Simple people,people who don’t exist,prefer things which don’t exist,simple things.
Al Gore had a few minor errors of no particular consequence in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth“, but his book “The Assault on Reason” was wildly wrong in at least two important respects:
i) The internet has proven to be a far more useful tool for the climate change Deniers than it has for the science fact community. This is undoubtedly because it is easier to tweet simple things such as “If evolution climate change is real, why are there still monkeys snowstorms?” than it is to understand the facts.
Not that the explanation is that complex, just that it takes more than 140 characters to say and a bit of actual thinking to understand.
ii) What we are witnessing is not an “Assault on Reason”, it is the wholesale abandonment of reason. Democracy requires dialogue, a dialogue that simply isn’t happening, and quite possibly cannot happen when one of the camps has chosen paranoid delusions and willful stupidity as their coping mechanisms.
In their ongoing crusade to believe simple things that don’t exist the Republicans are 
seeking to do away with the EPAs’ authority to regulate CO2. To that end they called five “expert witnesses” to testify about the science of climate change, an economist, a lawyer, a professor of marketing, and two scientists (both self-styled “skeptics”).
When one of the hand picked scientists failed to read the script that the GOP had spelled out and instead referred to actual science the Denialopshere immediately began disparaging and dismissing him. As Krugman reports:
“But what we had, instead of high seriousness, was a farce: a supposedly crucial hearing stacked with people who had no business being there and instant ostracism for a climate skeptic who was actually willing to change his mind in the face of evidence.”
“So on second thought, I was wrong when I said that the joke was on the G.O.P.; actually, the joke is on the human race.”
“I think the joke is on… I don’t know who the joke is on, really. I don’t even know if there is a joke.”
There is no joke
There is much discussion in the climate science community about where the messaging went wrong and what can be done to get it back on track, eg:
- The First Rule of Climate Science…May Be to Talk About Climate Anti-Science
- Downplaying or remaining silent about climate change was and is a blunder for progressives
- How we begin to rebuild public support for climate action …
These and the countless other articles by bloggers, scientists, activists and pundits make many good points. Some important ones are mentioned in the posts I cite, such as the necessity for simplifying the message without being misleading or overly simplistic, being clear and frank about just how dire the emergency actually is, talk and keep talking about it (does the Right ever shut up about a message just because people are tired of hearing it?), we need to be listening to peoples’ concerns and engaging them, and many more.
This is all predicated on the fact that while the Deniers are loud and shrill, they are not a popular majority (and barely so even within the GOP). The broader public may be unconvinced about climate change, but at least they are potentially open to reason.
Even so, there is a good chance it is too late for that, or that alone at least.
We have known that the threat of climate change is a real, significant and immediate one beyond reasonable doubt for almost 20 years and have done next to nothing to deal with it. We have known that we face an immediate climate crisis for five years and only the rhetoric sped up and took on new force.
The Denier camp is motivated by fear, hence those things often cited as “their reasons” are in fact their rationalizations. They “explain” their incoherent rejection of basic facts in ways that are patently ridiculous, but which are obviously more palatable to them than acknowledging “I can’t deal with reality so I am going to pretend it doesn’t exist.”
At heart these discussions are about how we improve a dialogue that largely doesn’t exist. To the extent that there is a dialogue all of the points being made are important, and to the extent that we can create that dialogue they will be vital. However simply tweaking what has proven insufficient will not make the difference, and certainly not quickly enough to matter.
The methods and approaches being suggested and discussed do need to be implemented, but I submit it will not be enough. We no longer have the luxury of years in which to nurture a public dialogue, and experience suggests that as the crisis deepens the Deniers will escalate their efforts accordingly. Further, as the crisis deepens more people will become frightened.
Continue reading at News Junkie Post
We give our consent every moment that we do not resist.
Comment Policy
–
It is worth knowing and abiding by whether you comment on this blog or not.
- The “Mostly” Open Thread” is for general climate discussion that is not relevant to a particular post. Spam and abuse rules still apply;
- The “Challenging the Core Science” Comment Thread is for comments that purport to challenge the core science of anthropogenic climate change.
- The “Spam” Comment Thread is for comments that think they can ignore site policy.
Really well written mate!
Personally, I think “lead by example” is our best hope. Many of the personal strategies we can take would ultimately save us money, providing non-climate related drivers. This, I’d hope, would then filter back into policy which then refocuses targets that too stimulate further change.
The denial camp is small, but it is loud and it has confused the less engaged. But it was only a few years ago that I was working with many industry leaders, governing bodies and other stakeholders, discussing eco-mapping (which attempts to improve all aspects of activities), innovation and new business opportunities. There was a real buzz back before the nonsense of Climategate and the disappointment of Copenhagen. Climate was only one part of that buzz.
Over 2008-2010 period the whole discuss changed and denial reached a far larger audience.
With their main hero, Monckton, finally being the laughing stock he should be in most educated corners, I think that buzz can be redeveloped – but entertaining deniers simply stirs up the water, making the message incredibly murky.
It will probably mean rebuilding what we had a few years ago, but the audience is largely more resilient to denial (the open minded audience that is) and I think we have a better chance.
Greetings
Regarding the Inhofe group’s attempt to hijack EPA’s regulation of GHG’s…
Of course the broader context is that the EPA has requested more funding to implement GHG regulations in the absence of Congressional legislation to curb emissions, and since the 2010 Republican effort to block the EPA failed, they are presently attempting to make their demands a rider on other legislation that the current administration might actually feel needs to move forward. Political blackmail, if you will.
There is no fear, in this denier camp—only jingoistic Bush-era economic myths and attitudes of superiority.
The Inhofe group has already heard from many witnesses, in several sessions. So far, the legal and scientific basis for EPA to act if congress does not, remains intact. There is general public confidence in the EPA that may translate into support for this EPA action:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110217/pl_ac/7875916_public_support_overwhelming_for_epa_poll_says
In the absence of Congressional action to pass new climate legislation, the existing Clean Air Act does provide a statutory framework under which EPA must begin to regulate the largest sources of GHGs. If it’s blocked, it will fall on Congress to take responsibility for making climate legislation.
It is worth recognizing that a few NGO’s and environmental groups also prefer Congress to take responsibility. However, climate change delayers (let’s face it, they have mostly moved past denial/outrageous lying) Republicans know that doing this by reducing the authority of the EPA will have negative impacts that they are not stating, and that have nothing at all to do with GHG regulation. My, what a surprise.
(FYI The public session on March 8th included Canadian expert (Francis Zwiers) on climate modeling, who speaks out often and openly against ignorance and denial of climate change. It’s now fashionable to show some recognition of the climate science community. It helps with the appearance of legitimacy. ) 😉
Regarding dialogue…
In the big picture, the most relevant people in the ‘denier’ category have been those individuals and groups funded to challenge the reality of climate change, for distorted economic and ideological reasons (mostly rooted in Bush era myths). Their activities are so well documented at this point by multiple independent sources, however, that it is possible to consider the citizens who still choose to support them to also be accountable. All together, deniers and their citizen support have contributed to significant policy delays in the past few years–specifically in the United States. Given the potential harm, there is increasing demand by the public and scientists to intervene in the legal framework.
Legal accountability is just an aspect of dialogue. The disclosure aspect of the legal discovery process will put the spotlight more firmly on thinktanks e.g. Heartland ( or here in Canada, Frontier), and the bloggers and citizens who support them. They will be forced to show they can’t demonstrate the truth of their claims.
Paid deniers choose to ignore ethics and truth. They have operated as if they will never be held accountable. That’s not how things work, over time.
And I don’t think that enabling individual citizens to avoid taking responsiblity by making excuses for them is helpful.
cheers!
Here’s an idea, which I have posted on a few other climate blogs.
We need a movie about the climate change denial PR machine.
Something along the lines of Naomi Oreskes book “Merchants of Doubt”, Ross Gelbspan’s books “Boiling Point” and “The Heat is On”, and “Climate Cover-Up” by James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore.
The man, who produced the “No End In Sight” and “Inside Job” movies, seems like a likely candidate to tackle this.
It’s probably not to late to make such a movie before the 2012 election. IMO, moderates would run for their lives from the extremists, if they really knew what was going on. The idea is for the GOP to lose in a landslide, based on climate change.
There are plenty of people in Hollywood, sympathetic to environmental issues.