Alistair,
Maybe an answer is lying in the asymmetry between the position of the
deniers
and the believers. (I'm ruling out of the equation the total
mendacious, immoral
psychopaths who are only interested in their own self-aggrandisement:
they're not
terribly typical members of the human race but that doesn't stop them
being dangerous!)
Focusing on people with a reasonable moral sense, how would we feel if
we found
that we had been taken in by an explanation of a phenomenon that was
about a tenth as dangerous as
we now believe. i.e. we actually had a good 100 years to adjust our
way of life before we were
in serious difficulty?
We'd feel pretty foolish and apologetic about making a nearly
unnecessary fuss and
for costing the world's GNP a billion or two. (Looking at the world's
stock markets at
present it doesn't look as doom and gloom is having much effect.) And
then we'd get
on with our lives.
But what about the 'responsible' deniers. They, if proven wrong, would
have to confess
to being party to delaying the chance of avoiding unimaginable
catastrophe around the
globe. The natural reaction would be: "No, I cannot countenance that I
am implicated in bringing
about the unthinkable."
Hence a line of attack from us might be "How would you feel about
yourself if you found out that your
'picture of how things will work out' was very wrong? Might you start
by asking yourself did
you give the evidence anything like enough consideration? Did you
countenance taking
action that wouldn't have cost you much but at least gave partial
credence that global
warming was actually happening and was man-made?
And perhaps above all "Was I far too determined to hang on to the
beliefs I wanted to hang
on to, because that was by far the more comfortable option?
In a nut-shell, let's focus on asking deniers why they are so
convinced? (and why they get
so angry when challenged?)
Brian
On 13 Jan 2011, at 22:19, Alastair McIntosh wrote:
> David ... just picked this up ... trapped in my spam box, otherwise
> I'd have
> responded in my previous message.
>
> I have been struck recently by how quiet this forum has been. It's
> not that
> there's not some interesting people on it or that, for a "crisis
> forum",
> there's not interesting stuff to discuss.
>
> My sense is that a helluva lot of us are stuck as to what we can
> meaningfully say that doesn't just sound like the virtual equivalent
> of
> speaking into the wastepaper bin. I've been working quite a bit
> recently in
> writing stuff for a forthcoming Ashgrove book on human ecology about
> postmodernism, and it does seem to me that during the 20th C we've
> seen a
> progressive drift away from grounding, at various levels - both
> physical and
> psychological (I would add spiritual, but we can leave that aside
> for now) -
> in reality.
>
> The people who form and moderate opinion are all living so
> comfortably,
> relatively speaking, that they don't want to lift the lid. I had a
> disturbing exchange recently with a good friend of mine and his
> wife. He's a
> serving army general. We expect to disagree, but not as much as
> you'd think,
> on war. What really surprised me was how animated he became about
> climate
> change, his wife too, playing out all the Christopher Brooker type of
> arguments and basically, a very intelligent scientifically literate
> man just
> not wanting to know.
>
> My sense in both this exchange and others similar is that most
> people can't
> face the contradiction of their lives. Festinger summed it all up in
> the
> 1950s with his study of cults ("When Prophecy Fails") - and how, the
> more
> that the cult failed the more the believers believed. You'll be
> familiar
> with his whole cognitive dissonance theory that came out of that. My
> sense
> is that we have to create space for people to live with their
> contradictions. The poet Alice Walker says, and I quote from memory,
> "take
> the contradictions of your life/ to wrap around you like a shawl/ to
> parry
> stones/ and keep you warm."
>
> If we can't do this with ourselves and others we force denial, and the
> problem with denial is that it's worse than hypocrisy because it blind
> people to truth. At least if you're not blinded to the truth you
> have the
> possibility of getting your bearings.
>
> I'd better go ... my wife's just back and it's late ... but I'm
> concerned
> about this stuckness - in the media, even, I sense, on this forum,
> and I
> wonder if you or others have reflection on this, or is there nothing
> else
> that can be done but to sit with heads in the sand? Is that where
> we're at
> in the human condition?
>
> Alastair.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Cromwell
> Sent: 13 January 2011 18:30
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Record warming isn't news
>
> Alastair asks of the BBC:
>
> " What is going on in their science journalism?"
>
> I'd remove the word "science" and just ask:
>
> "What is going on in their journalism?"
>
> Please forgive the plug, but see:
>
> http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93&Ite
> mid=51
>
> And it's not just the BBC. It's the Guardian, the Independent, C4
> News and
> all the other news media we're supposed to regard as the most
> responsible.
>
> David
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alastair McIntosh
> Sent: 13 January 2011 18:20
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Record warming isn't news
>
> You beat me to it, Bob. I had been watching out and was about to
> make the
> same observation. What makes it all the stranger is that early today
> the BBC
> had as the lead item on its science website evidence of climate
> change in
> rainfall in the English uplands -
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12151866 They've since
> substituted a story about the Sun. Astonishing that they can miss
> out that
> the last year was the world's warmest equal, and the world's wettest
> ever.
> What is going on in their science journalism?
>
> A
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bob Ward
> Sent: 13 January 2011 18:06
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Record warming isn't news
>
> Apart from a small brief at the bottom of page 25 of today's edition
> of
> 'The Guardian', the UK media ignored the announcements yesterday by
> both
> NASA and the US National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration that 2010
> was tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record.
>
> But it was picked up by the media in most of the rest of the world,
> even
> in the United States, where 49 of the 50 states are currently under
> snow.
>
> So what's up with our media? I've had a whinge about it here:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/13/uk-media-ignore-climat
> e-change
>
>
> Bob Ward
>
> Policy and Communications Director
> Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
> London School of Economics and Political Science
> Houghton Street
> London WC2A 2AE
>
> http://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham
>
> Tel. +44 (0) 20 7106 1236
> Mob. +44 (0) 7811 320346
>
>
> Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic
> communications disclaimer: http://lse.ac.uk/emailDisclaimer
