What Not To Say: “Do as I Command or You’re Going to Die!”
Decatur Metro | November 18, 2010
Thanks a lot Al Gore. You’ve doomed us all.
From the fine folks at UC Berkley…
Dire or emotionally charged warnings about the consequences of global warming can backfire if presented too negatively, making people less amenable to reducing their carbon footprint, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley.
“Our study indicates that the potentially devastating consequences of global warming threaten people’s fundamental tendency to see the world as safe, stable and fair. As a result, people may respond by discounting evidence for global warming,” said Robb Willer, UC Berkeley social psychologist and coauthor of a study to be published in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science.
…Despite the mounting evidence, a Gallup poll conducted earlier this year found that 48 percent of Americans believe that global warming concerns are exaggerated, and 19 percent think global warming will never happen. In 1997, 31 percent of those who were asked the same question in a Gallup poll felt the claims were overstated.
Ah, self-importance. Is there anything it can’t ruin?
h/t: GOOD
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Taking a note for DTR on a previous thread…I’d like to point out in all seriousness:
We’re all going to die.
When is someone going to stop people from having to die?
Your point is too subtle; I’m missing it.
Just read that “previous thread”. Hahahaha….hilarious!
Interesting that Al Gore is the one delivering the message of doom, and even he won’t reduce his carbon footprint. So what is his excuse?
Sorta like how fiscal conservatives go to the Hill and can’t stop spending.
What’s anyone’s excuse? Human nature.
BTW…Al Gore isn’t really a great “face” of climate change anyway. If you’re looking for one, I’d go with Bill McKibben, who started all this in the first place.
And interestingly enough, McKibben is featured in another post I’m planning on a completely different subject later today.
Kind of undermines the entire point of the linked article then, doesn’t it? You can tone down the messaging, but people still won’t change their lives, as Al asks everyone to do.
Many people have changed the way they live.
Well, I thought we were discussing sorta high-profile types. It’s potentially harder for a jet-setting politico to make substantive changes to their carbon-burning lives than others if they’re flying a lot and whatnot. What exactly were the claims against Gore?
As Rick points out, plenty of people have changed the way they live. Probably not in the most effective ways, unless they’re really hardcore, but still a good number are now thinking about it on a daily basis.
I find it very interesting that no one can point out someones hypocrisy (who in this case happens to be a liberal) without you having to give an example of conservative hypocrisy. It’s ok DM, we know hypocrisy is everywhere, we just happen to be discussing Al Gore right now.
Um, dude. I brought up Al Gore too. Is that interesting to you?
Yes, and when DEM brought up his hypocrisy, you felt you had to give an example of conservative hypocrisy. Just an observation….
Are you going to stop being coy and tell me what’s so interesting about it?
Hey, you added something to your previous post!! Haha, it’s was just an interesting observation; no malice intended.
Ah, but it’s so much easier to find glowing examples of conservative hypocrisy, Wally! Kinda like shooting fish in a barrel…
Haha, not so sure if it’s easier, but it sure is easy!
I so think this is correct. Intellectually, I completely believe the evidence from credible scientists about global warming. Some of the evidence may be wrong and some of the scientists may be alarmists but too much is pointing in the same direction to ignore it.
Emotionally, I put my fingers in my ears and hum loudly. I am totally overwhelmed by the thought that my children may face environmental dangers, even horrors, that I have been blessed to avoid, not to mention the threats posed by the failed world economy and terrorism.
So I bake cookies for school, fill our recycling bins, bike with my child to school when work permits, and hope that small steps in a city that seems to think more clearly than most about these issues will eventually lead to a groundswell of rational thought and effective action that will make a difference.
Back to the humming….
“Dire or emotionally charged warnings about the consequences of global warming can backfire if presented too negatively,…”
Nope…it’s just that liberals don’t know how to play the fear card as well as the ‘conservatives’. In this topic alone, DM (sorry to pick on you) has already shown how this strategy fails for the left…”Ah, self-importance. Is there anything it can’t ruin?”…followed by “What’s anyone’s excuse? Human nature.” Rather than ackowledging these statements as fundamentally true the left would rather appeal to the publics ‘better angels’ and the outcome is as you find it; apathy.
Perhaps a better way forward would have been for a national energy policy which would benefit many problems we see now…national security, jobs, the economy, and least of all the environment…instead we got a health care fiasco that has pretty much hobbled any chance that these very real and pressing concerns are addressed at all.
There is also the possibility that people are not convinced based on the evidence. I am in that camp. I was a skeptic from the beginning, so I read several IPCC reports to try and learn more. Not back to front, of course — they are very long and detailed — but I read over what I could, including the summaries for policy makers.
My take was that observed warming is real, I tend to agree that at least some of it is very likely due to man-made causes, but we don’t know how much. And — this part is the most important — projections of future warming are based on computer climate models that may or may not be accurate. We really don’t know.
That’s why I, for one, have never been moved by the dire predictions of many greens. I don’t think they know what they are talking about. Climate is — to say the very least — a very complex system. We do not fully understand it. We may not understand even a tenth of it. Everyone could stand to be a lot more humble in the face of this much uncertainty.
And I say all of this as someone who does think it is important to use less energy, reduce waste, etc. I put more miles on my bike than I do on my car. But what I don’t do is go around telling others how to live their lives. That’s a losing message, which too many people of all political stripes will never seem to understand.
Word.
Did you happen to catch that global warming piece on tv last week? (Can’t recall what show it was on. Maybe Nightline.) It featured how the WALRUSES are being impacted by the glaciers melting. Really really sad.
I like walruses…
… I do too. :0)
While I generally applaud critical thinking and examining all of the available evidence before making conclusions, your appraisal of the work of climate scientists strikes me as somewhat contradictory. You state that “[c]limate is — to say the very least — a very complex system…[w]e do not fully understand it…[w]e may not understand even a tenth of it,” but then decide that based on your reading of the evidence you disagree with the majority of the experts on the subject. This is akin to a doctor telling you that you have a rare and very serious disease, but since it’s a very complex disease that’s not well-understood by medical professionals in general, you conclude that you must not really have the disease. In both cases there is a chance that you’re correct and the experts are wrong, but I think you stand to lose more by dismissing the experts’ opinions and following your own.
My point is that if climate scientists are wrong, but we act anyway to curtail carbon emissions, we’d be better off than if we do nothing and the scientific community ends up being right. On the one hand, if we cut emissions, we’d end up with cleaner air, less dependence upon hostile foreign governments, and new industries to create alternative energy technologies. That’s not to say there would be no ill effects of these changes; current jobs and profits would be lost in the current energy sector, we’d all pay higher energy costs, and there would be some changes in our lifestyles that we might not necessarily enjoy. But compared to the potential negative consequences if climate change is real, the costs of inaction seem to heavily outweigh the costs of action.
And of course people dislike being told how to live their lives, and as long as what they do doesn’t affect me, I try not to meddle in their lives. But this is a classic case of a negative externality where all of us are affected.
+1
No we’re not.
Not what?
“19 percent think global warming will never happen.”
In the billions of years Earth has existed, the climate has shifted, sometimes cooler & sometimes warmer. Not that far back, but science has proven that the climate changes. Whether it’s catastrophic and the causes are debatable, but to just outright believe the possibility doesn’t exist?
I’m super cereal! Nobody will listen to me but I’m cereal!
Like Sting, I always listen to my Rice Crispies.
I believe in global warming. I also believe in global cooling. You know, that whole cyclical climate thing that has been happening since we’ve had a climate on this planet. What I don’t believe in is “Global Warming” or the newer “Global Climate Change” which appear to me to be marketing campaigns for an unpopular economic agenda. And I totally agree that exaggerated and do-it-or-die messaging just makes people ignore the message and the messenger, especially when he is a super cereal hypocrite.
Yuppers
Or is is “Yeppers”?
I truly believe that Global Warming is a fraud and that Climate Change is nothing but a cover up because the temperatures and data are not panning out the way the Greens wanted it to. Climate Change is vague enough to cover any act of nature. Now, that is not to say that I think everyone who believes in it is evil, stupid or dishonest, but once the faulty NASA data and the email chain was exposed, the silence was deafening. It is a fact that most of the hardline communists turned their attention to the environmental movement post cold war as hardline environmentalism supports government control of industry. That being said, my faith (and personal moral compass) has me treat the Earth with appreciation and respect. For those reasons, some of my actions may memick a Greenie. It’s like the re- emergence of the Peace sign: when Target, Sears, etc. sell children – who are clueless- back packs, T-shirts and underwear with the stale Peace sign on them, I have to just smirk and roll my eyes. Hip, trendy and meaningless. And before I’m called stupid and ignorant, I have a doctorate and have been eyeball-deep in reading news from a variety of sources for probably 17 years. No disrespect, but living here in Decatur, I rarely have the chance (or support) to speak my diverse view.
Sorry, but having a doctorate doesn’t mean the holder is given an automatic pass when it comes to holding beliefs that simply aren’t backed up by the actual science. No disrespect to you, because this is America and you have the right to say & think what you believe, but so do those who disagree with you. The British kerfuffle aside, too many peer-reviewed scientific studies back up the “establishment” view that GW is very real, is absolutely quantifiable, and is measurably affected by manmade impetuses.
I’m glad that you believe in treating the Earth with respect, but too many people who share your views (i.e., that global warming is a fraud) don’t share your personal moral code, and have the attitude that this planet is there to be pillaged of its resources, the consequences be damned– because who cares what happens when they’re no longer alive? So, even if you don’t believe in GW, I do hope that you encourage others of your persuasion to appreciate and respect the Earth– even if you’re right, isn’t it a worthy goal to have clean air & water, and to keep as much balance in our world as possible?
The British kerfuffle aside, too many peer-reviewed scientific studies back up the “establishment” view that GW is very real, is absolutely quantifiable, and is measurably affected by manmade impetuses.
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Warming to date is quantiable, yes. Future warming is a projection. You can quantify a projection, but it is still a projection.
The warming we’ve seen to date is not a threat to much of anything. The whole ball of wax here is how much warmer will it get? The answer to that is: no one knows. Oh sure, there are many predictions, but we can’t possibly know the truth. Even if gets warmer still, it may not get much warmer, and there may well be no crisis at all. And it may not get warmer at all. Again, we’re guessing. The guessing is done by smart people with PhD’s, sure, but that doesn’t mean they’re above being utterly and completely wrong. The consensus is often wrong about all sorts of things.
I couldn’t agree more about the doctorate. The irony about that is, because liberals adore academia, most do give free passes to those with higher degrees. That being said, I have attempted, politely, to disagree on other forums with far left folks and have almost always been reapproached with some of the foulest language, have been called a “[edited]” – and see so often on threads (CNN, MSNC) the use of “stupid, uneducated, trailer trash, redneck, and ignorant and uninformed” toward anyone with a non-liberal view, so, I wanted to cut off that usual rebuttal immediately. But, given that DM readers are almost always very polite, as all of you are, I wanted to stick my neck out here where I wouldn’t be called a “[edited]. But I can’t say that the email was simply a “kerfuffle.” I think it was quite telling. But, we can disagree. I chose to live in Decatur, knowing the extreme left tilt, and thus “ask for it” to a degree (except my car being vandalized twice in front of my apartment 2 different times because I dared to have a sticker that offended my peaceful, tolerant, diversity-luvin, open minded neighbors). Finally, to assume I”m a conservative because I don’t believe in Global Warming is ridiculous. I am neither. I float above the Right and Left and take it all in.
What was your purpose in using ““[edited]” twice in one post? Once was plenty offensive to women. I’m sure you were trying to prove your point but there are better ways. That was absolutely disgusting.
So you felt it more important for you to say it was disgusting for her commenting on her disgust, than to comment on the fact that it is disgusting that these things were said to her. Looks like you kind of helped her point a bit….
I’ve read some follow-up reporting on those e-mails, and while we can certainly agree to disagree, their importance in the overall pantheon of climate science is fairly negligible (meaning, they raise some questions about the behavior of those involved, but they don’t by any means dispell the other peer-reviewed scientific publications that hold global warming to be a quantifiable, factual condition). I don’t see where I called you a conservative, though– perhaps you’re referring to someone else?
I think you’ll find that, no matter how much people on Decatur Metro might disagree with each other about things, we certainly wouldn’t tolerate or condone such invective as you say you’ve experienced (or the vandalizing of property of someone whose beliefs are different). I myself have been flamed in similar fashion by the extreme right-wingers over at the AJC boards (some of whom actually post here, but are much better behaved than they are there). I’m glad this place is as well monitored as it is, because it lets everyone feel that they have a voice, as long as they’re civil about it. So, at least we have that in common!
Yes, CubaLibre, it was someone else who referred to me as a Conservative (not that I mind), and yes, all the neighbors here are great and it is a great forum and it is the only forum where I can state something without the immediate and predictable laundry list of names. Kind of like far righters immediately saying (cwoze your eyes,Rebaccab): Commie Pinko Ba$tard!
Have a good weekend, CubaLibre. I’m signing off to take out about 40 empty liquor bottles to my recycle bin. I’m not kidding. Just cleaned out the liquor cabinet and will drag the bin to the curb in the dead of night so neighbors won’t talk. You’ll be happy to know there are a few empty rums in with the mix. Have a nice weekend.
So, were the liquor bottles already empty and you were hoarding empty bottles? Did you finish all the booze before you recycled them? Did you pour good liquor down the drain? Do you have a good recipe for hot buttered rum? These are the questions true Decaturites are truly interested in.
So, were the liquor bottles already empty and you were hoarding empty bottles? YES. I AM SEEKING HELP. Did you finish all the booze before you recycled them? YES. I DON’T BELIEVE IN WASTING NATURAL RESOURCES. Did you pour good liquor down the drain? I MAY BE A HOARDER BUT I’M NOT CRAZY . Do you have a good recipe for hot buttered rum? NO. ASK YOUR GRANDMOTHER. These are the questions true Decaturites are truly interested in.
Rebbacab: You’re right. I promise not to ever use the word *ommie again.
The c word is off limits
It is a fact that most of the hardline communists turned their attention to the environmental movement post cold war as hardline environmentalism supports government control of industry.
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I’ve never heard this before. Almost all the environmentalists I’ve ever encountered are more passionate about the earth (to a fault in some cases) than anything else.
If there are hardline communists out there, using environmentalism as a front, I’ve never heard from them. Pointing out the beliefs of the extremists doesn’t discredit an entire movement, IMO.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/the_left_and_energy_policy.html
19 guys hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Conservatives use this event to convince us that there are many more ready to attack, so we should spend freely to keep them from attacking. When we ask for evidence that there are more people who want to attack they say sorry, it’s a secret. Can’t tell you. When conservatives ask us to give up our civil liberties in exchange for safety, we ask whether we can have free genital massages with air travel. When we ask for those accused of conducting or plotting crimes to be tried in the open so we can see the threat for ourselves conservatives say, sorry, can’t tell you, you must believe us without our showing any evidence because, well, 9/11! 9/11!
When climate scientists study the earth, publish results, debate, and agree that human activity is causing the earth to warm conservatives say sorry, need more evidence, we don’t believe it. When every association of science professionals issues statements agreeing that humans are causing the earth to warm and that people who live in low lying areas and will be displaced by rising water will be a certain cause for global unrest, conservatives say, sorry, it’s not happening and even if it were we don’t have any money to spend on it.
I don’t get it. Just like with terrorists, global warming is sneaking up on us and could change how we live unless we plan appropriately. Only it’s not sneaking. We see it. The data are there. Why do conservatives deny it? A different energy policy that reduces the need for oil, and frees us from using military power from securing oil, would reduce potential for terrorism and global warming. What is wrong with that?
Hmmm last time I checked….
1)The US is not the government of Iraq and our military did not seize any oil fields.
2)The past two years have had a Democrat led executive branch that has implemented TSA procedures that effectively violated the 4th amendment all in the name of security, but the reasons why are a secret.
3)It has been a Democrat controlled congress (granted only the past two years would have been veto proof) that could have easily passed legislation to undo any of the violations of your civil liberties that you propose conservatives are solely responsible for.
Sorry that dog don’t hunt. I’m not defending conservatives (they certainly don’t deserve it given their performance), but your premise is a complete fallacy.
Conservatives use this event to convince us that there are many more ready to attack, so we should spend freely to keep them from attacking. When we ask for evidence that there are more people who want to attack they say sorry, it’s a secret. Can’t tell you.
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You are denying that there are terrorist organizations throughout the world that want to repeat attacks on America? I mean, Bin Laden has made videos threatening more attacks. They’ve been on CNN. I am with you on much of the civil liberties issues, but the idea that anyone is making up or concealing the threat seems wilfully ignorant of the evidence.
I’m really saddened to read a lot of these comments. I am not a climate scientist but I am a scientist; I teach physical chemistry at Emory. (If you want to look up my credentials, my initials are JK; I don’t feel the need for anonymity in what I’m saying, but I don’t want blog comments to come up in case anyone Googles my name.) I don’t know how I can convince you skeptics the absurdity of the idea that climate scientists studying global warming are conspiring to mislead the public. Any scientist who can come up with a scientifically sound alternative to the general consensus that we are warming the planet by burning fossil fuels would get instant fame and fortune (at least, fame and fortune by academic standards!).
I’m pretty sure the reason that this hasn’t happened is that there is no getting around the fundamentals of how gases interact with heat and light, which have been well understood for over a century. Adding more and more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere *does* cause higher and higher temperatures. Predicting exactly how much and how fast is is what the the huge computer modeling efforts are aimed at doing, and nobody claims that it’s easy. However, since the effect of adding more carbon dioxide is cumulative – since it stays in the atmosphere for decades at least – if we keep pushing in the same direction then we can be almost certain that we will manage to change climate dramatically. And when I say “almost certain”, I mean quite a bit more certain than most predictions about economic or strategic threats that are used as the basis of major policy decisions.
Climate Change is vague enough to cover any act of nature.
It is a fact that most of the hardline communists turned their attention to the environmental movement post cold war as hardline environmentalism supports government control of industry.
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Wow
The methods and the conclusions of all the research are out there for people to analyse. The term Climate Change is beside the point. We’re not trying to blame an act of nature on people. We don’t want to destroy business or take away all our precious individual freedoms. Nobody’s hiding data under their mattresses or working to debunk the few honest scientists out there that are struggling against the borg to reveal the truth.
This is what gets me, that people want to believe that there is some conspiracy among the evil scientists in league with the conservationists and the power hungry government toadies rather than look at common sense results of scientists who put their work out there for all to critique and debunk if they can. They accuse environmentalists of using fear to make their argument and force their politics on everyone. But the other side uses fear blatantly — fear the conspiracy, fear the loss of freedom, fear the “elite”.
51 comments on this and no comment on the skinhead at the high school ??????