Climate Change Denial "Exists In A Sphere That Cannot Be Reached By Evidence Or Reasoned Argument"

[hatrack]

There is no point in denying it: we're losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.

A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there is solid evidence that the world has been warming over the past few decades has fallen from 71 per cent to 57 per cent in just 18 months. Another survey, conducted in January by Rasmussen Reports, suggests that, due to a sharp rise since 2006, US voters who believe global warming has natural causes (44 per cent) outnumber those who believe it is the result of human action (41 per cent).

EDIT

I am constantly struck by the way in which people like James, who proclaim themselves sceptics, will believe any old claptrap that suits their views. Their position was perfectly summarised by a supporter of Ian Plimer - author of a marvellous concatenation of gibberish called Heaven and Earth - commenting on a recent article in the Spectator magazine: ''Whether Plimer is a charlatan or not, he speaks for many of us.'' These people aren't sceptics; they're suckers.

Such beliefs seem to be strongly influenced by age. The Pew report found that people over 65 are much more likely than the rest of the population to deny that there is solid evidence that the planet is warming, that it's caused by humans, or that it's a serious problem. This chimes with my own experience. Almost all my fiercest arguments over climate change, both in print and in person, have been with people in their 60s or 70s. Why might this be? There are some obvious answers: they won't be around to see the results; they were brought up in a period of technological optimism; they feel entitled, having worked all their lives, to fly or cruise to wherever they wish. But there might also be a less intuitive reason, which shines a light into a fascinating corner of human psychology.

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/grim-reapers-role-in-climate-change-denial-20091127-jwrh.html

[villager]

1. Because to acknowledge it ends so many existing paradigms, homo "sapien" can't handle it

Ergo, to maintain sanity and illusion and an ability to function day-to-day during the Endgame, much better to Deny Everything...

[tex-wyo-dem]

19. You nailed it, villager...

To take your point a bit further, the whole paradigm that we humans can do what ever we want with regards to industrialization, using and wasting resources like they would never end and that there would never be consequences, has all been an illusion. Some people are just unable and/or unwilling to see beyond the illusion.

Reality is coming to bear, and it isn't pretty.

[Laura902]

2. Bizarre thinking

It is curious that people of a certain age have a greater
probability of denying facts,........maybe there is some
better way to reach these people in the media using better
psychology. People in their 60s and beyond are still a large
number of Americans who need to be informed and who make a
large contribution in tons of carbon every year. Humans, on
the whole, are not fit psychologically to think of the long
term effects of our actions so in a sense we are wired to deny
the strong evidence generated by scientists over the past few
decades. It is truly sad how unaware most Americans are.

[sudopod]

3. No fuckin joke.

It's all about mimetics, and as far as memes go this one is a strapping healthy.

Thanks for posting actual things that are happening in the world.

[Xipe Totec]

4. This is proof that neanderthals are NOT extinct

Yet.

[imdjh]

15. you thought they were?

[Xipe Totec]

16. I was 72% sure... n/t

[Laura902]

21. maybe not....

I once heard that there was a study that conservatives have some sort of gene that neanderthals also had-no joke. it may have been because humans may have mated with them but that gene caused them to not to want to change or evolve their techniques in hunting and living.

[kristopher]

5. This isn't a revelation...

The corporate behavior of the monied interests threatened by climate change action have been working since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to turn a scientific discussion into a political one. They were successful.

Since their strategy is deliberately designed around the premise of discrediting the legitimate authority of science, arguing the science with methods based on how science is conducted and presented works to strengthen their results.

Social shaming is the proper method of approaching the problem.

[imdjh]

6. Or maybe they have seen the same articles you have, the same TV, and simply disagree with you.

[notesdev]

8. Never!

The Church of Global Warming tolerates no heretic!

[pscot]

17. The church of global warming would like the skeptics

to engage on the basis of the science being presented, as opposed to just making shit up and chanting lalalalalalalaIcan'thearyou. Unless, of course, that's all they've got.

[notesdev]

18. I did that

and all I got was lalalalala I can't hear you.

I still give it a try every now and then when I suspect a new participant may actually be asking a genuine question. As for the rest of you, you've proven that you are hopelessly brainwashed by your television sets.

[joshcryer]

29. Feel free to start a new thread.

I, for one, attempt to be civilized when it comes to opposing opinions. I can, of course, not speak for others here. But you can always put them on ignore.

[Viking12]

34. Exhibit A.

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. Reality doesn’t care what you think

If you’re standing on the railroad tracks, with a train bearing down on you, it makes no difference whether you believe the train will hit you or not.

If you don’t do something, you’re dead.

[imdjh]

14. It isn't a train.

[tinrobot]

23. Correct. It's worse than a train.

[joshcryer]

25. Yeah, one person can step out of the way of a train. A half a billion will be displaced by sea rise.

That half a billion, btw, didn't necessarily step in front of that rain to begin with.

[kristopher]

13. Just like they "disagree" that Obama is eligible to be president?

They (you) are using a political point of view to evaluate a scientific discussion. It is not a coincidence that public division on the issue largely follows political lines in spite of the fact that scientific consensus has developed independent of political orientation.

Remember that old saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. If you don't want to evaluate the data independent of your political orientation then no one can force you to, but you will consequently arrive at a political conclusion, not a scientific one. You should therefore not be surprised when you are criticized for being "anti-science".

ExxonMobil Report: Smoke Mirrors & Hot Air

UCS report finds that the oil company spent nearly $16 million to fund skeptic groups, create confusion

A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists offers the most comprehensive documentation to date of how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics, as well as some of the same organizations and personnel, to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue. According to the report, ExxonMobil has funneled nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science.

Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to "Manufacture Uncertainty" on Climate Change details how the oil company, like the tobacco industry in previous decades, has

* raised doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence
* funded an array of front organizations to create the appearance of a broad platform for a tight-knit group of vocal climate change contrarians who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings
* attempted to portray its opposition to action as a positive quest for "sound science" rather than business self-interest
* used its access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming

http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/upload/2007/01/Annual%20ExxonMobil%20Emissions.bmp
http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/upload/2007/01/Exxon%20fax%20excerpt%202.bmp

Go here to download report: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/exxonmobil-report-smoke.html

Global Environmental Politics
Volume 6, Number 1, February 2006

E-ISSN: 1536-0091 Print ISSN: 1526-3800

Jacques, Peter.
The Rearguard of Modernity: Environmental Skepticism as a Struggle of Citizenship
Global Environmental Politics - Volume 6, Number 1, February 2006, pp. 76-101

The MIT Press

Environmental skepticism denies the reality and importance of mainstream global environmental problems. However, its most important challenges are in its civic claims which receive much less attention. These civic claims defend the basis of ethical authority of the dominant social paradigm. The article explains how political values determine what skeptics count as a problem. One such value described is "deep anthropocentrism," or the attempt to split human society from non-human nature and reject ecology as a legitimate field of ethical concern. This bias frames what skeptics consider legitimate knowledge. The paper then argues that the contemporary conservative countermovement has marshaled environmental skepticism to function as a rearguard for a maladaptive set of core values that resist public efforts to address global environmental sustainability. As such, the paper normatively argues that environmental skepticism is a significant threat to efforts to achieve sustainability faced by human societies in a globalizing world.
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/global_environmental_politics/v006/6.1jacques.html

Environmental Skepticism and Global Ecological Transformation

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Abstract: Environmental skepticism, or the belief that environmental problems are exaggerated or worse, has reached new levels. The assortment and diversity of skeptical environmental polemic and scholarship has become a serious thread, particularly in global environmental politics. Titles such as The Skeptical Environmentalist, Satanic Gasses, Eco-Imperialism, The Real Environmental Crisis, and Skeptical Environmentalism among many, many other titles have become popular. Many accusations have flown around about the “bias” of skepticism, and skeptics are happy to reverse the charge. What has been missing is an academic analysis of how this “bias” fits within ideological positions. I find that the ideology of skeptics largely adheres to the tenets of conservatism through the notions of prudential wisdom, stability, the status quo, tradition, and their notion of “good knowledge.”

This paper forms the basis for a published book by Jacques. The paper can be read in its entirety here:
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/6/1/0/2/pages61025/p61025-1.php

[JDPriestly]

7. Fear of change.

Well, the economy is falling apart anyway. That will help slow the burning of fossil fuels. Economic decline is probably the only thing that will slow it. People just cannot imagine a world without fossil fuels.

And that is not entirely the fault of "the people." Who is painting a picture of the world after fossil fuels? Is there such a world? What would it be like and how do we get there? People will continue to deny that fossil fuels are causing global warming. But they will embrace alternatives to fossil fuels provided that the alternatives are affordable, look attractive and the people can understand them and imagine how they could live in a world with alternative energy.

What we need is one large area of the country -- say Southern California -- to replace fossil fuels with alternative energy. The way to do it is to tax every unit of fossil fuels enough to pay for a substitution energy source for an equal quantity of energy produced by the fossil fuel and then directly use that money to install the alternative energy mechanisms.

Tax fossil fuels enough to pay to put solar panels on every roof in Los Angeles. How much energy would those panels replace? I understand that TESLA will be producing electric cars in Downey, California just south of L.A.

Focusing on the negative, ugly facts of global warming is counterproductive. We need to focus on the promising future of alternative fuels and energy independence. For Southern California solar energy is the answer. Other parts of the country may have other answers.

[joshcryer]

28. The most important observation is that this is *older* people who are denialists in general.

People who, by and large, run the countries of the world.

[JDPriestly]

35. But I'm "older" as is Al Gore and as are many of the scientists

who first realized that global warming was occurring and appears to be at least to a significant extent associated with human activity.

Personally,I think that our climate change is probably due in part to natural changes but mostly due to the imbalance in nature that the excessive dominance of our species has caused. There are just too many of us. We who are older know that better than anyone. Go to any American city. Talk to older people. Ask them where the city boundaries were 50 years ago and what life was like. Those of us who are older feel the pinch of the population explosion more than the young. And it is that population explosion that feeds the excessive use of fossil fuels and has been causing the problem since the industrial revolution began. Of course, the problem worsens as we use more fuel and increase our numbers.

[jimlup]

9. Yeah, we are losing and it's a damn shame

People believe what they want to believe and they somehow think that it makes them appear wise to be skeptical of science. It is disturbing to see the level of skepticism even here where you would think folks would know better than to accept FOX/Republican propaganda without bothering to research it.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. How about a sharp stick?

Might not work but I'd feel much better for trying.

[Bitwit1234]

12. Just think of all the regulations that would be put on these

people's company cash cows if they would acknowledge global warming. As long as they can deny deny deny, they feel they are safe with relaxing those regulations. AND THEY KEEP GETTING THEIR POCKETS FILLED.

I wish every single lobbyist had to report and it had to be verified each and every cent they give to these politicians.

[FreeJoe]

20. End of the World fatigue

Someone in their 70's has lived through many "end of world" fears.

In the early 50's, they were afraid that Communism was going to take over the world. They saw it end in a whimper.

In the late 50's, they were afraid of nuclear war killing everyone. The risk is still there, but after 60+ years without nukes used in anger, people are getting used to it.

In the 60's, it was popular to believe that we were heading for mass famine all around the world. Instead, we have more food produced per capita and obesity has become a major concern.

In the 70's, we were running out of energy. We were all going to be riding bicycles and only the very rich could afford gas. Instead, gas prices collapsed and stayed low for decades.

The 70's also saw a huge growth in the "end times" prophecies. The rapture was coming soon. The Late Great Planet Earth was a best seller. Lot's of people I know still think it is coming soon, but they've been saying that for over 30 years now.

Our air, rivers, and lakes were in really crappy shape by the early 70s. Rivers were catching on fire. Cities were cloaked in smog. We were choking ourselves to death. Environmental regulations have had incredible success in improving them all. Standards, however, have increased, so we constantly see that our environmental quality is terrible even though we can see that it is much improved.

Y2K morphed from being a fun calendar milestone to another end of the world. Computers would stop talking to each other. Planes might fall from the sky. Better stock up on supplies. Oh wait, nothing happened.

People on the left feared that Reagan would destroy the world or at least the US. People on the right had the same fears about Clinton. No one seemed all that afraid of the first Bush, but the second was said to be hell bent on destroying just about anything you could think of (the world, the US, democracy, proper syntax). Somehow, we survived all of them.

After being told over and over again that we are headed for disaster, the "crying wolf" syndrome sets in and people start tuning it out. That doesn't mean that the threat isn't real. Whole civilizations have collapsed (Romans, Mayans, Aztecs, etc). Whole "worlds" have faced environmental catastrophe (Easter Island). I just think that people that have lived through a seemingly endless string of "end of the world" hysteria are naturally more skeptical about the latest threat, regardless of how real it may be.

[joshcryer]

27. It's also possible that the current recession plus high unemployement has put a lot of...

...stress on people to the point that environment is the last thing on their minds.

But of course, we cannot, absolutely cannot ignore the propaganda campaign that has been going on very strongly for the past 5 years.

[hatrack]

30. Yes, but unfortunately, people forget what happened w. the Boy Who Cried Wolf in the end . . .

The wolf finally came, and he ate everybody up, what with all that mental fatigue out there.

[wuvuj]

33. While this might not be...

...the end of the world....I have little doubt that we are living thru a major game changer...but it can be like watching paint dry. And humans seem to have short term memories that keep them from conceptualizing the longer term picture?

If things change slowly enough...most don't even realize they have changed.

So gradually species are lost...refugees increase...weather cycles to a greater degree...more drought...sea levels rise...shortages....older people die...younger human's don't have a memory of the past to begin with...just some musty old books and so forth.

In 20-30 years...the world will be much different...but nobody will know it.....:think:

[glitch]

36. The wolf did eventually eat the boy. edit sorry, that's already been noted. nt

[joshcryer]

22. I liken climate denialists to moan hoaxers or Mars alien artifact freaks.

This article sums it up nicely.

[Dead_Parrot]

24. Creationists.

Website for you: http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dBoard.cgi

Evolution vs. Creationism

Same mindset, same tactics, same arrogance, same stupid.

[joshcryer]

26. Lately the denialists have been pulling the "release the data" canard.

"They're covering something up by not releasing the data." During the mid-late 90s and early 2000s I was harassed on a daily basis by "Hoaglandites" (people who follow Richard Hoagland religiously). This was their primary objection to any images or data that comes from space.

I can't remember the nights I'd spend up listening to C2C AM and debunking those fuckers.

[hatrack]

31. You mean kind of like "Release the birth certificate!"?

:toast:

[joshcryer]

37. Exactly. 100%. It is not a new tactic, it's one of a conspiracy theorists biggest weapons.

[GliderGuider]

32. As the science becomes more undeniable, the fear that it might be correct builds.

Since reason and science have the high ground, this is all that's left.

I agree with villager - the fear is that big change is coming, and that many of the qualities of life we hold dear will be washed away.