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

…make sure to check out CL reporter Thomas Wheatley’s extended interview with the global warming guru over on Fresh Loaf.

Wheatley has him expounding on why Atlanta sucks smoggy wind when it comes to carbon emissions, what we can do to help fight global warming, and why people in the suburbs don’t have any friends.  (Man, I wish I could use that excuse.)

Listening to it had me wondering why I still haven’t replaced all of our incandescent light blubs with compact fluorescents, what the city of Decatur can do, and has already done, to reduce its energy consumption (anyone have info on this?), and why anyone would run a food processor in the middle of a phone interview.

Nice work Tom.  You recovered from those pregnant pauses with grace and style.

(Photo courtesy of Harvard University…I only borrow/steal from the best!)

Blogger Bud Thomas Wheatley reports over on CL’s newly-redesigned Fresh Loaf…

Bill McKibben, author of End of Nature and Deep Economy, will speak at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 11, at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Parish in Decatur (map here). The event is co-sponsored by the Georgia Center for the Book and Georgia Interfaith Power and Light. A collection of his essays, The Bill McKibben Reader, goes on sale tomorrow. One of his more recent works, Fight Global Warming Now – The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community, is worth a look, judging that the General Assembly this year isn’t taking any steps to address the phenomenon.

McKibben’s writings have been informing audiences about global warming long before An Inconvenient Truth made climate change a dinner table conversation topic. In fact, Al Gore attributes much of his passion to the cause to McKibben. According to this Wikipedia entry Gore wrote in 2007 “when I was serving in the Senate, Bill McKibben’s descriptions of the planetary impacts… made such an impression on me that it led, among other things, to my receiving the honorific title ‘Ozone Man’ from the first president Bush.”

McKibben writes for many big name pubs like The New York Times, The Atlantic and Harpers. Plus he’s a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, just down the street from where my mom now lives.

Fresh Loaf quotes an article from The Economist about our drought crisis, which suggests that Al Gore’s global warming might be to blame for recent EXTREME weather. I did a little rummaging to see if experts support this theory.

NASA seems to agree.

“Continued global warming could have many damaging effects. It might harm plants and animals that live in the sea. It could also force animals and plants on land to move to new habitats. Weather patterns could change, causing flooding, drought, and an increase in damaging storms. Global warming could melt enough polar ice to raise the sea level. In certain parts of the world, human disease could spread, and crop yields could decline.”

So do environmental groups like the NDRC.

“Warmer temperatures could also increase the probability of drought. Greater evaporation, particularly during the summer and fall, could exacerbate drought conditions and increase the risk of wildfires.”

NOAA is a bit more reserved, but admits that extreme conditions are more prevalent in recent years.

“On a global scale there is little evidence of sustained trends in climate variability or extremes. This perhaps reflects inadequate data and a dearth of analyses. However, on regional scales, there is clear evidence of changes in variability or extremes.

In areas where a drought or excessive wetness usually accompanies an El Niño [does this also apply to La Nina?], these dry or wet spells have been more intense in recent years. Other than these areas, little evidence is available of changes in drought frequency or intensity.”

So, each one of these sources agrees that in an instance of global warming, drought would be one of many extreme weather symptoms attributed to it. Unfortunately, this acknowledgment does little to quell the never-ending debate over global warming’s existence.

Some will write off this drought as another isolated event that can’t be attributed to a broader pattern, while others will eagerly add it to the list of “recent evidence” that already includes the recent torrential rains in the Northeast and the 2005 Hurricane season. Though films like An Inconvenient Truth and comments from the G8 summit have recently had some impact on influencing public opinion on the subject, it is the “consequences” of these extreme conditions that are really beginning to change people’s minds.