global problems that are (potentially) very serious, environmental problems as well as socio-economic problems. The root cause of all these problems is that our Western economic theory – which determines how our economy works – has been dominated for many decades now by a concept that has at its core the belief that growth is always good and therefore can and must be infinite. But nothing can be infinite in a finite system. And growth is good in principle, but not always.
As long as this concept remains the main driver of our economic engine, global problems (such as the energy problem) will not be solved conclusively and this will become increasingly (and increasingly painfully) obvious as we start bumping into the limits more and more. With the recent recession we have seen how our economic engine deals with limits: in a very primitive and inflexible way, as it knows only how to go forward at ever dizzying speeds. All it took was a subprime fiasco to get the whole thing crashing down, all over the world. This alone should be reason enough to start thinking about a different, more resilient machine.
So what do you do? What is your message? I believe it should look something like this: Link every individual global problem to this flawed economic concept of infinite growth (no need even for a catastrophe drumbeat, as things start speaking for themselves more and more), explain how there can’t be any conclusive solutions unless this economic concept is replaced by something more in line with biophysical reality, show the benefits of the other economic concept. I currently believe steady state economics point the way to a basis for real solutions, but perhaps there are other alternatives. The point is that people start realizing that an alternative is an absolute prerequisite for things to really change for the better. Which alternative is irrelevant at this point.
The economic system will not evolve by itself, it has to be a conscious choice, just as it was a conscious choice to make it the way it is. As long as we keep focussing on fragments, we are not consciously looking at the whole.
Keith, I know you think that I’m wrong on this. Romm agrees with you. So at least that’s something. Maybe you can becomes buddies and start bashing me instead of each other?;-)
@ Neven
I don’t think you are necessarily wrong but you are definitely answering a different question.
The problem with steady state economics is that it’s probably inapplicable to the economy with growing population. The true problem and the real driver of many bad things is the population growth. Until we stabilize population we’d need economic growth.
Marlowe (11),
Romm selectively cited the methodology from the Berkley study in his original post. In a response to my post at my site, I called his attention to that in comment. He didn’t respond after that.
You can see the other methodology I was referring to in my comment.
Keith, I think you’ll be interested to read this: The climate movement is in desperate need of renewal.
@ Sashka (thanks for the reply)
The true problem and the real driver of many bad things is the population growth. Until we stabilize population we’d need economic growth.
Developing countries need economic growth. We, that is the developed nations, need to transition to something else, something more sustainable. The other day I wrote on Our Changing Climate (Bart Verheggen’s blog):
“Developing nations are not in a position to pursue solutions (aside from the fact that they are responsible for a fraction of global problems) because they do not have the money or the infrastructure or the educational level. All they can do is follow in the footsteps of developed nations and strive for material well-being (ie fulfilment of basic needs for the majority of the population and then more) through economic growth and resource extraction, etc.
Unfortunately they cannot skip a step and start building a more sustainable society. And unfortunately our finite planet does not contain enough resources and ecoservices to provide 5+ billion people with the Western standard of living.
Developed countries, however, do have the means to transition to something that is more easily sustained. The sooner they do that, the more developing countries can skip the step of overconsumption that has more costs than benefits (on an environmental as well as a societal level), and perhaps the planet might have the capacity to provide 5+ billion people with a decent standard of living (that’s probably a very big perhaps).
An absolute prerequisite for a transition towards a more sustainable society is that the current economic concept of infinite growth is replaced by something more rational (read more here). But I digress yet again”¦
Developed countries have the moral obligation to transition to a more sustainable society, not only because they are the principle cause of most of the problems, but also because they have the possibility to lead the way.”
The here in (read more here) is a guest blog I wrote a while back on Only In It For the Gold. You might find it interesting to read.
@neven,
We are nowhere near the “limit” to economic growth.
the value of goods and services that the average human being consumes in a year ““ is now just over $11,000, up from about $8,500 (in today’s dollars) at the start of the century.
source
We are maybe at 2% of what is possible – for everybody.
Before trains came along, some people thought it was impossible to travel faster than a horse could gallop. They thought the speed of a train would kill everyone on board.
Jack Hughes, the cost of economic growth is growing too large. We are leaving future generations with a huge ecological and financial debt. It is impossible that 7-10 billion people can all have the current Western standard of living.
I agree that developed countries currently enjoy a great amount of wealth (and this in essence is a good thing), but it is built on quicksand. Now that we have come this far it is of crucial importance that we consolidate the base of our wealth with a more sustainable approach. And we can’t if we let economists and ourselves believe that growth can and must be infinite.
Optimism is good, but excessive optimism is suicidal. Especially if it’s only white, rich, middle-aged men who are excessively optimistic.
I’ve had an interesting back-and-forth with joe Romm over at his site on this thread.
It doesn’t appear that he is letting my last comment out of moderation (or he hasn’t thought of a good rejoinder yet), so I’ll just put it here.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
My response to inline comments in #44
JR: “you continue to attack me and ClimateProgress on a routine basis with the most personal attacks imaginable.”
The post you choose to back this up was an obvious parody I wrote. Please provide at least one other example to back up the statement that I “attack” you “on a routine basis with the most personal attacks imaginable.” Have I often been critical of some of your posts? Sure. But it’s ironic to me, give your style of blogging, that you would take issue with this. Dude, you dish it out plenty, you should be able to take it in return.
JR:”Apparently you haven’t even read this very post that you are commenting on. If you had, you’d have seen that I in fact did do the very thing you asked me to do in that comment!”
I read your original post multiple times and don’t see any mention of the videos used in the Berkeley study. Am I reading the right post? (Note that I said that Brad’s follow-up post mentions the videos).
As for headlines, they’re meant to be attention grabbers, as everyone knows. I’ve written a ton of them in my career as an editor. I’m aware that some people take them literally and often find fault with them.
Lastly, I am at an utter loss as to what the issue is with my two doomsday posts cited.
Just got back from the ClimateProgress thread.
Joe is quite a character!
Recently I watched a video clip of his debate with Marc Morano. This online essay warns climate hawks not to debate MM, citing this as one of several examples why. It’s apparent that Joe is not familiar with the concept of logical fallacies. Rather than avoiding bad arguments like the plague, he practically limits himself to relying upon them. Morano can’t keep himself from cracking up while Joe focuses on personal attacks. But I have to give Joe some credit for unexpectedly initiates a hand shake with Marc at the end. Even the moderator was surprised.
I had never really even seen a pic of Romm until then. A video speaks more than the several thousand words he writes. It’s astounding how hyper-sensitive he is to criticism, but makes no bones about dishing it out. If he could take a few steps back, he would realize that in the blogosphere, linking to your site attracts more hits. You’re actually helping him spread his message whether you agree with him or not. The back and forth between bloggers is what makes the web much more interesting than traditional forms of media. So keep it up, Joe and Keith!
(I was wondering where our old friend Dhogza went. He is still alive and well in the comments of CP)
Well, it took a while, but Joe just released my last comment. I guess he had to figure out how to respond. Having a rational exchange with him is next to impossible, so it doesn’t seem worth going further down the rabbit hole over at CP.
But look for a related post tonight or tomorrow, Joe. You may get a free pass for your screeds from much of the enviro/science journalism “cabal” (well, not everyone), but you can count on me to continue calling you out on your rhetorical excesses from time to time.
Sashka,
I do think I said there had to be at least ‘token’ support for ‘drill baby drill’. In the ‘real world’ one has to count votes.
Well, most votes come from people who repeat what their leaders are telling them. The big problem is that the Big Oil and GOP are very close friends, so the party leaders are unlikely to change their tune even if they could grasp the concept that I outlined above. What we need is the intelligent and responsible leadership. I’m not holding my breath, though.
Blogger/journalist (that’s you, Keith) attacking another blogger / journalist over the interpretation of a study on how to communicate science to the general public.
It might be possible for you to get more meta-analytical, Keith, but I’m not sure. I’d have to see the post. Do you really get such jollies from sticking the shiv into Joe Romm that you have to do so every single time an opportunity presents itself?
(yes, it’s your blog. I don’t have to read it, much less comment. etc. etc. But if you’re going to allow comments on a post like this, I’m going to seize the opportunity to tell you I think you’re being childish.)
+1 to Francis.
Keith, I’d again ask that you substantiate your claim that mainstream ENGOs and Romm are responsible for an “˜incessant climate catastrophe drumbeat’ begs for some evidence don’t you think?
I keep bringing this up because I think that Romm and most ENGOs are doing exactly what most cognitive psych research on risk perception suggests is the most effective: be honest about the risks and uncertainties but couple this with solutions. IOW empower people with information about the problem AND the solution. Focusing on the former leads to paralysis and fatalism, focusing exclusively on the latter (in many cases) fails to provide the necessary motivation.
I understand that Nordhaus and Schellenberger have created a career for themselves with the death of environmentalism thing but they’re hardly the first as you know, i.e. Downie’s Losing Ground 🙂
NOBODY actually thinks doom and gloom with aspirational messaging works.
without aspirational messaging…
@ Jack Hughes
Jack, something crossed my mind about what you said here:
the value of goods and services that the average human being consumes in a year ““ is now just over $11,000, up from about $8,500 (in today’s dollars) at the start of the century.
I guess that’s because the rich are getting richer. Exponentially. They are largely ‘responsible’ for taking that average up. Or are there less poor/hungry people now than at the start of the century?
Marlowe,
I don’t know what blog you’re reading if you can possibly conclude that Romm doesn’t beat the “hell and high water” drum incessantly. I thought that was pretty obvious to all, even Romm fans. Does he also post about clean energy and policy issues? Sure, but those are almost always separate posts and usually drowned out by his doom is near drumbeat.
Anyway, my latest post, discussing the proclivity of critics like Romm to accentuate the negative (at least with respect to the media), should serve as an elaboration for you.
KK:
“But look for a related post tonight or tomorrow, Joe. You may get a free pass for your screeds from much of the enviro/science journalism “cabal” (well, not everyone), but you can count on me to continue calling you out on your rhetorical excesses from time to time.”
But not so much the other side, eh? Can you explain again why Romm gets the lion’s share of your opprobrium, compared to, say, WUWT?