Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:
I always struggle with how you would actually change someone’s mind on an issue this big. The bigger the issue, the more entrenched people’s views seem to get.
From what I've read about the psychology of denial the first thing you should never do is call someone stupid. That only hardens their resolve, and makes you the bad guy. When seems to work is showing them how they have been manipulated, showing them who is doing the manipulation and why. And of course, the article I posted earlier about understanding math.
That's what I do with every new bit of information. I run in through my probability filter that has been fine tuned with years of statistics work. What is the probability that the text I just received from Netflix to renew my credentials is true, given that I've never given them this number?
Same goes for articles that promise something contrary to established facts. Could North Atlantic seal levels have fallen since 2004? Yes, they could. So lets research it . . . 10 minutes later I have my answer. The story title is changed from the article, and the linked studys' conclusions do not match the article title. Someone trying to pass a sows ear off as a silk purse, again.
Next!
Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:
I also don’t know when it became normal for people to disbelieve peer reviewed science, yet emphatically insist their personal internet research makes them more qualified. I get the urge to look out for BS and be skeptical - the media has done such a good job of inventing crisis it becomes hard to discern the difference. Every day we’re supposed to worry about the flavour of the month apocalypse.
As this article showed, the right wing has been very good at fomenting the distrust the right already has with authority, and we've seen evidence of them trying to discredit science recently. Even in this thread, uwish re-iterated every discredited theory posted so far this year. He claims to be a man of science, but somehow science isn't effective on him or his opinions. Not much we can do, just move on and hope there are more reasonable people willing to objectively evaluate new information.
Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:
I’m as skeptical as they come – at least without being a conspiracy theorist. And I think the big differentiator between these media created “apocalypse” and the real thing is how long the scientific community allows them to persist for. The media can always find a new study saying death of the planet is imminent from SARS & Wuhan, to the disappearance of bees leading to an entire food chain collapse. But once their scientific peers get a year or two to review the data and reproduce results, you invariably see the stories disappear as they are not always discredited, but rather, better researched and understood.
I have tried to show this to FOG and others, when they post their "things science got wrong" articles, to try to get them to see that "science" didn't say any of those things, but the ones who create such memes also know that our attention spans are short. The meme will be taken as a count against science, even if it's discredited at a later date because people will have forgotten about it by then.
Science is slow and methodical, but it does produce near certainty in the long run. The problem is people's attention spans are too short.
Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:
So here we are with Global Warming.
It’s been researched for 30+ years.
98% of all scientific papers agree it’s happening, and that the most likely cause is human activity
What always strikes me most is the cost of doing nothing vs trying to “fix” it.
Tobacco was the same. People started dying of smoking related illness after WWI, but the Tobacco lobbyists kept at their mantra that there was no evidence of smoking related illness until the congressional hearings in the 90's, when that lie finally popped.
That's why I have hope about the student Friday protests. They aren't fooled by the former tobacco company lobbyists now working for big oil. And it's almost their turn to run things. And I hope Marc Morano is first up against the wall.
Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:
Do nothing camp:
Keep burning fossil fuels and polluting the environment through drilling, fracking, and mining.
Ignore that we will hit peak oil production at some point.
Keep my energy costs as low as possible.
Believe there is nothing we can do about climate change even if it is real.
Do something camp:
Fossil fuels are a finite resource, we should use other forms of energy as much as possible so we have fossil fuel to use as long as possible.
New green technology advances science.
Solar power will eventually make energy essentially free & unlimited for everyone.
New inventions are always a benefit to the world, much the same way the space program returned over a trillion dollars in royalties from inventions.
Even if we’re wrong about the causes of climate change, we don’t lose anything. We can always burn that oil later, when it’s more rare and valuable than it is today.
As a wise man once said, the way to keep al our oil riches hidden from the Chinese is to keep it in the ground where they won't see it.
I think technology will take a large bite out of the oil industry. Solar and wind power are now cheaper than cola, so coal companies are going bankrupt. And Tesla has more market valuation than Ford and GM combined. Car companies are shrinking, while Tesla is opening factories in China and Germany.
Consumers will take a large bite out of emissions long before legislation does.
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