How does one converse with a denier of human-induced climate change?

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by ecodharmamark, Mar 19, 2010.

  1. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    HIV does not cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions... (1: p. 1)

    Does this sound sound familiar? Chances are, you have been conversing with a denier. The 'psychopathology of denialism' is what all of the following people have in common (ibid): Thabo Mbeki, when in 2000 he denied that HIV caused AIDS (2); 44% of all Americans who believe that 'God created man in the last 10,000 years' (3); Junji Takano, who claims 'paranormal waves' are the real cause of cancer (4); and 'Flying Binghy' (aka 'Flying Binghi'), he/she of the following belief: '...do tell where this demonstrable proof be ...nought to be found of this AGW fairy tale' (5).

    Diethelm & McKee provide us with many points of entry as to how we can better understand the nature of denialism: 'conspiracy theories', 'fake experts', 'impossible expectations as to what research can deliver', etc. (1: pp. 2-3). However, it is how we should respond (if at all) to the false claims made by deniers of good science that I am interested in, or more particularly, how we can best defend the fact that anthropogenic climate change is the greatest risk that we face today to the continued existence of the biosphere.

    Mark Diesendorf, principal research scientist with the CSIRO and professor of Environmental Science at the University of Technology (Sydney), wisely reminds us that '...refuting again and a again the fallacies that vested interests have disseminated [concerning human-induced climate change] is a waste of time' (6: p. 31). A point that is not lost on me when I look back at my attempts to reason with deniers on this very topic. Much better, Diesendorf believes, is to let 'climate scientists' do the refuting themselves (ibid). It now appears that this is just exactly what the scientists at the CSIRO and the BoM are endeavouring to do with the release of their joint publication State of the Climate (7).

    So, what am I going to do in the future when I find myself conversing with a denier of human-induced climate change? The answer is... absolutely nothing! Well, apart from trying to be civil, as I do still hold myself to be a compassionate human being. In sum, rather than trying to defend the impeccable science, I will let my actions speak for themselves, and our trusted and talented scientists speak for my actions.

    References:

    (1) Diethelm, P. & McKee, M. (2009) European Journal of Public Health. Denialism: What is it and how should scientists respond. Volume 19, Issue 1, pp. 2-4

    (2) BBC News (2000) Mbeki digs in on Aids

    (3) Gallop (2010) Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design

    (4) Takano, J. (2004) Cigarette Smoking Does Not Cause Cancer

    (5) 'Flying Binghy' (2010) Post #13 in Climate change happening fast

    (6) Diesendorf, M (2009) Climate Action: A campaign manual for greenhouse solutions. Sydney: UNSW Press

    (7) CSIRO & BoM (2010) State of the Climate
     

  2. LOL, ah see i get a mention. I'll coment further when ah stop laughing.... :D






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  3. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    Denialists are driven by a range of motivations. For some it is greed, lured by the corporate largesse of the oil and tobacco industries. For others it is ideology or faith, causing them to reject anything incompatible with their fundamental beliefs. Finally there is eccentricity and idiosyncrasy, sometimes encouraged by the celebrity status conferred on the maverick by the media...

    I probably erred by mentioning a certain individual's name. However it does prove that the above could be a good test case for further research.

    Whatever the motivation, it is important to recognize denialism when confronted with it. The normal academic response to an opposing argument is to engage with it, testing the strengths and weaknesses of the differing views, in the expectations that the truth will emerge through a process of debate. However, this requires that both parties obey certain ground rules, such as a willingness to look at the evidence as a whole, to reject deliberate distortions and to accept principles of logic. A meaningful discourse is impossible when one party rejects these rules. Yet it would be wrong to prevent the denialists having a voice. Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they employ and identifying them publicly for what they are... [psychopathic deniers?].

    Source: Diethelm, P. & McKee, M. (2009) Denialism: What is it and how should scientists respond. European Journal of Public Health. Volume 19, Issue 1, p. 4, emphasis added
     
  4. Ummm... ecodharmamark, is this dumb old hill farmer me included in this descripter ? .... :confused:





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  5. Dreamie

    Dreamie Junior Member

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    Ecodharmamark this just like your opening statement can be very easily rewritten to be seen from the otherside.

    Believers are driven by a range of motivations. For some it is greed, lured by the largesse of Government Handouts, Incentives and Subsidies. For others it is ideology or faith, causing them to reject anything incompatible with their fundamental beliefs. Finally there is eccentricity and idiosyncrasy, sometimes encouraged by the celebrity status examples such as Al Gore, Tim Flannery and even Leonardo DiCaprio are people who are riding the believer band wagon conferred on the maverick by the media...

    Whatever the motivation, it is important to recognize believers when confronted with it. The normal academic response to an opposing argument is to engage with it, testing the strengths and weaknesses of the differing views, in the expectations that the truth will emerge through a process of debate. However, this requires that both parties obey certain ground rules, such as a willingness to look at the evidence as a whole, to reject deliberate distortions and to accept principles of logic. A meaningful discourse is impossible when one party rejects these rules. Yet it would be wrong to prevent the believers having a voice. Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they employ and identifying them publicly for what they are... [psychopathic believers?].

    It is the deniers who want the debate; the deniers want to see the evidence and want to see where the so called “90% confidence” comes from. The deniers want the data to see where the evidence is. It’s the believers who are holding back saying that the science is proven and there is no discussion to be had. The believers are the ones rejecting the rules, but deleting data, fudging the data.

    If there is solid empirical evidence that CO2 is driving the current climate change I will be the first to change my view. However there has been no evidence, all that occurs is a new study comes out that does nothing to prove the point of discussion.

    It is up to the believers to provide the evidence not the other way around.
     
  6. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    SOCIOLOGY OF DENIAL

    The concept of denial is generally considered in the domain of psychology. However, the information individuals find disturbing, and the mechanisms they employ to protect themselves from such information, may also be analyzed within the context of social interaction and the broader political economy...

    British sociologist Stanley Cohen described three varieties of denial: literal, interpretive, and implicatory. Literal denial is "the assertion that something did not happen or is not true". With respect to the issue of global warming, this form of denial is akin to the generation of counterclaims by oil companies that climate change is simply not happening...

    A second variety is interpretive denial in which the facts themselves are not denied but are given a different interpretation. Euphemisms, technical jargon, and word changing are used to dispute the meaning of events-for example, military officials speak of collateral damage rather than the killing of citizens...

    Cohen's third category is implicatory denial. In this case, what is minimized is not information but "the psychological, political or moral implications that conventionally follow - the facts of children starving to death in Somalia, mass rape of women in Bosnia, a massacre in East Timor, homeless people in our streets are recognized, but are not seen as psychologically disturbing or as carrying a moral imperative to act". Unlike literal or interpretive denial, knowledge itself is not at issue, but doing the 'right' thing with the knowledge...


    Source: Norgaard, K. M. (2006) "WE DON'T REALLY WANT TO KNOW": Environmental Justice and Socially Organized Denial of Global Warming in Norway. Organization & Environment. Vol. 19, Iss. 3, pp. 347-371.
     
  7. Hmmm... looks like ah will have to leave eco-harma to his own devices.... i have a vision of ecoharma standing tall with a picture of saint Gore held high in an attempt to ward of all those heathen doubters of the Algorian religion... :D


    By the by, theres a good book about climate science called "The Deniers" by Lawrence Solomon ...here's some sundry extracts -


    Reid Bryson has been called the father of science climatology. He holds the title of the worlds most cited climatologist.... Bryson's verdict on manmade global warming: it is a theory for which there is no credible proof.....the global warming movement distorted science to pursue other agendas. There is very little truth to what is being said and an awful lot of religion....



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  8. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    The subject will often resort to name calling (or ad hominem) tactics when he/she is confronted with examples of their own psychopathological behaviour congruent with the practice of denialism. The psychopathology of ad hominem is well documented in the literature. The works of Freud, Jung and many other classic psychoanalytical texts cover this phenomenon in great detail.
     
  9. LOL, Ya bit ecoharma... ;)

    ecoharma, please go back and refreash your memory ref the attacks you made on me when ah was posting under the "Flying Binghi" callsign (note the "i" not "y" )


    .................:D






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  10. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    Denialist says something wacky...
    Commenter or blogger corrects their mistake...
    Denialist says same thing, changes argument slightly...
    Commenter or blogger again corrects their mistake...
    Denialist says something even wackier, says it disproves all of a field of science...
    Commenter or blogger, exasperated, corrects it and threatens disemvowelment...
    Denialist restates original wacky argument...
    Commenter or blogger's head explodes, calls denialist an idiot.
    Denialist says he won because commenter or blogger resorted to ad hominem.


    Source: Logical fallacies
     
  11. Shut-eyed Denial

    Review extract via Climate Audit -

    Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion is one of the best science books in years. It exposes in delicious detail, datum by datum, how a great scientific mistake of immense political weight was perpetrated, defended and camouflaged by a scientific establishment that should now be red with shame. It is a book about principal components, data mining and confidence intervals—subjects that have never before been made thrilling. It is the biography of a graph.

    I can remember when I first paid attention to the “hockey stick” graph at a conference in Cambridge. The temperature line trundled along with little change for centuries, then shot through the roof in the 20th century, like the blade of an ice-hockey stick. I had become somewhat of a sceptic about the science of climate change, but here was emphatic proof that the world was much warmer today; and warming much faster than at any time in a thousand years. I resolved to shed my doubts. I assumed that since it had been published in Nature—the Canterbury Cathedral of scientific literature—it was true.

    I was not the only one who was impressed. The graph appeared six times in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s third report in 2001. It was on display as a backdrop at the press conference to launch that report. James Lovelock pinned it to his wall. Al Gore used it in his film (though describing it as something else and with the Y axis upside down). Its author shot to scientific stardom. “It is hard to overestimate how influential this study has been,” said the BBC. The hockey stick is to global warming what St Paul was to Christianity...

    ...Well, it happens. People make mistakes in science. Corrections get made. That’s how it works, is it not? Few papers get such scrutiny as this had. But that is an even more worrying thought: how much dodgy science is being published without the benefit of an audit by Mcintyre’s ilk? As a long-time champion of science, I find the reaction of the scientific establishment more shocking than anything. The reaction was not even a shrug: it was shut-eyed denial.

    https://climateaudit.org/2010/03/11/shut-eyed-denial/




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  12. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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  13. Gosh eco-harma, ah just found a magazine article that you would agree with. Apparently we must act now to counter the effects. Its via Newsweek -

    (sundry extracts)
    Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. ....the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.



    .........:cool:







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  14. springtide

    springtide Junior Member

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    EcoD - are you learning how to converse?
     
  15. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Spring

    These past couple of days have seen me learn a great deal about human-induced climate change denialism, and what drives the public face of it . In sum, it is cleverly controlled by those that stand to loose the most in a post-fossil fuel economy. I feel very sorry for the poor drones who, by reason of being susceptible to a pathological trait, are sucked into the bottom of the vortex, only to do the bidding of the faceless ones who head the corporations. At the same time I have been fascinated, almost like when one is drawn to the site of a great tragedy, to witness the extent of the delusion that comes with denialists working at the coal face. I shall write a great paper, to be sure. However, I just wish all the wasted energy put out by the denialists could be put to a more positive, sustainable use. But, that's capitalism for you.

    Hooroo, Marko.
     
  16. What ! no coment on my previous post ? .... :D

    Here it is agian -

    Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. ....the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

    Great stuff eh. It was written back in the 70's when there was a big ice age scare. It were in all the news papers, kids at school were doing projects on the issue, etc ...back then ah was a sceptic (what eco-harma would call a denier) of the coming ice age hysteria.... yep, seen it all before. One big thing different this time tho - the big money to be made from the carbon trading scam. That Al Gore is sure one smart cookie... :D




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  17. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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  18. Had'nt ya heard of the ice age scare ? .... :D





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  19. Wry comment -

    "Al Gore says we need to ask ourselves some tough questions about AGW, but when Al Gore gets asked tough questions about AGW, Al Gore tells security to get tough with those asking the questions"



    Via Paul Z over at The Air Vent


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