In the fourteenth (second but last) week of the semester, the class turns to the subject of climate change (after having spent a week studying and practicing strategies for debunking myths and misinformation). Two sessions are dedicated to this subject.
Session 1. Understand the politics of climate change denial
- Podcast “Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus” from Data Skeptic (October, 2018):
Session 2. Think “factfully” and focus on actionable solutions
- Hans Rosling, Factfulness, chapter 10: “The Urgency Instinct”
- The 2018 IPCC report on climate change—summary for policy makers.For a “provocative and engaging debate” about the report, check out BBC Radio 4-Moral Maze podcast Climate Change. For a quick take on its chief lessons, check out this podcast from NYT-The Daily:
- Nathaniel Rich, “Losing Earth: the decade we almost stopped climate change” (NYT Magazine, Aug.1, 2018; this gives some context to Rosling’s discussion of Al Gore’s approach to climate change). Here is an interview with Rich on the piece:
- [Newly added] summary findings of The Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report, Vol.2: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States, which assesses “the science of climate change and variability and its impacts across the United States, now and throughout this century.” (The “executive summary” of Vol.1 of NCA4, published in 2017, can be found here. It’s an assessment of “the science of climate change, with a focus on the United States,” as mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act [GCRC] of 1990.) At a time when the nation remembers George H.W. Bush (1924-2018), we should note that the mandate was put in place during his early presidency and that he campaigned as a proudly self-proclaimed and fully vindicated “environmentalist” (as “surprising” as his legacy in this regard may sound today, for reasons that will become clear below). Consider his environmental campaign speech in 1988:
Here are some NPR segments on the takeaways from the NCA4 report:
The Ideological/Partisan Divide over Climate Issues
According to a survey by Pew Research Center in late 2016, the political left and right have “vastly divergent perceptions of modern scientific consensus, [and] differing levels of trust in the information they get from professional researchers.” This suggests that political orientations “shape how people integrated science knowledge with their attitudes and beliefs about climate and energy issues.” (To visualize the relevant data, see the interactive Partisan Climate Opinion Maps 2016 by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.)
This partisan divide is reflected in how people experience the effects of climate change. It’s true that, according to a 2018 Pew Research survey, 59% of Americans say climate change is currently affecting their local community either a great deal or some. But “perceptions of whether and how much climate change is affecting local communities are closely tied with political party affiliation. About three-quarters of Democrats (76%) say climate change is affecting their local community at least some, while roughly a third of Republicans say this (35%).” Also, while Majorities [67% of Americans] See Government Efforts to Protect the Environment as Insufficient, there is a clear split over policy solutions: 74% of Republicans believe it is possible, while 64% of Democrats believe it is NOT possible, to cut back on regulations while still effectively protecting air and water quality. According to the same survey, “Republicans across all generations are largely in agreement over the consequences of policies aimed at reducing climate change,” even though more Millennial Republicans than those in older generations believe that the earth is warming, that this is mostly due to human activity, and that climate change is affecting their communities. (To visualize the data, see the Partisan Climate Opinion Maps 2018 by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.)
This specific divide over climate policy is worth noting. It may be partly due to the fact that, as pointed out in “The Ideology of Climate Change Denial in the United States” by Jean-Daniel Collomb (2014), “The concerted effort to discredit the scientific consensus over man-made global warming has been continuing for two decades in the United States.” Collomb argues that the partisan divide over climate issues in US is a product of the confluence of three forces. Corporate America is the obvious suspect. But the following two factors have also been instrumental in blocking robust climate actions:
First, climate denial stems from the strong ideological commitment of small-government conservatives and libertarians to laisser-faire and their strong opposition to regulation. Second, in order to disarm their opponents, US climate deniers often rest their case on the defence of the American way of life, defined by high consumption and ever-expanding material prosperity. It is the contention of this article, therefore, that the US climate denial movement is best understood as a combination of these three trends.
A thorough account of how those three forces worked together can be found in the book and documentary Merchants of Doubt. The following podcasts also explore the birth of climate change denial in detailed and captivating ways:
[Note: this is the introduction to an investigative series about the creation of climate denial. The entire series can be found here. It comprises very short, captivating, and still highly informative episodes. It’s highly recommended to anyone who wants to understand the mechanism of climate disinformation campaigns and their grip on us today, from climate-change realists to the deniers to those on the fence.]
Can/How Do We Change the Deniers’ Minds?
It’s a tall order to debunk misinformation effectively. After all, we are dealing with complicated human beings with a lot of cultural, political, and psychological baggage. In The Debunking Handbook (2012), John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky reject the “information deficit model” of science communication, which wrongly “assumes that public misperceptions are due to a lack of knowledge and that the solution is more information” (Handbook, p.1). They draw on the theory of Backfire Effect instead. While this theory has since been challenged (see below), it may still be helpful to consider the Handbook’s propositions in connection with some of the heuristics & biases covered earlier in this class.
[i] Familiarity Backfire Effect occurs when mentioning the myth to be debunked in fact “makes people more familiar with the myth and hence more likely to accept it as true.” To avoid this problem, one should focus on the core fact to be communicated—by putting the fact (and definitely not the myth) in the headline and emphasizing it throughout, so as to increase people’s familiarity with it (p.2).
[ii] Overkill Backfire Effect occurs when “processing many arguments takes more effort than just considering a few,” so much so that “A simple myth is more cognitively attractive than an over-complicated correction.” If so, one should adopt the “KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid!” That is, “less is more” may indeed be the best policy in science communication (p.3).
[iii] Due to confirmation bias & belief perseverance (or disconfirmation bias), there is also Worldview Backfire Effect. This calls for two strategic responses. One is that “outreaches should be directed towards the undecided majority rather than the unswayable minority.” The other is to tap into people’s susceptibility to self-affirmation bias and framing effects—not to manipulate people, but to “give the facts a fighting chance” (p.4). See this Ted Talk by Robb Willer showing the promises of using moral reframing to change people’s minds about climate change:
[iv] We don’t perceive the world as brute facts, but always seek causal explanations, reflectively or otherwise, for what we see. For that reason, “When people hear misinformation, they build a mental model, with the myth providing an explanation. When the myth is debunked, a gap is left in their mental model. To deal with this dilemma, people prefer an incorrect model over an incomplete model. In the absence of a better explanation, they opt for the wrong explanation.” Accordingly, in debunking misinformation, one should “provide an alternative explanation for the events covered by the misinformation” (p.5).
[v] Finally, cognitive ease may explain why good data visualization can be an effective tool in debunking: “When people read a refutation that conflicts with their beliefs, they seize on ambiguities to construct an alternative interpretation. Graphics provide more clarity and less opportunity for misinterpretation” (p.5).
To bring all these points together, we get this debunking strategy:
(1) Core facts—a refutation should emphasize the facts, not the myth. Present only key facts to avoid an Overkill Backfire Effect;
(2) Explicit warnings—before any mention of a myth, text or visual cues should warn that the upcoming information is false;
(3) Alternative explanation—any gaps left by the debunking need to be filled. This may be achieved by providing an alternative causal explanation for why the myth is wrong and, optionally, why the misinformers promoted the myth in the first place;
(4) Graphics – core facts should be displayed graphically if possible. (p.6, followed by an illustration of how to debunk the myth that there is no scientific consensus about man-made global warming.)
As judicious as this approach may sound, it’s advisable to take it with a big grain of salt. The Backfire Effect that underpins it has turned out to be elusive. According to a new study, “Evidence of factual backfire is far more tenuous than prior research suggests. By and large, citizens heed factual information, even when such information challenges their ideological commitments.” Here is a podcast on Backfire Effect (from You Are Not So Smart podcast, following a three-part series on the subject) that takes into account the new finding, with a particularly helpful distinction between factual backfire and attitudinal backfire:
For some reflections on the new study and what it implies about the practice of debunking, see here, here and here.
Think Calmly and Factfully, No Matter How Urgent Things May Seem
To begin with, it may even be the case that we are not wired to respond well to the anticipation of disastrous effects of climate change. According to George Marshall, Co-Founder of the UK-based Climate Outreach and author of Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, a sense of apathy toward climate change may be due to the abstract nature of this issue, which makes its dangers difficult to grasp. Here is a short podcast on that point:
In that connection, it’s also worth paying attention to the general public’s emotional reactions to visualizations of climate data. The following study suggests that extremely alarmist coloring of climate change maps can evoke emotional reactions that are counter-productive:
As a commentary on that study puts it aptly,
While climate change has real impact and can affect many global communities, its communication can be complex and display of that change has sometimes caused misunderstanding or conveyed a message of activism rather than presenting science to the public. Creating maps that allow greater participation of various stakeholders and reaching a consensus on presenting data that is understandable could be an effective way to increase the communication power of maps in climate change science.
So, in all likelihood Al Gore got it all wrong in communicating about “climate crisis” in apocryphal terms, as he did in this 2006 TED talk (as well as in Academy Award-winning documentary The Inconvenient Truth):
To be fair, a decade later Gore returned to the TED stage to deliver a “case for optimism on climate change”:
Unfortunately, the backfire effect of Gore’s initial approach seems all too evident. At the very least, conservatives have used it to discredit all progressive viewpoints on climate change—as is reflected in this piece by National Review columnist David French, with the telling title “Apocalypse Delayed.” Even some climate scientists frown up it, as discussed in this podcast “Confessions of a Converted Climate Skeptic [Richard Muller] and His Data”:
Against this backdrop, we should heed to data guru Hans Rosling when he warns that “It is just as ridiculous to look away from the progress. The consequent loss of hope can be devastating.” In Chapter 10 of his Factfulness (Bill Gates says this is “one of the most important” books he’s ever read), titled “The Urgency Instinct,” Rosling argues that, while urgency instinct may have given us an evolutionary edge and we still need it, “with more complex and often more abstract problems, the urgency instinct can also lead us astray” (227-28). In the case of climate change, its risks may be so complex and so abstract—and, for most of us, so “far off in the future”—that we may not even naturally feel its urgency. So, climate “activists” have resorted to the method of “triggering the urgency instinct”—but in a way that can backfire and indeed has backfired, as pointed out above.
This method sure can make us act but it can also create unnecessary stress and poor decision. It can also drain credibility and trust from their cause. The constant alarms make us numb to real urgency. The activists who present things as more urgent than they are, wanting to call us to action, are boys crying wolf. And we remember how that story ends: with a field full of dead sheep. (228)
Rosling particularly takes issue with Gore’s use of this method, which led the latter to exaggerate the problem, make unwarranted predictions, and single-mindedly focus on the negative side of the story. The issue of climate change, which “needs systematic analysis, thought-through decisions, incremental actions, and careful evaluation,” is too important for Gore’s tactic. “Exaggeration undermines the credibility of well-founded data” and, “once discovered, makes people tune out altogether.” As far as Rosling is concerned, he “would never show the worst-case line without showing the probable and the best-case line as well” and he insists that “whenever we talk about the future we should be open and clear about the level of uncertainty involved”—so as to “never give people a reason to stop listening” (230-31).
Meanwhile, Rosling is right to suggest that eco- or climate anxiety (or even grief) elicited by talks of worst-case scenarios, while it seems to be widely felt, won’t save the world. Worse still, it can be counterproductive, because it can make one “feel utterly insignificant in light of the scale” and lead to “complete nihilism.” And this is only part of a bigger picture of the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change, according to the American Psychological Association report in 2009, which describes, among other things, “Psychosocial and mental health impacts of actual and perceived climate change, including stress, anxiety, apathy, and guilt” and “Psychological barriers that limit individual and collective action on climate change.” Here is a podcast talking about effective science communication about climate change to laypeople that’s informed by those psychological studies:
Meanwhile, as Andrew Revkin puts it in the following podcast, having factual knowledge about climate change may not translate into genuine concern or practice (e.g. people may not make it a top priority in their day-to-day lives), as other concerns and priorities can get in the way:
Due to all those complicated variables involved, changing people’s minds or attitudes about climate change is a long and hard game (especially given what we learned above about the success of the climate disinformation campaign bankrolled by the big oil companies). Still, Rosling insists on a cool-headed, data-driven approach:
To be absolutely clear, I am deeply concerned about climate change …. I understand the temptation to raise support by picking the worst projections and denying the huge uncertainties in the numbers. But those who care about climate change should stop scaring people with unlikely scenarios. … It’s time to move on from talking talking talking. Let’s instead use that energy to solve the problem by taking action: action driven not by fear and urgency but by data and coolheaded analysis. (231)
In other words,
People who are serious about climate change must keep two thoughts in their heads at once: they must continue to care about the problem but not become victims of their own frustrated, alarmist messages. They must look at the worst-case scenarios but also remember the uncertainty in the data. In heating up others, they must keep their own brains cool so that they can make good decisions and take sensible actions, and not put their credibility at risk. (234)
The IPCC report in 2018 seems to do as Rosling recommended: it assigns different degrees of certainty/confidence to various findings and projections, it presents a range of positive outcomes if we do such and such (as well as likely consequences if we don’t), and it recommends policies accordingly. Likewise, the NCA4 report, which focuses on the effects of climate change in US, gives policy recommendations based on concrete analyses of the various ways those effects can materialize. It shows, for instance, which of those impacts can be “avoided or reduced” by emission mitigation. To be clear, the emissions in focus are industrial emissions. So, it’s time to “Stop obsessing with how personally green you live–and start collectively taking on corporate power.” Here is a summary of the market-centered policy solutions we already have. By the way, the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to William Nordhaus (Yale) for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis (along with NYU’s Paul Romer for integrating technological innovations into such analysis). According to the Nobel Prize committee’s press release, Nordhaus’s integrated assessment model, which quantitatively describes the global interplay between economy and climate and which integrates theories and empirical results from physics, chemistry and economics, “is now widely spread and is used to simulate how the economy and the climate co-evolve. It is used to examine the consequences of climate policy interventions, for example carbon taxes.” Here is a short podcast that connects Nordhaus’s and Romer’s work:
For information about global adoptions of carbon tax initiatives, see here. And here is a podcast on the carbon tax solution:
For contrast, here is a live panel discussion of the feasibility of achieving four zeros–i.e. zero-carbon grid, zero-emission vehicles, zero-net energy buildings, and zero-waste manufacturing–through technological innovations among other things:
There are many more policy ideas we can try than the ones just mentioned. In the following TED talk, Chad Frischmann mentions “100 solutions to reverse global warming,” highlighting lesser-known approaches such as changes to food production & distribution, better family planning, and the education of girls:
For further discussions of some of these ideas with 2019 in mind, see this Washington Post piece and this BBC piece. At any rate, tremendous political will is required to adopt the recommended policies, which seems extremely hard to come by in this country right now.
So, concerned citizens need to take political and probably even legal actions as well as doing what we each can do in our own lives to lessen our personal impact on the environment. This is what 21 young Americans are doing, who are suing the United States government in a landmark constitutional case, Juliana v. United States. To follow the case, check out the Podcast No Ordinary Lawsuit, commissioned by the nonprofit Our Children’s Trust “to offer the backstory of the plaintiffs and explain the stakes of this legal action.”