On 3/31/07, john fernbach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Michael - I agree completely with your recommendations on how people > who follow the AGW research should behave in debate. > > Regardless of whether GW skeptics/denialists are writing in bad faith > -- which I think most of them are -- expressing anger, contempt and > exasperation in reply to their provocations is not likely to do any > good. The GW Denialist who's being attacked is unlikely to change his/ > her mind in response to a put-down, and the person who follows the > scientific mainstream on AGW is likely to look foolish, intolerant, > etc. > > I wonder about a couple of points in your blog, however. > > First, you seem to me to be saying that supporters of the IPCC's > conclusions are losing some kind of public relations battle, and I > wonder if that's really true. Certainly a number of conservative > business leaders and politicians around the world are belatedly > agreeing that yes, climate change is a problem. I don't know what the > public opinion polls say, partly because it seems to depend on who's > running the poll and what questions are asked, but my sense is that > climate change is making headway in popular opinion, too. > > Is this impression wrong?
Did you follow the link to chait's article? It is certainly the case that the bulk of the population is more or less convinced. The issue is that the ideologically committed are moving the other way. I think this is important. > Secondly, you convey the sense that it's somehow surprising or > distressing that members of the right are becoming ever more adamant > in their rejection of AGW science, even as the science improves. > However, I think the economic self-interest of the energy companies > who are funding some of the GW Denialist science, the ideological > biases of libertarian advocates of laissez faire economics who see in > AGW the threat of government interference in the markets, and the ego > needs of legitimate scientists who have questioned AGW in the past all > suggest that some people will never change their minds on this issue. > It would simply cost them too much -- whether in terms of lost profits > and emploment income, or in terms of ideological uncertainty, or in > terms of professional status & pride. It will always be in the financial interests of someone who owns some coal reserves to cast doubt on the facts, yes. Everybody, left and right, has ideological biases, yes. The scary thing is the trend among the ideologically committed. > Thomas Kuhn, in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," notes that > when scientific disciplines have undergone major shifts in paradigms > in the past, it hasn't been the case that most of the older > researchers who supported the older paradigms were instantly converted > to "the truth." > > Instead, those with reputations to protect have generally continued to > insist on the validity of Ptolemaic astronomy, phlogiston theory, pre- > relativity physics etc until their generation died off. A new > generation of researchers with no prestige at stake, and no emotional > investment in the older paradigms, then has usually ensured the > virtually universal acceptance of the new thinking. In this case there is no "old guard" defending any real position. Physical climatology arrived on the scene with a bunch of natural and anthropogenic forcings, and very quickly came to the point where CO2 forcing was seen as the top dog. Casting this as a Kuhnian revolution presumes that there was some previous "no anthropogenic forcing" entrenched point of view. This just didn't happen. In fact, the "it's the sun" people are trying to cast themselves as the scientific revolutionaries, and the rest of us as the old guard. ... > Resistance from them against AGW science is almost inevitable, and not > worth taking seriously unless they carry large sections of the public > along with them. Right. but they do. Consider this effort from a very bright high school student, Kristen Byrnes, to get a grip on the situation (linked from Climate Audit): http://home.earthlink.net/~ponderthemaunder/id19.html She gets a lot of things right, but some things very wrong. Why? I think it's because the misapprehensions are delivered by paid communication professionals and the truth is delivered by scientists who are motivated by getting new results, and who communicate in their spare time. That's another story for another time. The point here is that people like Kristen do try earnestly to sort it out and they end up with some muddle like Kristen ends up with. (I'm not worried about her in particular; I suspect she will get it all sorted out eventually. I am sure, though, that in my adolescent investigations I was not subject to as much plausible misinformation as she had to sort through.) I hope you are right that this isn's worth worrying about, but I'm not convinced. mt --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
