[Reader-list] Why the sudden surge in climate change denial?
Jeebesh
jeebesh at sarai.net
Wed Nov 4 11:27:14 IST 2009
dear All,
Here is an arresting essay by Monbiot on the climate change denial.
It's an intriguing reality. Climate change is going to displace
millions and put substantial ethical pressure on ways of living of
people used to certain form of material life. This is not going to be
a simple conflict less process.
Species survival is at risk :)
warmly
jeebesh
"If Dickinson is correct, is it fanciful to suppose that those who are
closer to the end of their lives might react more strongly against
reminders of death? I haven’t been able to find any experiments
testing this proposition, but it is surely worth investigating. And
could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the
past two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific
evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it?"
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/11/02/death-denial/
Why the sudden surge in climate change denial? Could it be about
something else altogether?
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian, 2nd November 2009
There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial
is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere which
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’s solid evidence that the
world has been warming over the past few decades has fallen from 71%
to 57% in just 18 months(1). Another survey, conducted in January by
Rasmussen Reports, suggests that, due to a sharp rise since 2006, US
voters who believe that global warming is the result of natural causes
(44%) now outnumber those who believe it is caused by human action
(41%)(2).
A study by the website Desmogblog shows that the number of internet
pages proposing that manmade global warming is a hoax or a lie more
than doubled in 2008(3). The Science Museum’s Prove it! exhibition
asks online readers to endorse or reject a statement that they’ve seen
the evidence and want governments to take action. As of yesterday
afternoon, 1006 people had endorsed it and 6110 had rejected it(4). On
Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are currently
ranked at 1,2,4,5,7 and 8 in the global warming category(5). Never
mind that they’ve been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers,
they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on?
It certainly doesn’t reflect the state of the science, which has
hardened dramatically over the past two years. If you don’t believe
me, open any recent edition of Science or Nature or any peer-reviewed
journal specialising in atmospheric or environmental science. Go on,
try it. The debate about global warming that’s raging on the internet
and in the rightwing press does not reflect any such debate in the
scientific journals.
An American scientist I know suggests that these books and websites
cater to a new literary market: people with room-temperature IQs. He
didn’t say whether he meant Fahrenheit or Centigrade. But this can’t
be the whole story. Plenty of intelligent people have also declared
themselves sceptics.
One such is the critic Clive James. You could accuse him of purveying
trite received wisdom, but not of being dumb. On Radio Four a few days
ago he delivered an essay about the importance of scepticism, during
which he maintained that “the number of scientists who voice
scepticism [about climate change] has lately been increasing.”(6) He
presented no evidence to support this statement and, as far as I can
tell, none exists. But he used this contention to argue that “either
side might well be right, but I think that if you have a division on
that scale, you can’t call it a consensus. Nobody can meaningfully say
that the science is in.”
Had he bothered to take a look at the quality of the evidence on
either side of this media debate, and the nature of the opposing
armies - climate scientists on one side, rightwing bloggers on the
other - he too might have realised that the science is in. In, at any
rate, to the extent that science can ever be, which is to say that the
evidence for manmade global warming is as strong as the evidence for
Darwinian evolution, or for the link between smoking and lung cancer.
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(7)) commenting on a recent article in the Spectator.
“Whether Plimer is a charlatan or not, he speaks for many of us”(8).
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 earth is
warming, that it’s caused by humans or that it’s a serious problem(9).
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.
In 1973 the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker proposed that the
fear of death drives us to protect ourselves with “vital lies” or “the
armour of character”(10). We defend ourselves from the ultimate terror
by engaging in immortality projects, which boost our self-esteem and
grant us meaning that extends beyond death. Over 300 studies conducted
in 15 countries appear to confirm Becker’s thesis(11). When people are
confronted with images or words or questions that remind them of death
they respond by shoring up their worldview, rejecting people and ideas
that threaten it and increasing their striving for self-esteem(12).
One of the most arresting findings is that immortality projects can
bring death closer. In seeking to defend the symbolic, heroic self
that we create to suppress thoughts of death, we might expose the
physical self to greater danger. For example, researchers at Bar-Ilan
University in Israel found that people who reported that driving
boosted their self-esteem drove faster and took greater risks after
they had been exposed to reminders of death(13).
A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the
journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and
discussion about global warming makes it difficult for people to
repress thoughts of death, and that they might respond to the
terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their
character armour but diminish our chances of survival(14). There is
already experimental evidence suggesting that some people respond to
reminders of death by increasing consumption(15). Dickinson proposes
that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as
well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists.
Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central
immortality project of Western society: perpetual economic growth,
supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.
If Dickinson is correct, is it fanciful to suppose that those who are
closer to the end of their lives might react more strongly against
reminders of death? I haven’t been able to find any experiments
testing this proposition, but it is surely worth investigating. And
could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the
past two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific
evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it?
www.monbiot.com
With thanks to George Marshall
References:
1. http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/556.pdf
2.http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/44_say_global_warming_due_to_planetary_trends_not_people
3. http://www.desmogblog.com/2008-stats-global-warming-denial-blogosphere
4. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/proveit.aspx
5. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_8?rh=n%3A266239%2Cn%3A!1025612%2Cn%3A57%2Cn%3A278080%2Cn%3A922416&bbn=278080&ie=UTF8&qid=1257145116&rnid=278080
6. Clive James, 23rd October 2009. A Point of View. BBC Radio 4.http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00n9lm3/A_Point_of_View_23_10_2009/
7. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/14/answers-come-there-none/
8. http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5332261/an-empty-chair-for-monbiot.thtml
9. http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/556.pdf
10. Ernest Becker, 1973. The Denial of Death, pp47-66. Republished
1997. Free Press Paperbacks, New York.
11. Tom Pyszczynski et al, 2006. On the Unique Psychological Import of
the Human Awareness of Mortality: Theme and Variations. Psychological
Inquiry, Vol. 17, No. 4, 328–356.
12. Jeff Greenberg et al, 1992. Terror Management and Tolerance: does
mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who
threaten one’s worldview? Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, Vol 63, No 2 212-220.
13. OT Ben-Ari et al, 1999. The impact of mortality salience on
reckless driving: a test of terror management mechanisms. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 76, No 1 35-45.
14. Janis L. Dickinson, 2009. The People Paradox: Self-Esteem
Striving, Immortality Ideologies, and Human Response to Climate Change.http://www.ecologyandsociety.org:80/vol14/iss1/art34/
15. T. Kasser and K. M. Sheldon, 2000. Of wealth and death:
materialism, mortality salience, and consumption behavior.
Psychological Science 11:348-351, Cited by Janis L Dickinson, above.
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