Collide-a-scape

Do you want to know who really influences public opinion on climate change? It’s not famous climate scientists (or climate bloggers) or Exxon Mobil, or even the media (well, just a little). It’s politicians. They drive the debate (for better and worse).

Don’t believe me? Read this recently published study, which I discuss in a new post at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media.

For additional perspective, check out Curtis Brainard’s take at CJR and this straightforward writeup, which includes a nice overview:

The study found that the state of the economy was the second biggest factor affecting perceptions of climate threat. The incidence of extreme weather events had no effect on American’s view of the climate change threat. New research published in scientific journals had no impact on public views, but major reports on climate change and articles in popular science magazines did have a small but noticeable impact. The work of advocacy groups also had some effect. The quantity of media coverage also affected perceived threat levels, but that coverage was mostly a function of what political leaders and advocates were saying.

“The most important factor remained the polarized positions taken by Democrats and Republicans in Washington,” [co-author J. Craig] Jenkins said. “When our political leaders can’t agree on whether climate change is a threat, the majority of people can’t either. The public is divided because our political leaders are polarized.”

My own sense (which I hint at in my Yale Forum post) is that climate activists and communicators are going to be flummoxed by this study.

They monopolize the debate. And now we’re stuck in a negative feedback loop, I argue at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media.

If only their views weren’t so influential, in schools, universities, in the media, in the corridors of power, the global economy wouldn’t be nearly in the mess it’s in today.

There are many chestnuts in this Delingpole screed, but that one was news to me. I’m going to rewrite the first sentence of his column:

Just imagine a world where you never had to worry about demagogues and their corrosive effect…

The Guardian has published an essay titled, “Once men abused slaves, now men abuse fossil fuels.” The author, Jean-François Mouhot, is a historian. The parallels between fossil fuels and slaves occurred to him in the mid-2000s, he recounts:

I was reading a book on climate change which noted how today’s machinery – almost exclusively powered by fossil fuels like coal and oil – does the same work that used to be done by slaves and servants. “Energy slaves” now do our laundry, cook our food, transport us, entertain us, and do most of the hard work needed for our survival.

Intriguing similarities between slavery and our current dependence on fossil-fuel-powered machines struck me: both perform roughly the same functions in society (doing the hard and dirty work that no one wants to do), both were considered for a long time to be acceptable by the majority and both came to be increasingly challenged as the harm they caused became more visible.

This is quite a comparison, one the author has sketched out in more detail in this paper.

In fairness, Mouhot also says:

Obviously, there are differences between the use of slaves and of fossil fuels. Fundamentally, slavery is a crime against humanity. Fossil fuel use is not a moral evil, but burning coal or oil contributes to global warming, already causing widespread harm: it now directly or indirectly kills 150,000 people per year according to a 2004 World Health Organisation study.

Leaving aside the dubious statistic he plucked from an 8-year old WHO report, Mouhot’s analogy to this point strikes me as forced. Eventually his line of reasoning becomes clear:

Unlike the harm caused by slavery, the harm in the use of fossil fuels is of course indirect, long range, even unintended. It seems at first glance to be a fundamentally different kind of harm, and the unintended consequences of ongoing use of fossil fuels have only recently become understood. Initially, their use was seen as positive and progressive. But now that we know the consequences, and continue, globally, to increase emission levels, how can we still consider these consequences “unintended”?

And here’s the argument that he (and others) have been advancing in recent years:

It should thus come as no surprise that there is so much resistance to climate science. Our societies, like slave-owning societies, have a vested interest in ignoring the scientific consensus. Pointing out the similarities between slavery and the use of fossil fuels can help us engage with the issue in a new way, and convince us to act, as no one envisages comfortably being compared with a slave-owner.

Furthermore, because of the striking similarities between the use of slaves and of fossil fuels, policymakers can find inspiration from the campaigns to abolish slavery and use them to tackle global warming. For example, the history of the abolition of slavery, in the UK at least, suggests that an incremental approach and the development of compromises worked better at moving the cause forward than hardline stances.

As I mentioned, the equivalence with abolition has been made before. I discussed it here two years ago.

I think there is an ethical case to make with climate change. (I don’t believe it will carry the day.) I just don’t find the slavery/abolition argument to be convincing or even helpful in that regard. Personally, I think the best chance for progress lies with some kind of vision and blueprint for sustainability that is workable. It also has to catch fire in the public mind and appeal to a broad constituency.

A tall order? For sure. But in case you haven’t noticed, staving off climate doom doesn’t seem to be a winning narrative.

Remember the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)? To some, it justified the arms race between the U.S. and the old USSR. As Wikipedia explains:

The doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) assumes that each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the other side; and that either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate without fail with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate irreversible escalation of hostilities resulting in both combatants’ mutual, total and assured destruction.

Fortunately, no nuclear-armed country has tested this doctrine by preemptively launching nuclear weapons against a nuclear-armed foe.

The warring sides in the climate debate, however, are locked in a hostile embrace that threatens to destroy them both. There is one  difference to this war, though, in that it is not a conventional clash of superpowers, but more an asymmetrical conflict. Think of it like the war in Afghanistan, where climate scientists and campaigners are the U.S. military presence and Marc Morano and his like-minded band of ideologues are the Taliban.

Technically, the U.S. is waging a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, trying to win over the populace with a hearts & minds campaign while also taking out the hostiles. For various reasons, it’s become a rather futile effort that military analysts can explain better than me.

But here are some of the parallels with the climate war. The Taliban, like Morano, are fiercely puritanical. They are not averse to cleansing their own side. Morano has shown that in the Republican Presidential race, where he’s gone after GOP candidates who once were in favor of taking action on climate change. Not coincidentally, global warming has become a litmus test for Republicans in this election year.

The Taliban, like Morano, are excellent provocateurs. They don’t have the manpower to go toe to toe, but they have successfully goaded the U.S. into committing what some experts have called ”own goals.” So it is with the climate movement, whose public spokespersons tend to  fan the flames that perpetuate the fighting.

Now before I go any further, let me state outright that I am not equating Marc Morano’s tactics with those of the Taliban. The latter is comprised of a brutal, extremist culture that terrorizes its own people in horrific ways. Morano merely uses excessive rhetoric and hyperbolic language to advance his aims. He runs an operation that has a political aim: To delegitimize climate science. To do that, he and his allies engage in a propaganda war that goads his opponents and smears the reputations of individuals prominently associated with the climate change cause.

His tactics, while ugly, can in no way whatsoever be compared to the actions of the Taliban. I’m merely saying that he is an insurgent who (with like-minded allies) has successfully forced the other side into a defensive crouch. The climate concerned community is fighting a battle on on his terms.

Morano-inspired fighters, like the Taliban, have also convinced themselves (or pretend to) that they are winning the war against their foes. In today’s NYT, there is a front page story that begins:

More Taliban insurgents are being killed or captured than ever before, yet when the captives are interrogated by the American military, they remain convinced that they are winning the war.

Similarly, Morano and his allies regularly charge that “the case for global warming has collapsed.”  In an interview last year, Morano said, “A to Z, the movement has collapsed.” This talking point, which has no basis in reality, is endlessly repeated. I honestly don’t think Morano believes it, but as he is a long-time political operator, he also knows that perception sometimes overtakes reality.

So where does this leave the climate community? Well, like the U.S. military’s rethinking of its strategy in Afghanistan, the climate-concerned community has to reassess how it can best achieve its aims. If it wants to win hearts & minds (broaden public understanding and support for its cause), then it should probably settle in for the long haul and rethink its communication strategy. But if the climate community prefers to expend most of its energy trying to defeat its most committed enemies, then it likely will stay on the current path of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Somehow, I think that would suit Morano just fine. For he will have achieved his goal and then move on to his next battle.

This is brilliant:

BREAKING NEWS IN THE CLIMATE DEBATE!!!

By R.U. Kiddingme.
Unassociated Press

15 minutes ago

“Realists” use analogy of scientists to dentists” while “Skeptics” use analogy of scientists to Lysenko (and Inquisitors)”

Voicing “concern” today, “skeptics” all over the blogosphere weighed-in write blog comments objecting to an analogy used in a WSJ op-ed comparing scientists to dentists. This comes after much ado over the past few days, when “realists” all over the blogosphere weighed-in to write blog comments objecting to an analogy used in a WSJ op-ed comparing scientists to Lysenko.

In other news, nothing ever changes.

When issues becomes hotly politicized, such as GMO’s (“Frankenfood“), health care (“death panels“), and yes, climate science (“hoax“), the extremes dominate the public dialogue. When this happens, it is virtually impossible to have a grown-up conversation about these issues in the public sphere.

The press, following the scent of controversy and conflict, ends up in a funhouse, where it has to distinguish between various shades of distortion. Reporters on the climate change beat not only navigate this funhouse but also follow the science and translate its meaning. But that, too, is often turned into sensationalist gruel or something unrecognizable to scientists. Either way, the public is not served well. A 2009 Popular Mechanics article, examining media reaction to five climate studies, observed:

A leading climate scientist argues that overbroad claims by some researchers–coupled with overblown reporting in the media–can undermine the public’s understanding of climate issues. Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate modeler, author and PM [Popular Mechanics] editorial advisor, concurs with the consensusview that the planet’s temperature is rising due largely to human activity. But, he says, many news stories prematurely attribute local or regional phenomena to climate change. This can lead to the dissemination of vague, out-of-context or flat-wrong information to the public.

“People think that if there’s a trend, it has to be connected to this bigger trend,” he says. “You often get this kind of jumping the gun.” Sometimes researchers are citing a potential connection to global warming to get noticed, he says, and sometimes journalists are focusing on that connection to make the story more compelling. “There’s a bit of a backlash amid people who have a brain,” says Schmidt. “It’s akin to [the media's reporting on] medical studies. It adds to people’s confusion.”

In an ideal world, Real Climate (where Schmidt is a contributor) would have been a neutral arbiter of the science. Or at least be perceived as one by all sides. Of course, what website, magazine, or institution is perceived by all sides as unbiased?

The problem isn’t that we don’t live in an ideal world but that the civic space we inhabit has become so polluted with personal animosity, vitriol, and disrespect. The climate arena is merely an extension of this depraved landscape, where arguments are made by hyperbole and ad hominem. Opposing sides try to tear the other down, by casting aspersions on individual reputations and motives. In the climate debate, few can claim to be innocent, even those who would have liked nothing better than to stick to science or policy. Indeed, as I wrote here,

many prefer a smashmouth style of fighting. That means every provocation is taken up, every quote is potential fodder, every action is open to being exploited for partisan advantage.

This corrosive dynamic is by now well established.

So who should suddenly step into this lion’s den? A climate modeler–Tamsin Edwards– from the University of Bristol, who has just started a blog with a devilish name:

All Models Are Wrong

The title is pure genius, because just below it appears this subhead:

..but some are useful. A grown-up discussion about how to quantify uncertainties in modelling climate change and its impacts, past and future.

A grown-up discussion about climate science. What a quaint idea.

Before launching her blog, Edwards got some pushback on her chosen name, with one well-known scientist insistent that it would be deliberately misinterpreted and misused by opponents of climate science. She discusses this in her inaugral post:

I was surprised that a senior academic tried to persuade me, fairly forcefully, not to use the name.

Ah, innocence.

As Tina Turner in Mad Max 3 said, Welcome to the Thunderdome!

That’s the headline of my latest post at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media. I discuss the slide and why it soon may be reversed.

Hi! I work in salon of body massage, Kiev. waiting for you.

My latest post at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media asks if the ratcheting up of climate fear will grab hold of a public already numb to such appeals. I think David Roberts at Grist makes a strong case for how it can work, but it rests on this assumption:

what drives social change and shifts politics is not broad-based support but intensity. An intensely committed minority can act as a lever that moves larger populations.

In fairness to Roberts, he also says that “activism, protest, and agitation,” hallmarks of a committed movement, along with continued warnings of imminent climate catastrophe, need not

be seen as an alternative to pragmatic, incremental process pushed by moderate insiders. They are not mutually exclusive; indeed, they ought to be mutually reinforcing.

The problem with even this multi-pronged approach is that there are no overarching values defined, which, to me, seems the only way you can expand beyond your “committed minority.” As one commenter (“grypo”) observes over at the Planet 3.0 site:

This is what the climate movement is missing. There is no core set of values that gets moved to the front of the movement that excites people. I can say the same for the issue of sustainability. What we do instead, is try the climate hawk approach, where we work within the value system of the establishment. We even bend over backwards to make rational economic arguments that don’t solve the main issues. For the Grist approach to work, this all must end. We need to attach the risk of future climate change and sustainability to a value system, and not the one that serves established politics. Ultimately, these issues revolve around human connection, social contracts, and the power of people working together to fix shit.

Roberts, in his post, refers to how American conservatives, over the last few decades, have moved narrow, minority held views (such as supply side economics) into the Republican mainstream. He points out that they’ve achieved this with relentless organization and advocacy. But he fails to mention the cultural values underlying these attitudinal shifts of the Republican party, and how these values have been powerfully framed (subsequently catching on as motivating force) and successfully wedded to policy positions.

So what are the values the climate movement wants audiences to embrace? I submit that avoiding climate doom won’t suffice. In my Yale Forum piece, I suggest that whatever values are formed, they ought to be able to strike a chord with people holding different worldviews.

I dip in and out of the comment threads at Judith Curry’s blog. The nesting style annoys me, so I rarely follow an actual conversation all the way through. But there are some commenters, such as Joshua, Martha, and Louise, and a few others on the skeptical side, who I find quite engaging. They usually make the time worthwhile.

This comment from Joshua just caught my eye. He’s responding to someone who asked how he would feel if global warming didn’t play out as expected:

That is a good and important question, and it is one that I have given quite a bit of thought to.

In all honesty, I can’t deny that at some partisan level, I will feel vindicated if AGW is definitively proven (I don’t feel it has been just yet).

When my better self thinks about the implications of that, I realize just how easy it is to let partisan interest, motivated reasoning, socio-centric bias, etc., distort my more rational thinking processes.

And not viewing myself as particularly better or worse then your average Joe or Jane climate combatant, that is why I am astounded that so many combatants, on both sides of the debate, seem so oblivious to influences that bias their thinking as well.