Citizen Power

Have you ever wondered why climate change deniers are so adamant and so anti-science? It’s inexplicable. It almost seems like a cult or an ideology. Yet even some scientists are in the group of deniers. In that case, it’s got to be some mind-set based on some type of preconceived worldview. The man pictured above is David Bellamy, and he is a a global warming denier, (or a complete fraud who wants a TV show). (Read about him here). He’s also a botonist who looks a bit like Santa Claus. I point him out because he’s one of the worst loudmouths, in England anyway, and a thorn in the side of everyone trying to do something positive to help stop climate change. Maybe by studying the worst of the Deniers, we can understand how to prevent such people from developing in the future.

George Monbiot has a good article on Bellamy and this problem here.

Deniers are hard to categorize and denialism in general is a historical problem. I know some “deniers” are simply people who have no interest in science and don’t pay attention to the weather or see patterns in what is happening. Others are stubborn and fearful of what it might mean. There are people who are just uncomfortable with “green issues” for a variety of reasons, like political loyalties. So they might accept some aspects of climate change in other ways, like getting our country off gasoline because we are “addicted” and some foreign countries aren’t “friendly” with us. (Though they ignore the underlying problem of that too. The oil-wealthy foreign countries who don’t like is probably would like us if we stopped starting wars with them for their oil). But I’m not against the use of euphemisms for persuasion. If using 1984 language and calling the climate crisis something else helps them swallow it better, that’s OK. Also, people can still help the cause even if they only accept parts of the climate situation, by working on green jobs or something related. As long as they understand something needs to be done about it and don’t impede progress, they are open to listening to us and can help.

The big question is how to deal with climate change deniers most effectively. Some very smart people are climate change deniers and they can’t just be dismissed as stupid. You can’t completely ignore them either, because some of them can be very insistent. (Just check out any site where “green” issues are discussed.). Monbiot says, “In cyberspace, by contrast, the response spreading fastest and furthest is flat-out denial.” Isn’t that weird? Well, not really. Online is where the most outlandish conspiracy theories of all types flourish of course. Like people who defend the war in Iraq, many deniers seem to defy all logic and not care at all that they do. It just makes them louder. George Marshall is someone who has written a book about this and studied the phenomenon extensively.

Some are professional deniers, planted on websites.

“Scrambled up in these comment threads [on the Guardian website) are the memes planted in the public mind by the professional deniers employed by fossil fuel companies(2). On the Guardian’s forums you’ll find endless claims that the hockeystick graph of global temperatures has been debunked; that sunspots are largely responsible for current temperature changes; that the world’s glaciers are advancing; that global warming theory depends entirely on computer models; that most climate scientists in the 1970s were predicting a new ice age. None of this is true, but it doesn’t matter. The professional deniers are paid not to win the argument but to cause as much confusion and delay as possible. To judge by the comment threads, they have succeeded magnificently.”

I guess we need to be patient and more persistent. Use language that deniers are comfortable with and appealing to their economic sense might help. That is probably what helps people swallow T. Boone Pickens and his misguided emphasis on natural gas. He has admitted that climate change is not a big deal for him, but “getting off foreign energy” is. He comes across to me as a guy who doesn’t trust “foreigners”. He’s also a person I find impossible to trust because he funded the Swiftboaters against John Kerry and this assessment from Texas KAOS seems to sum it up for a lot of us:

“It turns out that T.Boone, the man who voted himself governmental powers over Texas land and water, is a first class welcher. He funded the Swiftboaters for Lies Truth ads that attacked John Kerry’s Vietnam War record as well. With all the bluster he could muster he offered to pay anyone who could prove the ads a lie one million dollars. “

Still, he’s helping make wind farms more acceptable, even if he’s going about it in a way that will probably make him even richer. He should be setting up American factories for wind farms with his wealth, and creating jobs and maybe he still will. His main interest seems to be cornering the majority of the market of the hottest “alternative energy” and snapping up all the land he can to make that possible. Natural gas is not alternative energy, of course, it’s a fossil fuel that pollutes somewhat less than burning regular gas. At least T. Boone isn’t a “Denier”. As for fuel, CNG is even better than LNG, but it’s still a fossil fuel, and we have to get away from that. Mr. Monbiot kind of agrees with me:

“Our views are formed by the views of the people with whom we mix. Of the narratives that might penetrate these circles, we are more likely to listen to those which offer us some reward. A story which tells us that the world is cooking and that we’ll have to make sacrifices for the sake of future generations is less likely to be accepted than the more rewarding idea that climate change is a conspiracy hatched by scheming governments and venal scientists, and that strong, independent-minded people should unite to defend their freedoms. He proposes that instead of arguing for sacrifice, environmentalists should show where the rewards might lie: that understanding what the science is saying and planning accordingly is the smart thing to do, which will protect your interests more effectively than flinging abuse at scientists. We should emphasise the old-fashioned virtues of uniting in the face of a crisis, of resourcefulness and community action.”

So in other words, you have to manipulate people to see the truth and do the right thing. It’s sad, but that’s how politics has worked since it was invented. Scientists keep saying global warming is not politics, it’s a moral issue. Until people believe it’s happening, though, it will be viewed as an ideological issue.

Meanwhile, newspapers and all media should do a better job of presenting science as news we need to know!

Trackback URI | Comments RSS