which is also a consequence of a society that lacks social goals, but 
prefers individualism...

Chris Keene wrote:
> I wonder how much the lack of action might be due to the free rider 
> problem? It isn't worth me limiting my emissions unless other people 
> do voluntarily, or are compelled to by government
>
> Chris
>
> John Scull wrote:
>> Hi George and everyone,
>>
>> I agree with everything you say, but it doesn't go nearly far enough in
>> exploring why people don't act.  Psychological research indicates that
>> "belief" has a very weak influence people's behaviour, as does
>> "information."
>>
>> Climate change is quite distant and impersonal compared to our own 
>> illness
>> and death, yet smoking, drinking, unhealthy diets, sedentary 
>> lifestyles, and
>> other high risk behaviours are common.  Ask these people if they
>> know/believe they are taking a risk.
>>
>> For a good recent book on how people can change their environmental
>> behaviour, see Doppelt, B., "The Power of Sustainable Thinking"  
>> Earthscan,
>> 2008.  Changing habitual behaviours is a multi-stage, multi-dimensional
>> process.
>>
>> See also the work of Doug MacKenzie-Mohr and his colleagues.  They 
>> have a
>> useful website at http://www.toolsofchange.com/English/.
>>
>> There are broader overviews in two textbooks, Winter, D. and Koger, 
>> S. "The
>> Psychology of Environmental Problems" and Gardner and Stern, 
>> "Environmental
>> Problems and Human Behavior" and a recent review of the academic 
>> literature,
>> Nickerson, R., "Psychology and Environmental Change."
>>
>> John
>> ------------------------------------------------
>> John Scull, Ph.D.
>> http://members.shaw.ca/jscull
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Marshall" 
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 11:07 AM
>> Subject: Why people don't act on climate change- New Scientist 
>> Opinion Piece
>>
>>
>>>
>>>  Why people don't act on climate change
>>>
>>>    * 23 July 2009 by *George Marshall*
>>>      <http://www.newscientist.com/search?rbauthors=George+Marshall>
>>>
>>> AT A recent dinner at the University of Oxford, a senior researcher in
>>> atmospheric physics was telling me about his coming holiday in 
>>> Thailand.
>>> I asked him whether he was concerned that his trip would make a
>>> contribution to climate change
>>> <http://www.newscientist.com/topic/climate-change> - we had, after all,
>>> just sat through a two-hour presentation on the topic. "Of course," he
>>> said blithely. "And I'm sure the government will make long-haul flights
>>> illegal at some point."
>>>
>>> I had deliberately steered our conversation this way as part of an
>>> informal research project that I am conducting - one you are welcome to
>>> join. My participants so far include a senior adviser to a leading UK
>>> climate policy expert who flies regularly to South Africa ("my offsets
>>> help set a price in the carbon market"), a member of the British
>>> Antarctic Survey who makes several long-haul skiing trips a year ("my
>>> job <http://www.newscientistjobs.com/> is stressful"), a national media
>>> environment correspondent who took his family to Sri Lanka ("I can't 
>>> see
>>> much hope") and a Greenpeace climate campaigner just back from scuba
>>> diving in the Pacific ("it was a great trip!").
>>>
>>> Intriguing as their dissonance may be, what is especially revealing is
>>> that each has a career <http://www.newscientistjobs.com/> predicated on
>>> the assumption that information is sufficient to generate change. It is
>>> an assumption that a moment's introspection would show them was deeply
>>> flawed.
>>>
>>> It is now 44 years since US president Lyndon Johnson's scientific
>>> advisory council warned that our greenhouse gas emissions could 
>>> generate
>>> "marked changes in climate". That's 44 years of research costing, by 
>>> one
>>> estimate, $3 billion per year, symposia, conferences, documentaries,
>>> articles and now 80 million references on the internet. Despite all 
>>> this
>>> information, opinion polls over the years have shown that 40 per 
>>> cent of
>>> people in the UK and over 50 per cent in the US resolutely refuse to
>>> accept that our emissions are changing the climate. Scarcely 10 per 
>>> cent
>>> of Britons regard climate change as a major problem.
>>>
>>> I do not accept that this continuing rejection of the science is a
>>> reflection of media distortion or scientific illiteracy. Rather, I see
>>> it as proof of our society's failure to construct a shared belief in
>>> climate change.
>>>
>>> I use the word "belief" in full knowledge that climate scientists
>>> dislike it. Vicky Pope, head of the Met Office Hadley Centre for 
>>> Climate
>>> Change 
>>> <http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/hadleycentre/>
>>> in Exeter, UK, wrote in /The Guardian/
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/11/climate-change-science-pope> 
>>>
>>> earlier this year: "We are increasingly asked whether we 'believe in
>>> climate change'. Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our 
>>> concerns
>>> about climate change arise from the scientific evidence."
>>>
>>> I could not disagree more. People's attitudes towards climate change,
>>> even Pope's, are belief systems constructed through social interactions
>>> within peer groups. People then select the storylines that accord best
>>> with their personal world view. In Pope's case and in my own this is a
>>> world view that respects scientists and empirical evidence.
>>>
>>> But listen to what others say. Most regard climate change as an
>>> unsettled technical issue still hotly debated by eggheads. Many reject
>>> personal responsibility by shifting blame elsewhere - the rich, the
>>> poor, the Americans, the Chinese - or they suspect the issue is a 
>>> Trojan
>>> horse built by hair-shirted environmentalists who want to spoil 
>>> their fun.
>>>
>>> Many people regard climate change as a Trojan horse built by
>>> hair-shirted environmentalists
>>>
>>> The climate specialists in my informal experiment are no less immune to
>>> the power of their belief systems. They may be immersed in the
>>> scientific evidence, yet they have nonetheless developed ingenious
>>> storylines to justify their long-haul holidays.
>>>
>>> How, then, should we go about generating a shared belief in the reality
>>> of climate change? What should change about the way we present the
>>> evidence for climate change?
>>>
>>> For one thing, we should become far more concerned about the
>>> communicators and how trustworthy they appear. Trustworthiness is a
>>> complex bundle of qualities: authority and expertise are among them, 
>>> but
>>> so too are honesty, confidence, charm, humour and outspokenness.
>>>
>>> Many of the maverick, self-promoting climate sceptics play this game
>>> well, which is one reason they exercise such disproportionate influence
>>> over public opinion. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
>>> (IPCC), on the other hand, plays it badly. Rather than let loose its
>>> most presentable participants to tell the world how it achieves
>>> consensus on an unprecedented scale, it fails even to provide a list of
>>> the people involved in the process. It has no human face at all: the
>>> only images on its website are the palace or beach resort where it will
>>> hold its next meeting.
>>>
>>> Since people tend to put most trust in those who appear to share their
>>> values and understand their needs, it is crucial we widen the range of
>>> voices speaking on climate change - even if this means climate experts
>>> relinquishing some control and encouraging others who are better
>>> communicators to speak for them.
>>>
>>> Another key to achieving a widely held belief in climate change is
>>> collective imagination. We will never fully appreciate the risks unless
>>> we can project ourselves into the future - and that requires an appeal
>>> to the collective emotional imagination. In the past years I have been
>>> delighted to observe a growing partnership between scientists and the
>>> creative arts, such as retreats for scientists, artists and writers.
>>>
>>> It is clear that the cautious language of science is now inadequate to
>>> inspire concerted change, even among scientists. We need a 
>>> fundamentally
>>> different approach. Only then will scientists be in a position to throw
>>> down the ultimate challenge to the public: "We've done the work, we
>>> believe the results, now when the hell will you wake up?"
>>>
>>> /George Marshall is founder of the Climate Outreach Information Network
>>> <http://coinet.org.uk/> in Oxford, UK/
>>>
>>>
>>
>