STANFORD, Calif. — Those who believe in climate change typically do so wholeheartedly, while those who choose to deny its existence are similarly entrenched in their beliefs. Debating the validity of climate change with someone on the opposite end of the belief spectrum often feels futile. However, Stanford behavioral scientist Gabrielle Wong-Parodi believes she has uncovered four ways to stop climate change denial in its tracks.
Wong-Parodi wanted to learn more about why people deny the reality of climate change, mainly because she feels such beliefs are working against industrial changes that are needed around the world. She studied the psychological reasons why so many people ignore the overwhelming scientific consensus regarding climate change, and came up with four ways to sway them the other way. These four methods, or “pathways,” include appealing to deniers’ different identities, reframing solutions to the problem, and even embracing and acknowledging deniers’ own views.
“I think in the climate change sphere there’s this thinking of, ‘There’s the deniers over there, let’s just not even engage with them – it’s not worth it,’” says Wong-Parodi, lead author of the study and assistant professor of Earth System Science, in a media release. “A lot of the tactics and strategies start from the point that something is wrong with the climate deniers, rather than trying to acknowledge that they have a belief and opinion and it matters. But I think there is an opportunity to keep trying to understand one another, especially now.”
Wong-Parodi focused her research on what she referred to as “motivated denial,” defined as when someone denies plain facts placed in front of them. Researchers concluded that some people choose motivated denial because the truth about climate change stirs serious questions about their own self-worth, threatens their trusted financial institutions, and invokes a sense of unwanted responsibility.
So while it may seem impossible to convince climate deniers, Wong-Parodi and her team explain these four effective approaches after surveying numerous peer-reviewed studies published over the past two years:
- Instead of focusing on the bleak statistics and scientific findings, reframe potential climate change solutions as methods of upholding and stabilizing society.
- Close the ideological divide by emphasizing the purity of the Earth, rather than the harm we are currently inflicting.
- Talk about the scientific consensus on climate change with certain trusted individuals.
- Encourage people to openly share their values and stance on climate change before introducing actual scientific climate information into the discussion.
According to Wong-Parodi, the fourth approach is the most intriguing because there has been less research done in that area than the others. Thus, it could have the highest potential for behavioral change. People’s self-affirmation is challenged when faced with climate change facts because they must consider their own contribution to the problem, which often causes people to react defensively.
“A good portion of people who deny climate change recognize that there is some change, but the change is so threatening because it basically could affect your quality of life. It could affect your income. It could affect a number of different things that you care about,” Wong-Parodi explains.
The researchers believe that the best way to get around the emotions and identity issues surrounding climate change denial is to embrace the other side’s views. This allows us to not ignore who people are, and instead acknowledge them, so their views can be dealt with and the conversation can then shift to climate solutions everyone can agree on.
“I think we often forget that people can have many identities – there might be a political identity, but there is also an identity as a mother, or an identity as a friend or an identity as a student,” Wong-Parodi concludes. “You can elicit other identities when you’re talking about climate change that may be more effective.”
The study is published in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.
“… the truth about climate change stirs serious questions about their own self-worth, ..”
The Truth is that Gorbachev ( and a dozen Russian generals) was paid millions to bring about a ‘World Order”. This required that Nations were dismantled, and that some existential global threat was identified. They tried “aliens” but no one was particularly worried so they invented AGW and the world was about to “boil”. This was patently nonsensical to any but a total moron so it became Climate Change.
After 50 years and 100s of forecasts, none of which have been even remotely accurate, people (except the aforementioned morons, young people being paid to attend riots and demonstrations, old age pensioners wanting to get out of the house and have an all expenses paid trip to larger cities and ‘scientists’ applying for huge research grants) don’t believe a word these paid propagandist liars are saying.
Even those ardent climate activists like Saint Greta have realised that there is a limit to how long they can BS reality, so they move on to other causes to support.
We will believe you when even one of your predictions prove to be even remotely accurate.
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50 Years of Dire Climate Forecasts and What Actually Happened
1. 1967 Salt Lake Tribune: Dire Famine Forecast by 1975, Already Too Late
2. 1969 NYT: “Unless we are extremely lucky, everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years. The situation will get worse unless we change our behavior.”
3. 1970 Boston Globe: Scientist Predicts New Ice Age by 21st Century said James P. Lodge, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
4. 1971 Washington Post: Disastrous New Ice Age Coming says S.I. Rasool at NASA.
5. 1972 Brown University Letter to President Nixon: Warning on Global Cooling
6. 1974 The Guardian: Space Satellites Show Ice Age Coming Fast
7. 1974 Time Magazine: Another Ice Age “Telling signs everywhere. Since the 1940s mean global temperatures have dropped 2.7 degrees F.”
8. 1974 “Ozone Depletion a Great Peril to Life” University of Michigan Scientist
9. 1976 NYT The Cooling: University of Wisconsin climatologist Stephen Schneider laments about the “deaf ear his warnings received.”
10. 1988 Agence France Press: Maldives will be Completely Under Water in 30 Years.
11. 1989 Associated Press: UN Official Says Rising Seas to ‘Obliterate Nations’ by 2000.
12. 1989 Salon: New York City’s West Side Highway underwater by 2019 said Jim Hansen the scientist who lectured Congress in 1988 about the greenhouse effect.
13. 2000 The Independent: “Snowfalls are a thing of the past. Our children will not know what snow is,” says senior researcher.
14. 2004 The Guardian: The Pentagon Tells Bush Climate Change Will Destroy Us. “Britain will be Siberian in less than 20 years,” the Pentagon told Bush.
15. 2008 Associate Press: NASA Scientist says “We’re Toast. In 5-10 years the Arctic will be Ice Free”
16. 2008 Al Gore: Al Gore warns of ice-free Arctic by 2013.
17. 2009 The Independent: Prince Charles says Just 96 Months to Save the World. “The price of capitalism is too high.”
18. 2009 The Independent: Gordon Brown says “We have fewer than 50 days to save our planet from catastrophe.”
19. 2013 The Guardian: The Arctic will be Ice Free in Two Years. “The release of a 50 gigaton of methane pulse” will destabilize the planet.
20. 2013 The Guardian: US Navy Predicts Ice Free Arctic by 2016. “The US Navy’s department of Oceanography uses complex modeling to makes its forecast more accurate than others.
21. 2014 John Kerry: “We have 500 days to Avoid Climate Chaos” discussed Sec of State John Kerry and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabious at a joint meeting.
22. the State Meteorological Agency had confessed that Spain is being sprayed entirely from planes that spread lead dioxide into the atmosphere. , silver iodide and diatomite. The objective, according to the same MEP, would be to keep the rains away and allow temperatures to rise, which creates a summer climate for tourism and, at the same time, helps corporations in the agricultural sector.
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Of course it would help if governments stopped adding Gigawatts of microwave heat to the atmosphere in their control of weather and wars.
PS. My ‘self worth’ like the climate, is just fine.
Just keep repeating the lie enough and it will become the truth. What better way to control people by telling them their breathing is contributing to the end of the world, and the only way to solve it is to submit to the governments solutions, end their way if life, join a collective, stop driving and then maybe it can be fixed, in 50 years… Tell them it’s the root cause of everything wrong, and if they just get behind these government solutions, everything will be ok. And saying they should believe the “message” because it’s the “consensus” is just a bandwagoning argument. “Everybody else believes the Message, so should you.” And lastly these “peer reviewed studies” are just the gate-keepers of the group-think scientific establishment… Those “peers” are the ones who have bought into the group-think narrative, and are accepted into the buzzword club because they support the narrative. Does anyone think they will allow anyone to compete with their narrative if it goes against it? “How dare you??!” Says Greta….