Even as the science of global warming gets stronger, fewer Americans believe it’s real. In some ways, it’s nearly as jarring a disconnect as enduring disbelief in evolution or carbon dating. And according to Kari Marie Norgaard, a Whitman College sociologist who’s studied public attitudes towards climate science, we’re in denial.
“Our response to disturbing information is very complex. We negotiate it. We don’t just take it in and respond in a rational way,” said Norgaard.
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Norgaard: In order to have a positive sense of self-identity and get through the day, we’re constantly being selective of what we think about and pay attention to. To create a sense of a good, safe world for ourselves, we screen out all kinds of information, from where food comes from to how our clothes our made. When we talk with our friends, we talk about something pleasant.Wired.com: How does this translate into skepticism about climate change?
Norgaard: It’s a paradox. Awareness has increased. There’s been a lot more information available. This is much more in our face. And this is where the psychological defense mechanisms are relevant, especially when coupled with the fact that other people, as we’ve lately seen with the e-mail attacks, are systematically trying to create the sense that there’s doubt.
If I don’t want to believe that climate change is true, that my lifestyle and high carbon emissions are causing devastation, then it’s convenient to say that it doesn’t.
The article itself states that “Consumers don’t want to think about the bad”. I AM NOT A CONSUMER. I am a CUSTOMER. A CLIENT. I make informed choices based on the information available. I research and READ. I make a conscious decision about what my MONEY is spent on. If people don’t THINK for themselves, there is not a whole lot to be done for them. To say I live in a ‘Wealthy’ lifestyle is one way of applying guilt. To BLAME generically for what I was born into is a misnomer. In the same way I never owned another person, I do my best to keep MY AREA clean. Simply because I know that NO ONE ELSE WILL DO IT FOR ME.
The government is NOT supposed to be my saviour. I will never ask, in times of crisis, when I will get my handout. Yet, that seems what we have become. A nation fed on guilt and fear. If you area doesn’t support your population, then you need to MOVE. If you cannot survive where you are, you need to move to where you CAN. We watch all these shows about how people are suffering in climate change areas. If the water is rising, LEARN to swim, or leave before it gets bad. Don’t stand there and complain.
It is just a false argument to think WE can prevent the sea from rising. Its a false argument to say that we can affect GLOBAL change, when the planet itself is still evolving. We can clean up our area though. We can quit spewing toxic chemicals into the water. We can quit trying to propagate at every step. No one needs 5 children to work the farm, when they live in a cement jungle.
We need to take responsibility for ALL our actions. We need to save ourselves. The planet would get a long fine without us.
To really understand the climate change scam, you need to read about who the Bilderberg group is and what they are trying to achieve (hint: it’s deeply evil).
No. I didn’t RTFA. I’m just too tired of the whole thing. Besides, if no one heard of a climatologist 10 years ago, SHE is an environmental sociologist! There’s a specialty with a long history, huh? ( Probably Ben Franklin hung out with an environmental sociologist or two. Maybe caught syph from one of them in France.) She teaches at a college that has an “ethical” curriculum so … oh, never mind. I’m tired.
The global warming crackpot cheerleaders are in denial that there ever were Ice Ages and hot periods. That change is natural and continuing.
Obviously there exists an industry of “scientists”, such as environmental sociologists, that are funded to be on the bandwagon.
When they had to rename their “Global Warming” as “Climate Change”, they pretty much conceded the issue. Everyone agrees the climate changes. Not everyone agrees why, or in which direction is it currently going. Simple enough, except the Gorians what to shove their interpretation down our throats, and it’s working, apparently. That fat ugly little girl hanging from the tree in the video opening the conference can hang there, for all I care.
“The quick and easy way to make anyone feel guilty enough to write you a check”
Wait a minute. Is this a book on starting an organized religion?
The settled science is that there is no man-made global warming, only an increase in the number of corrupt scientists we can no longer believe.
Thanks greenies, is there anything you don’t corrupt with your lies?
No Agenda… speaking of it… the latest one is not here! John did not want to get Crackpots ridiculous Norway ‘light theories’ published?
Oh, so now those of us who are skeptical about man-made-global-warming are denialists because of big oil and their PR firms, the same PR firms that big tobacco used…
BULLSH*T! The actions of the “Warmers” is what causes me to view this issue with a skeptical eye. These people will say anything to distract the public from their BS.
I love it that you placed this story in the medical category.
I also find hugely hilarious that only 1 or 2 days after Soros comes out saying he thinks Dopenhagen’s deal is not enough, a bunch of lefty loons are lined to protests at Dopenhagen for a “better deal”. Even funnier that the protest get advertised in France as a news item that goes along the lines of “protests expected in Copehangen looking for a better deal”, with file riot videos and all.
Boy, are this people so bold because they think that with the average sheeple IQ it doesn’t matter if people made them up?
#6 Yes, like starting global warmers or Obama apologist. Get busy.
It’s amazing, everyone (on both sides of the fence) expects climate changes to occur in something like a decade or two. CO2 levels are obviously high. We’ll be long, long gone before the effects of that really take hold.
Personally I think there are more pressing problems to deal with right now. Better sustainable economic development, especially for emerging economies. Reliance on oil which is a diminishing energy source. Ecosystem and species destruction. Improved education.
Even though there are no end of problems I actually see a lots of improvements, so personally I’m very hopeful. And I’m guessing if we focused on the “more pressing problems” CO2 output would take care of itself.
@#11 & “Even as the science of global warming gets stronger, fewer Americans believe it’s real. ”
“It’s amazing, everyone (on both sides of the fence) expects climate changes to occur in something like a decade or two.”
Most of past climate changes happened rapidly. Chunk of science that both sides agree on.
“CO2 levels are obviously high. We’ll be long, long gone before the effects of that really take hold.” No (on long , long…), by science agreed on both sides, again. If CO2 is causing warming, increase of it should immediately result in temperature rise.
As for “obviously high CO2″ science again makes problems. In existing climate records (again agreed by both sides as good measurements) we have multiple ice ages occurring during periods with CO2 levels orders of magnitude higher than now. So, from past climate point of view, CO2 levels now vs. effects on warming are negligible.
Finally, one of convincing blocks of evidence is just few years old. Since early 2000′s Solar activity was in slow decline, until 2007 – when it dropped off the map. In very similar period Earth temp’s took cooling change. Now, we have scientifically interesting setup: rising CO2 and dropping Solar activity – two major candidates (if you listen to both sides of the issue) for effects on the climate. One or two Solar cycles and real science will be undeniable. It will take 20 yrs, but sometimes that is what is needed to be sure. I’d still place bet on Solar activity due to my own field of science that have shown undeniable warming of Solar system during periods of high Solar activity in late 20th century. But, if Sun decides to keep low for a while, we’ll have enough Earthly measures to distinguish what is warming/cooling us.
Rest I agree with #11…
#12 Not disagreeing, but wondering. Rapid climate change to me would not be measured in years or even necessarily decades.
If we really are at the “time to panic” stage the media would have us believe (NBC seems to have a “Green Week” once a quarter), why aren’t they (you know, them that run the world) fast-tracking nuclear power plants, since it’s the ONLY baseline solution that doesn’t wreck the environment (dams, which are basically already built can destroy entire ecosystems)? Why didn’t ALL of the stimulus money go to converting the US automobile fleet to electric? Or giant gasoline taxes to discourage use? Why is Yucca Mountain allowed to be held up by lawsuits when the federal government already has a well established power of eminent domain that basically says it can do whatever it wants?
What about the massive increase in extinction? What was the extinction rate before the industrial age? Does anyone really believe we had extremely accurate records of rainforest species when we are just now exploring parts of it? And what about accurate climate models of the 19th century? We’ve only been able to track hurricanes with any reliability since TIROS-1 was launched in 1960. Prior to that even very large storms were random events that you might hear about from a ship if they happened to run into it. El Nino wasn’t even clearly defined until the late 1960s.
And the justification/model for cap and trade has always been the acid rain cap and trade market in the 1980s, the effect of which is somewhat dubious. The claim is that acid rain was successfully eliminated in the NE United States by allowing polluters to trade credits that became more expensive over time. But there were a lot of other variables that aren’t taken into account. For one, the steel industry was in massive decline. As the industry matured, the remaining plants abandoned blast furnace technology (converting raw iron ore to steel) to electric furnaces (recycling steel already made) due to the glut of material and lower cost of operation (not necessarily because of cap and trade, but because less labor and a lot less energy was needed to run the furnace). Car manufacturers used less steel and more plastic, reducing energy costs (plastic melts at a much lower temperature than steel and is much easier to form), again lowering electricity requirements. And, of course the biggest change was the massive overseas production ramp up.
And for the record, I’m an agnostic who believes the fossil record more than some tribal tales passed down over the centuries that happened to be one of the first mass produced books, thinks carbon dating is really amazing stuff, and that GM food will eventually be all we eat -I just don’t think a gene can be patented and owned by a corporation.
# 4 said, “The global warming crackpot cheerleaders are in denial that there ever were Ice Ages and hot periods.
I agree.
Obviously there exists an industry of “scientists”, such as environmental sociologists, that are funded to be on the bandwagon.”
And there are more outrageous examples of government funded bandwagon science. The greatest scientific fraud of our time is AZT, not global warming.
“To create a sense of a good, safe world for ourselves, we screen out all kinds of information, from where food comes from to how our clothes our made.”
Yes,I know what he’s saying: we screen out such things as a 50,000 year record of wild temperature fluctuations pointing to an overall global cooling trend.
RBG
Climate change is real. It’s Algore and the his lot that are fake.
Arguing that people deny that the Earth is getting warmer is a straw man. The core question is whether industrialization is the specific and primary cause of the warming through the effect of carbon emissions. THAT is what is in dispute. THAT is what does not yet have sufficient evidence.
Yes, when all else fails, come up with a “syndrome.” Then pick up your marbles and go home.
remember when “climate change” was called global warming?
the marketing term was changed to iron clad someone’s ass against lies that they told…