I should probably just quit pretending that this blog is photography related and just admit that it’s a full blown environmental platform. Perhaps I should try and mix the two.
Anyway, I read an excellent article in Newsweek called Their Own Worst Enemies concerning how scientists disseminate thier findings on Global Warming and how more and more people, as a result, are deciding that the whole thing is exaggerated. I’ve railed against Climate Deniers before on this blog. I’m fully aware that calling anyone that disagrees with Climate Change stupid is perhaps not the best way to get them on your side, but I can’t help it; It feels good and serves as a way to vent all the bile that would otherwise cover me in rage goiters.
The main thrust of the article is that scientists, though brilliant, are terrible communicators, and are perceived as arrogant by the masses. The author, Sharon Begley, parallels this to the rising popularity of Creationism over Evolution in the United States. Creationists, idiots though they are (there I go again), can rip scientists apart in public forums because scientists appeal to reason, and Creationists, like Climate Deniers, appeal to emotion with great success. In that contest emotion is going to win most of the time. People, for the most part, are ruled by emotion. We have to work hard to overcome emotion to see reason even when it’s put right in front of us.
There are lots of good psychological and historical points in the article that explain peoples views (especially in the U.S.) on such issues that I hadn’t considered before.
It’s always staggering to me that people deny climate change. The unwashed masses with their high school equivalency diplomas clutched in raised fists always seem to be the biggest group clamoring that Climate Change is a joke, not based on science, and is just a conspiracy cooked up by those granola-eating, hemp-wearing, pot-smoking, hippy, liberal freaks.
I may have said this before, but I find it frustrating that these same people will quote as gospel anything anyone who even hints that they’re a scientist says (or a bought and paid for lapdog scientist of Big Oil) if the issue is unrelated to the environment. Actually let me change that statement. They will believe anything a scientist says as long as it doesn’t interfere with their way of life. That’s the core of it really. People don’t want to be told that the way they live is wasteful and harmful to everything that supports life on the planet; A nice mashing together of selfishness and apathy. Yep, we humans are masters of nothing if not deluding ourselves (Me included, btw).
Perhaps the problem here was the original name of the phenomena: Global Warming. So when Joe-Bob McIdiotstick steps outside on a July afternoon and it’s only 10 degrees Celsius and declares this Global Warming thing is crap, he has to realize that it’s not Municipal Warming. Global Warming is an average of temperatures from around the planet…you know, hence the word global being in the name. They’re not basing their findings on the plastic, dollar-store thermometer sitting outside your kitchen window.
Another problem is that people hear that our global temperature has risen one degree in the last 100 years. One freaking degree??? What’s the hell is the big deal? The big deal is a global variance of only a few degrees has a massive effect on conditions on our planet. Its not the difference between wearing a t-shirt or a windbreaker. For example, a global temperature of only 2 – 5 degrees cooler than what we have now existed during the last ice age. And the silly little degree warmer we have now has already caused a 40% loss of our polar ice caps which, incidentally, help moderate the earth’s temperature by reflecting a lot of sunlight back into space instead of absorbing it, thus their loss is compounding the warming effect. Oh, and perhaps some remember Hurricane Katrina. Well, we can expect much more of the same. I wouldn’t buy coastal property in south eastern or southern United States if I were you. Oh and us inlanders don’t get away from the problems either. We can expect a rise in the number and severity of tornadoes, especially in designated “Tornado Alleys” regions – all because of one degree. I wonder what will happen with another degree or two.
Anyway, before I go off on too much of rant (too late, I guess), here is a good video from TED on what actually goes into those peskily inflammatory and alarmist climate change headlines: http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_pike_the_science_behind_a_climate_headline.html
