7 ms·

Climate Change: A Growing Skepticism

31 points by cm_silva 4y ago

drekipus 4y ago
> Populations are not reacting in the same way everywhere. 55% of Australians (+24 pts) mentioned the flooding that hit their country this year. Nevertheless, their sense of being confronted with climate change is still lower than elsewhere and is not growing. Australia is often hit with floods and fire events almost every year so they have a "everything just as it should be" feel, even if they are getting worse. I think Australia will often be skeptical but we do have a baby state mentality so gradual changes just need to be implemented and made for us. Just this year there's some takes of banging single use plastic for instance. (Not saying it's an effective rule or that it works, just that we've implemented it and seem to be following it)
- iamthemonster 4y ago
  I know what you mean about that baby state mentality but there could be some advantages as the electorate are completely relaxed with heavy market intervention. The recent gas price cap and WA's planned closure of state-owned coal mines haven't registered much more than a shrug on the average voter. Similarly Western Power's (needed) rules around limiting your feed-in to 5kW and reserving the right to remotely shut down your solar. I much prefer the baby state mentality to the other extreme, where government is paralyzed because of rabid opposition to the very idea that government should regulate.
pstuart 4y ago
This is just a dressed up "some people are saying" puff piece.
- jfengel 4y ago
  A "people are saying" piece doesn't have numbers. This is reporting on polling, which is more concrete and actionable. The link is just picking out certain numbers they think are noteworthy. They link to the actual poll results, which are considerably more detailed. It's not the headline I would have chosen, which would be more to the tune of "People more concerned about energy costs than the climate". But that's pointing at a cause rather than just noting the fact, which is that climate change denial is growing despite weather that might have been expected to change minds. (They chose "skepticism", which I don't consider an appropriate word, but it is the commonly-accepted term.)
  - pstuart 4y ago
    Ok, let's add numbers! At some recent point 77% of Americans believed angels are real. That doesn't sway me as it's not evidence (of that, it is of the gullibility of the population). https://www.salon.com/2014/12/20/7_things_americans_think_are_more_plausible_than_global_warming_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2014/12/20/7_things_americans_think_ar... Edit: bumped up the percentage but it's moot
    - jfengel 4y ago
      That's what the piece is about: what people believe. The question of whether climate change is real is a separate question, and one that's considered definitively solved by everybody who actually knows anything about it. The fact that many people don't accept it is a different problem, and that's what TFA is about. The article you cite is similar data: lots of people are dumb. In the case of climate change, more people accept the right answer even though many don't follow the correct reasoning. The number who do accept reality isn't sufficient to achieve serious progress against climate change. Knowing how many don't, and how that number changes, is useful if we're ever going to fix it. So the popular polls have no effect on the question of whether climate change is real, caused by humans, and serious. Both the theory and the evidence are overwhelming. But knowing that is only the beginning, not the end, of the difficulties.
netsharc 4y ago
Donning my armchair psychologist hat, I feel a lot of it is denialism and knee-jerk "Stupid government!" reaction to governments "lecturing" (in their view) about climate change. Maybe the left-vs-right political question is too simplistic, I wonder what it would look like if the pollsters asked "Do you trust or distrust the current government?". Even with something that could kill you within 2 weeks, there were a lot of denialism. Something that could kill you in 50 years? A lot of people are probably thinking "If it's making my life harder now (higher prices for more climate-friendly options) for something 'they say' will kill us in the future, I'd rather focus on making my life more bearable now rather than save the future."
- zackees 4y ago
  [dead]
- claytongulick 4y ago
  > Even with something that could kill you within 2 weeks, there were a lot of denialism Or healthy skepticism, which seems to have been borne out. The numbers were not nearly as dire as we were told they would be, and the government intervention seems to have caused more trouble than it solved. > Something that could kill you in 50 years? For those of us who have been hearing this sort of dire warning our whole life, it does get a bit tiring. New York was supposed to have been under water by now, humans we're supposed to have died by the billions from overpopulation, etc... After ~50 years of being told that the world is going to end Real Soon Now, Donate Here! A bit of disgruntled cynicism is hardly unwarranted.
  - scrollaway 4y ago
    You should not employ the same cynicism and skepticism towards random doomsayers as towards actual experts. I feel like this is such an obvious thing to say. And if you’re seeing “donate here!”, then you’re not listening to someone who is into the science of it. (You may be listening to a well meaning and trustworthy charity, though; but it could also be grifters) I’m pretty positive you’re retconning your past life. Because I remember the shit I was told 20 years ago and it’s on track: Summers of 40 degrees in France. Cold snaps in winter more frequent. Heat waves that are deadlier and more frequent. Swim gear in October. Stuff that wouldn’t have made sense back then. So, either you’re lying to yourself about your past life, or, you listened to the wrong people; in both paths you became a denier (sorry, skeptic). I listened to the right people, I ended up trusting the system. Sounds to me like, while this is overall a systemic problem, you carry some amount of personal, introspective responsibility.
JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
I feel most of the skeptics are forced to assume that position because they cannot say what they truly think: “We will all be dead by the time it becomes serious enough to worry about it” People don’t want to say that to pollsters and so they say they are skeptical about the warming and CO2 emissions being the culprit in the first place
- mozman 4y ago
  I really don’t care since it wont impact me in my life, I consume a ton of energy and generate a lot of waste. I work hard, I want to be comfortable, I remove flow restrictions from shower heads because it feels good. I’m happy to pay for it. I won’t deny myself modern convenience for virtue signaling.
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    Rich people in rich countries are going to be fine. It's poor people in poor countries that area going to suffer.
    - carlivar 4y ago
      So the same as the entirety of human history?
  - exceptione 4y ago
    > I’m happy to pay for it You don't, others do. Besides, deep down you know that you are a parasite. You can do better, come on.
- baandang 4y ago
  I am not skeptical of human caused global warming in the least but I am hugely skeptical of our ability to coordinate and solve a problem even a 1/10th as complex. I would never express this to a pollster though as I don't want to be lumped in with crazy climate deniers and this isn't exactly a nuanced topic.
mattpallissard 4y ago
I know a lot of people that are skeptical of climate change. Not a single one denies it. It's more a along the lines of 'how big a deal is this actually'? They view a lot of messaging from the government and regulatory bodies as alarmist. Which honestly is fair given the fact that most of them have much bigger day to day problems with healthcare, economics, and housing playing out in the short term. It's all relative right?
- ryeights 4y ago
  I know a lot of people that outright deny anthropogenic climate change, for what it’s worth.
- jesterson 4y ago
  Noone denies it. Climate change is something that was happening on this planet for last 4.6bn years for what we know, and most likely will happen in future. What people are denying, and yours truly among them, is follow a bunch of corrupted politicians and "activists" who pushing their destructive (yet lucrative for them) policies under umbrella of "climate change".
  - kazinator 4y ago
    Undeniably, there is man-made global warming, we all agree. It's your fault, and we can fix that if you agree to give me money!
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    The total cost of not acting is almost certainly greater than the cost of acting. It's a matter of who will bear the costs. Not acting pushes the costs off onto others, frequently the poor. Acting requires costs to be borne by the powerful.
    - jesterson 4y ago
      “Almost certainly” is a very subjective definition. We simply don’t know that, so it’s speculation
ggm 4y ago
It's hardly surprising as amelioration starts to hit, the economic losers bring out the army of voices to try and head off things. And, it would be foolish to assume this is not what's going on, because every single prior case of regulatory end of life for an industry has included this kind of "growing skepticism" -including well meaning skeptics who independently voice positions which are leveraged into "told you so" positions in opposition. (see a well known UK "alternative energy cannot scale" website by a now dead statistician which is very well written but is also now 15-20 years behind improvements in science) I am completely not shocked that this is being seen, and more importantly being reported on. I would be amazed if it's not picked up and carried by News Ltd which has a significant AGW amplification posture, despite its denials. If you want a clear signal of change, look to the Insurance industry and defence. Both have a requirement to consider 20-50 year window investment consequences. Both are pretty confident that AGW has costs they want to start to understand. They started this posture several decades ago. I don't see the insurance or re-insurance industry as a bunch of Kumbayah singers, nor defence-materials industry and strategic investment. If they see a problem, then its pretty damn real. I think the insurance industry is going to declare parts of Louisiana and Florida an insurance free zone. If you want to live there, be super rich and self-insure, or be very poor and wear the loss. The middle ground is told to go elsewhere.
- mooreds 4y ago
  If you are into podcasts, I found this episode looking at insurance (and reinsurance) for homes in Florida quite enlightening. https://www.marketplace.org/shows/how-we-survive/risky-business/ https://www.marketplace.org/shows/how-we-survive/risky-busin...
- heywherelogingo 4y ago
  It doesn't help that "global warming" gets renamed to "climate change". I see that NASA hasn't moved sea-level facilities, and private space companies are actively building at sea level. Then you have eg the BBC trying to make a gigantic fuss about the first hot day of summer - rightly mocked by all. The efforts to emphasise the narrative are blatantly... hot air.
  - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tamaharbor 4y ago
I think more people would be convinced if we push to adapt to climate change rather than stop or reverse it, which may not be possible.
- sinuhe69 4y ago
  Yeah. I believe if government starts to introduce climate change adaptation tax then people will definitely talk more about it. Carbon taxing is the first right step.
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
This is analog to when we are dealing with the losing side of a war. It is obvious that the existing Oil&Gas industry, Petro-states, Coal industries (and to an extent many in the Auto industry) will absolutely put up a fight for as long as they can and by whatever means they can _including_ shaping public opinion. We need to have honest discussion at government level on a plan to allow these companies an off ramp out of Fossil fuels. Be it with Hydrogen markets, geo-thermal drilling, Algae cultivation, sequestration, whatever, but something that allows these companies to accelerate a financial exit instead of holding on for as long as they can until regulations eventually sunset them.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Or, to continue the war analogy, we need war crime trials and to not accept "I was just following orders" as an excuse.
  - jfjfnfjcmcnv 4y ago
    Or, look up how many people drive ICE cars before you criminalize these companies for supplying a need.
hackrnusr 4y ago
If humans someday become extinct, what's the big deal? An asteroid could wipe us out as well. Or Nuclear Armageddon. Climate change boondoggle spending is one of the biggest drivers of inflation right now under the Biden administration. Epidemic of retail theft that goes largely unpunished in many US cities is another.

31 points by cm_silva 4y ago

> Populations are not reacting in the same way everywhere. 55% of Australians (+24 pts) mentioned the flooding that hit their country this year. Nevertheless, their sense of being confronted with climate change is still lower than elsewhere and is not growing. Australia is often hit with floods and fire events almost every year so they have a "everything just as it should be" feel, even if they are getting worse. I think Australia will often be skeptical but we do have a baby state mentality so gradual changes just need to be implemented and made for us. Just this year there's some takes of banging single use plastic for instance. (Not saying it's an effective rule or that it works, just that we've implemented it and seem to be following it)

iamthemonster 4y ago
I know what you mean about that baby state mentality but there could be some advantages as the electorate are completely relaxed with heavy market intervention. The recent gas price cap and WA's planned closure of state-owned coal mines haven't registered much more than a shrug on the average voter. Similarly Western Power's (needed) rules around limiting your feed-in to 5kW and reserving the right to remotely shut down your solar. I much prefer the baby state mentality to the other extreme, where government is paralyzed because of rabid opposition to the very idea that government should regulate.

pstuart 4y ago

This is just a dressed up "some people are saying" puff piece.

jfengel 4y ago
A "people are saying" piece doesn't have numbers. This is reporting on polling, which is more concrete and actionable. The link is just picking out certain numbers they think are noteworthy. They link to the actual poll results, which are considerably more detailed. It's not the headline I would have chosen, which would be more to the tune of "People more concerned about energy costs than the climate". But that's pointing at a cause rather than just noting the fact, which is that climate change denial is growing despite weather that might have been expected to change minds. (They chose "skepticism", which I don't consider an appropriate word, but it is the commonly-accepted term.)
- pstuart 4y ago
  Ok, let's add numbers! At some recent point 77% of Americans believed angels are real. That doesn't sway me as it's not evidence (of that, it is of the gullibility of the population). https://www.salon.com/2014/12/20/7_things_americans_think_are_more_plausible_than_global_warming_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2014/12/20/7_things_americans_think_ar... Edit: bumped up the percentage but it's moot
  - jfengel 4y ago
    That's what the piece is about: what people believe. The question of whether climate change is real is a separate question, and one that's considered definitively solved by everybody who actually knows anything about it. The fact that many people don't accept it is a different problem, and that's what TFA is about. The article you cite is similar data: lots of people are dumb. In the case of climate change, more people accept the right answer even though many don't follow the correct reasoning. The number who do accept reality isn't sufficient to achieve serious progress against climate change. Knowing how many don't, and how that number changes, is useful if we're ever going to fix it. So the popular polls have no effect on the question of whether climate change is real, caused by humans, and serious. Both the theory and the evidence are overwhelming. But knowing that is only the beginning, not the end, of the difficulties.

netsharc 4y ago

Donning my armchair psychologist hat, I feel a lot of it is denialism and knee-jerk "Stupid government!" reaction to governments "lecturing" (in their view) about climate change. Maybe the left-vs-right political question is too simplistic, I wonder what it would look like if the pollsters asked "Do you trust or distrust the current government?". Even with something that could kill you within 2 weeks, there were a lot of denialism. Something that could kill you in 50 years? A lot of people are probably thinking "If it's making my life harder now (higher prices for more climate-friendly options) for something 'they say' will kill us in the future, I'd rather focus on making my life more bearable now rather than save the future."

zackees 4y ago
[dead]
claytongulick 4y ago
> Even with something that could kill you within 2 weeks, there were a lot of denialism Or healthy skepticism, which seems to have been borne out. The numbers were not nearly as dire as we were told they would be, and the government intervention seems to have caused more trouble than it solved. > Something that could kill you in 50 years? For those of us who have been hearing this sort of dire warning our whole life, it does get a bit tiring. New York was supposed to have been under water by now, humans we're supposed to have died by the billions from overpopulation, etc... After ~50 years of being told that the world is going to end Real Soon Now, Donate Here! A bit of disgruntled cynicism is hardly unwarranted.
- scrollaway 4y ago
  You should not employ the same cynicism and skepticism towards random doomsayers as towards actual experts. I feel like this is such an obvious thing to say. And if you’re seeing “donate here!”, then you’re not listening to someone who is into the science of it. (You may be listening to a well meaning and trustworthy charity, though; but it could also be grifters) I’m pretty positive you’re retconning your past life. Because I remember the shit I was told 20 years ago and it’s on track: Summers of 40 degrees in France. Cold snaps in winter more frequent. Heat waves that are deadlier and more frequent. Swim gear in October. Stuff that wouldn’t have made sense back then. So, either you’re lying to yourself about your past life, or, you listened to the wrong people; in both paths you became a denier (sorry, skeptic). I listened to the right people, I ended up trusting the system. Sounds to me like, while this is overall a systemic problem, you carry some amount of personal, introspective responsibility.

JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago

I feel most of the skeptics are forced to assume that position because they cannot say what they truly think: “We will all be dead by the time it becomes serious enough to worry about it” People don’t want to say that to pollsters and so they say they are skeptical about the warming and CO2 emissions being the culprit in the first place

mozman 4y ago
I really don’t care since it wont impact me in my life, I consume a ton of energy and generate a lot of waste. I work hard, I want to be comfortable, I remove flow restrictions from shower heads because it feels good. I’m happy to pay for it. I won’t deny myself modern convenience for virtue signaling.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  Rich people in rich countries are going to be fine. It's poor people in poor countries that area going to suffer.
  - carlivar 4y ago
    So the same as the entirety of human history?
- exceptione 4y ago
  > I’m happy to pay for it You don't, others do. Besides, deep down you know that you are a parasite. You can do better, come on.
baandang 4y ago
I am not skeptical of human caused global warming in the least but I am hugely skeptical of our ability to coordinate and solve a problem even a 1/10th as complex. I would never express this to a pollster though as I don't want to be lumped in with crazy climate deniers and this isn't exactly a nuanced topic.

mattpallissard 4y ago

I know a lot of people that are skeptical of climate change. Not a single one denies it. It's more a along the lines of 'how big a deal is this actually'? They view a lot of messaging from the government and regulatory bodies as alarmist. Which honestly is fair given the fact that most of them have much bigger day to day problems with healthcare, economics, and housing playing out in the short term. It's all relative right?

ryeights 4y ago
I know a lot of people that outright deny anthropogenic climate change, for what it’s worth.
jesterson 4y ago
Noone denies it. Climate change is something that was happening on this planet for last 4.6bn years for what we know, and most likely will happen in future. What people are denying, and yours truly among them, is follow a bunch of corrupted politicians and "activists" who pushing their destructive (yet lucrative for them) policies under umbrella of "climate change".
- kazinator 4y ago
  Undeniably, there is man-made global warming, we all agree. It's your fault, and we can fix that if you agree to give me money!
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  The total cost of not acting is almost certainly greater than the cost of acting. It's a matter of who will bear the costs. Not acting pushes the costs off onto others, frequently the poor. Acting requires costs to be borne by the powerful.
  - jesterson 4y ago
    “Almost certainly” is a very subjective definition. We simply don’t know that, so it’s speculation

ggm 4y ago

It's hardly surprising as amelioration starts to hit, the economic losers bring out the army of voices to try and head off things. And, it would be foolish to assume this is not what's going on, because every single prior case of regulatory end of life for an industry has included this kind of "growing skepticism" -including well meaning skeptics who independently voice positions which are leveraged into "told you so" positions in opposition. (see a well known UK "alternative energy cannot scale" website by a now dead statistician which is very well written but is also now 15-20 years behind improvements in science) I am completely not shocked that this is being seen, and more importantly being reported on. I would be amazed if it's not picked up and carried by News Ltd which has a significant AGW amplification posture, despite its denials. If you want a clear signal of change, look to the Insurance industry and defence. Both have a requirement to consider 20-50 year window investment consequences. Both are pretty confident that AGW has costs they want to start to understand. They started this posture several decades ago. I don't see the insurance or re-insurance industry as a bunch of Kumbayah singers, nor defence-materials industry and strategic investment. If they see a problem, then its pretty damn real. I think the insurance industry is going to declare parts of Louisiana and Florida an insurance free zone. If you want to live there, be super rich and self-insure, or be very poor and wear the loss. The middle ground is told to go elsewhere.

mooreds 4y ago
If you are into podcasts, I found this episode looking at insurance (and reinsurance) for homes in Florida quite enlightening. https://www.marketplace.org/shows/how-we-survive/risky-business/ https://www.marketplace.org/shows/how-we-survive/risky-busin...
heywherelogingo 4y ago
It doesn't help that "global warming" gets renamed to "climate change". I see that NASA hasn't moved sea-level facilities, and private space companies are actively building at sea level. Then you have eg the BBC trying to make a gigantic fuss about the first hot day of summer - rightly mocked by all. The efforts to emphasise the narrative are blatantly... hot air.
- 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tamaharbor 4y ago

I think more people would be convinced if we push to adapt to climate change rather than stop or reverse it, which may not be possible.

sinuhe69 4y ago
Yeah. I believe if government starts to introduce climate change adaptation tax then people will definitely talk more about it. Carbon taxing is the first right step.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago

This is analog to when we are dealing with the losing side of a war. It is obvious that the existing Oil&Gas industry, Petro-states, Coal industries (and to an extent many in the Auto industry) will absolutely put up a fight for as long as they can and by whatever means they can _including_ shaping public opinion. We need to have honest discussion at government level on a plan to allow these companies an off ramp out of Fossil fuels. Be it with Hydrogen markets, geo-thermal drilling, Algae cultivation, sequestration, whatever, but something that allows these companies to accelerate a financial exit instead of holding on for as long as they can until regulations eventually sunset them.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Or, to continue the war analogy, we need war crime trials and to not accept "I was just following orders" as an excuse.
- jfjfnfjcmcnv 4y ago
  Or, look up how many people drive ICE cars before you criminalize these companies for supplying a need.

hackrnusr 4y ago

If humans someday become extinct, what's the big deal? An asteroid could wipe us out as well. Or Nuclear Armageddon. Climate change boondoggle spending is one of the biggest drivers of inflation right now under the Biden administration. Epidemic of retail theft that goes largely unpunished in many US cities is another.