Why anyone was surprised that Congress failed to enact climate change legislation is shocking to me. Similarly (though the data is mixed), why so many Americans refuse to believe the scientific consensus about global warming is extremely frustrating but hardly surprising.
I don't blame Americans for their misguided views about climate change. I also don't blame the environmental and scientific communities or the politicians that favor an environmental agenda for failing to convince Americans that global warming is real and solutions are needed now.
The way to overcome this dismal situation is not with more science but with more effective communication.
Even if you're Al Gore (and maybe especially if you're Al Gore), I caution you against arguing the science of climate change. You cannot change the mind of a global warming skeptic by citing scientific facts. The reason is simple; resistance isn't grounded in facts. Instead, it's grounded in emotion, political ideology and perceived financial self-interest. Let's examine each one:
Emotion
One of my closest friends once said to me, "How do you expect me to believe in global warming if I don't even know how I'm going to put my five-year old kid through college?" My friend is a successful lawyer who runs his own firm. In most areas of his life he's very rational. However, when it comes to global warming, his rationality is superseded by fear. Like many Americans, fear also leads my friend to invoke layman's evidence to counter climate science. Before this summer's heat wave hit, he said to me, "Dude, do you feel how cold it is outside? How could it be this cold if global warming were real?" Naturally, I felt like saying, "How can you can be such an idiot?" but I know it won't do any good. Emotions have the better of him.
Political Ideology
It amazes me how many Americans I encounter who still think environmentalism is somehow sort of Communist and therefore un-American. On top of that, in today's political culture of opposition for opposition's sake, denying the reality of climate change has little to do with climate science and much to do with distrusting and even despising those who favor climate change legislation. "If they're for it," many Americans reason, "Then it's a bad idea whether or not I understand it. Therefore, I'm against it."
Perceived Financial Self-Interest
As a culture we've come to accept as conventional wisdom that "green is too expensive." We take at face value the assertion that tackling climate change will sabotage our quality of life and jeopardize our financial future. Therefore, denying the reality of climate change allows us to shirk our collective financial responsibility for dealing with this mounting threat to our nation and civilization without having to feel guilty.
The good news for those advancing green agendas: None of this matters.
Effective green communication can circumnavigate the entire global warming debate and sway people in favor of almost any environmental agenda. When it comes right down to it, I've learned that you don't have to convince global warming skeptics that global warming is real in order to generate their support for the solutions that solve it. The question we must ask ourselves is, "Is this about winning the debate and being 'right' or is this about getting people enthusiastically on board with the solutions?" Assuming the answer is the latter, here are two green communication tactics to get you started:
1. Frame green solutions in terms of people's self-interest
A few months ago, I wrote about a drag car racer named John "Plasma Boy" Wayland who drives a suped-up 1972 Datsun that runs on electric battery power. Plasma Boy routinely trounces gasoline-powered muscle cars such as Corvettes and Mustangs. He goes zero-to-sixty in about three seconds. He generates eight-hundred pounds of torque using domestically produced energy sources instead of oil imported from foreign, non-democratic regimes. Fast speeds, raw power, and energy independence are great ways to frame eco-friendly cars to an American public that is attracted to those attributes yet still mostly associates eco-friendly cars with anemic power and an unjustifiably high price tag.
In a few months, Honda will begin selling the first hybrid car to be marketed as a fun, sporty driving experience that also delivers excellent fuel economy. It's the new CR-Z and it represents a quantum shift forward in green communication and branding. Instead of touting its "eco-ness," Honda will tout its superior driving experience for a car priced under 20K. That's great news for the planet because a broad segment of the population that doesn't self-identify as environmentalists is going to get excited about this car.
It's precisely the way we must communicate environmental solutions in terms of people's self-interest if we are going to convince Americans that green solutions not only fit but actually improve their lives.
2. Cite specific green success stories, not theoretical studies of future benefits
Often advocates for climate change legislation attempt to garner support for their agenda by citing theoretical studies of all the jobs that will be created, all the communities that will be revitalized and all the greenhouse gases that that will be eliminated one day in the future if legislation is enacted now. The problem with this approach is that Americans don't relate to theories. They relate to hard evidence, which is why specific green success stories are so much more compelling.
Consider the story of formerly unemployed Pennsylvania steelworkers whose jobs disappeared overseas but who are now fully employed with good benefits in a factory that manufactures wind turbines. Or the city of Toledo, Ohio where thousands of manufacturing jobs are returning to this once downtrodden city in order to make next-generation solar panels. Instead of citing fancy studies to try to convince Americans that millions of green jobs will be created from scratch once climate change legislation is passed, highlighting these kinds of real-world success stories presents a much more believable story about how millions of jobs will be created by replicating what's already here and working.
Think of it this way: it's very difficult to believe in a green job that doesn't yet exist, but it's very easy to covet a green job that somebody else already has.
While I'm absolutely in favor of continuing scientific research into climate change, we don't need to rely on it to get Americans on board with the solutions. We just need to communicate more effectively.
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You suggest that the past decade has levelled off because the sun's 60 year period of heightened total solar irradiance (TSI) came to an end about 10 years ago.
Before I go on, I would like you to confirm or deny this as I do not want to put words into your mouth. This is important because some scientists have said that the TSI increase did not cause the warming of the 1900s as TSI could only contribute about 0.12 C to global temperatur
John M Reynolds
Anthropoge
Sounds like a religious argument to me. "The cleric says that this is the way to worship the one true god therefore…
True believers and politicall
You should. One of the foundation
Some of us have never forgotten, and we actually educated ourselves in the interim. I think of myself as a Conserviti
You want people to buy "green" houses? Make them drop-dead pretty and traditiona
You want families to buy hybrid vehicles? Make 3 year old used hybrids the most affordable alternativ
Thank you, Josh Dorfman. Now, how do we get your ideas into the mainstream
Genetic Modified Foods - Senate Bill S510
http://bat
http://yup
http://www
There's sufficient evidence to establish the threat from anthropoge
The science deniers lose again, just as they always have...
It might be costly, especially if we wait too long.
But I disagree that we're asking people to make fundamenta
Okay, there might be some fundamenta
It'll just be cleaner...
When Texas is uninhabita
By the way, I am a moderate Conservati
Some argue that this lack of warming is because of natural variabilit
The 1998 El Nino was supposedly a 'super' El Nino. GISS had its peak anomaly at 0.80 C. Now ( http://www
John M Reynolds
http://www
Around last June, really bright people started predicting
Will you accept the IPCC as peer reviewed? Beyond that I normally just go right to the data.
They claim that our rising CO2 levels should warm us by between 0.1 and 0.2 C per decade. That is 1 to 2 C over a century. When feedbacks are included, the surface should warm by between 1.1 C and 6.4 C above the year 2000 by 2100. These numbers are from Table SPM.3.
The GISS ( http://dat
Continued.
Lets say that instead of the 95% that the IOCC says, there is only a 50% chance that there is human caused global warming, that will cause the sorts of problems predicted.
Lets say that if global warming does happen, it will cost the amount that scientists predict, and if we want to stop it, we have to pay the amount scientists are asking for.
The ROI on the investment is about 700% interest per year.
Now if the IOCC is right on all counts, the ROI is much higher.
How can anyone be against doing something if there is any possibilit
The revolution
Which raises conflictin
If it takes a lie to put people on the right/awar
It that is what it takes for us to care about our own and only habitat ….do we deserve it?
Won’t that come back to bite us.
Wouldn’t that define us as incompeten
There is no living creature on earth living in conflict with its environmen
On the other hand, we are the creature with the greatest learning curve and the most unpredicta
No other creature is capable of that much kindness and cruelty as we are.
Questions over questions.
My personal hunch is that we won’t get to decide but nature will and that we still have a window open to make case for contingenc
But actions will speak much louder the words.
Great post btw, thanks
My point is that when you frame green approaches in terms of the benefits to people, then people will see that going green serves their self-inter
If we did it, we can undo it
But if we didn’t do it, we cannot undo…or influence it.
Ergo, passing legislatio
Branding skeptics of MM global warming or cooling as " deniers" is disingenuo
That said, past periods of warming have brought prosperity and well being to man and animals.
Where as cooling and ice ages have been times of severe hardship.
Regarding pressing environmen
If we as a species cannot rise to the protection and care of our own and only habitat for our own good without a big fat lie, then we are truly lost and undeservin
And nature will take care of us.
http://cle
However, the MWP deniers, such as the IPCC, US EPA and the UK’s MET Office, will never admit the existence of the MWP because it means that their religious-
In total, climate change is complex and not well understood
But this part is simple.
Since the world was warmer when CO2 levels were lower, CO2 cannot be the earth's temperatur
In the past, the Earth was warmer than it is today; before the social and industrial advances that have made modern people the healthiest and most prosperous in history. MWP deniers want us to believe that plant friendly and life giving CO2 is a bad thing to better advance their meglomanic
Useless, misguided attempts to control carbon are not the answer to the ever changing climate.Th
That is adaptation
One of the many links to the overwhelmi
http://www
F & F
But you will undoubtedl
Go ahead and flag me, the truth is worth it.
I am exited and relate very well to “Green Jobs” success stories.
Look very much forward and support environmen
We don’t need MMGW fear mongering bedside stories to care about the environmen
Green jobs/ green industry don’t need the MMGW cattle prod.
There is enough hard evidence of the damage already done without resorting to fantasy.
The enormous amount of money and energy spent on the lobby of this theory could have been put to better use….namel
"Look very much forward and support environmen
Force is the only thing they seem to understand
The article above states that, "[y]ou cannot change the mind of a global warming skeptic by citing scientific facts." That is an odd statement to be sure. There are very few skeptics that would refute that the globe has been on a general warming trend since the little ice age. If you want to really convince anyone, you can only use data. Anything else is just blowing smoke. I would have thought people would have learned this by now.
John M Reynolds
John: "If you want to really convince anyone, you can only use data. Anything else is just blowing smoke."
The **truth** is that in science, there are rigorous standards about what is still debatable and what is settled. Gravity and the greenhouse effect are both examples of settled science. No, "settled science" is not a misnomer. It happens after diligent study, which I know p2t knows nothing about.
http://www
http://tig
http://www
p2t: "Big oil & other energy mogul hang quietly in background
Then please explain the Koch brothers
http://www
... and the funding of global warming denial by coal and petroleumi
http://www
I too used to take their word for it as a concerned environmen
It was the ever increasing exaggerati
As I looked closer into the MMGW the more contradict
Another thing I don’t appreciate is the mangling of language between Global Warming and Man Made Global Warming.
Those are two completely different assertions though not mutually exclusive.
And also respectful
It is a Scientific issue and regardless how good the communicat
It won’t sell without the science.
re: "the claim that the debate is over (a first in science, where debate is never over)"
What do you believe is still debatable about The Law of Gravity?
re: "Another thing I don’t appreciate is the mangling of language between Global Warming and Man Made Global Warming."
That's in the popular press, not in science; scientists refer to the Anthropoge
http://www
http://www
Don't deny scientific fact because the corporate media are sloppy. That path leads to believing that Saddam Hussein still had wmd in 2003 which we all know is a fabricatio