The thinking error that makes people susceptible to climate change denial

[Still Waters]

Cold spells often bring climate change deniers out in force on social media, with hashtags like #ClimateHoax and #ClimateScam. Former President Donald Trump often chimes in, repeatedly claiming that each cold snap disproves the existence of global warming.

From a scientific standpoint, these claims of disproof are absurd. Fluctuations in the weather don’t refute clear long-term trends in the climate.

Yet many people believe these claims, and the political result has been reduced willingness to take action to mitigate climate change.

Why are so many people susceptible to this type of disinformation?

https://theconversation.com/the-thinking-error-that-makes-people-susceptible-to-climate-change-denial-204607

[pellinore]

Absurd, yes, but last year's heatwave (and this year's predicted one) is making it harder for people to keep denying it. Also the fluctuations and catastrophic floods is starting to convert deniers.

What is more of a problem is the hypocrisy: people flying around the world on private jets to attend climate change conferences is one example, and advocates of EVs driving gas-guzzling 4x4s themselves is another.

It seems the elite want to see us all cycling to work and huddling around a single light bulb at home in the winter evenings, while their lifestyles are unchanged.

 

Edited May 7 by pellinore

[SHaYap]

When we burn, we'll take them all down with us... It'll be fun 

~

[lightly]

When we see some of the newest ,farther away,  satellite images of Earth…I’m struck by how thin our Atmosphere is..you can barely see it ! Then you look at those big continents pouring greenhouse gases into it .CO2 76% (up 50% in 200yrs.). and Methane 16%.. & others..  it should be easily understood.   Greenhouse gases trap solar heat in our atmosphere.. this unnatural heat clashes with our natural cold air masses..causing more Frequent Violent storms/tornadoes/hurricanes! as we are Seeing.  ?

[itsnotoutthere]

 

[itsnotoutthere]

 

[TripGun]

They say it will take 50 trillion dollars for the USA to be carbon neutral by 2050 but the effect of just the USA doing it is minimal at best.

Edited May 8 by TripGun

[itsnotoutthere]

6 minutes ago, TripGun said:

They say it will take 50 trillion dollars for the USA to be carbon neutral by 2050 but the effect of just the USA doing it is minimal at best.

Negligible. 

[+Liquid Gardens]

1 hour ago, itsnotoutthere said:

 

From the OP, emphasis mine:

"A 2021 review of thousands of climate science papers and conference proceedings concluded that over 99% of studies have found that burning fossil fuels warms the planet. That’s not good enough for some skeptics. If they find one contrarian scientist somewhere, they categorize the idea of human-caused global warming as controversial and conclude that there is no basis for action."

[fred_mc]

13 minutes ago, TripGun said:

They say it will take 50 trillion dollars for the USA to be carbon neutral by 2050 but the effect of just the USA doing it is minimal at best.

If all countries think like that, nobody will do anything.

[lightly]

When renewable ((((((((energy)))))))) becomes cheaper to produce …the days of coal and petroleum, as energy sources, will be over.  

Edited May 8 by lightly

[itsnotoutthere]

29 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

From the OP, emphasis mine:

"A 2021 review of thousands of climate science papers and conference proceedings concluded that over 99% of studies have found that burning fossil fuels warms the planet. That’s not good enough for some skeptics. If they find one contrarian scientist somewhere, they categorize the idea of human-caused global warming as controversial and conclude that there is no basis for action."

Try watching the first video. 

[lightly]

44 minutes ago, TripGun said:

They say it will take 50 trillion dollars for the USA to be carbon neutral by 2050 but the effect of just the USA doing it is minimal at best.

Do they?    So, in other words, someone is going to make 50 trillion dollars replacing fossil fuel energy with renewable energy ?    I don’t like subsidies either, but I dislike dead oceans and a dying ecosystem more… which is what will happen eventually if we keep poisoning the earth.

Edited May 8 by lightly

[Chaldon]

This whole problem is so costly to solve so it's all up to the politics, they have all the money and the organizational powers. People can't do much. But the politics are more concerned about their intricate plans and affairs. Common people just can't abandon all of their existing cars and switch to EVs paying our their money for that. The same is with the solar power, house heating, etc. Most of the people in the world is poor and will reject doing it even on credit. People are tired of living on credit around the world. Only either for free, or very gradually, 50 years or more, just to survive through all the costs and expenses.

EDIT: Removed the rant.

Edited May 8 by Chaldon

[Wreck7]

As soon as people saw the government(s) creating a tax for global warming and censoring scientist that had opposing views to it, all credibility went out the window. 

[Jon the frog]

The very short ranged perception of time and geography doesn't help at all. Climate change sometime fast and sometime slowly, the problem is determining tresholds where ecosystems cannot survive and entire systems collapses.

It's sure that we are influencing climate, we are burning ancestral carbon that was stocked during million years process in years. How it will turn-up is a more difficult question and not knowing how it will turn up is way scarier than knowing.

Edited May 8 by Jon the frog

[Cho Jinn]

"climate change is a hoax"

Because people pose inaccurate and abstract hypothetical questions designed to get other people talking past each other, for clicks.  As with anything, those who are screaming at you to shut up and believe what they're telling you (often while acting in contravention thereof) should give you an idea of what the larger goal is. 

[Gumball]

It's how you glean your information. Every organisation, government body, charity and social media page will have a very definite agenda and will skew any and all information to fit their statistics and percentages.  Most folk get their information now from 30 second vids of memes, false claims and false prophets. It all makes for a very confusing and confrontational environment but then every social subject we are all trying to get our heads round is the same. Social media has become a true poison in modern society.

Edited May 8 by Gumball

[Edumakated]

Ok.  I'll bite.

I am a skeptic.  Climate is always changing and we know from the historical record there have been some significant changes well before man was driving 5000lb SUVs.   With that said, I do think we should always be trying to improve our technology to reduce our impact on the environment.  So no, I don't support guys rolling coal and I generally do like alternative fuel sources.

The reason I'm a skeptic is there is this religious fervor from climate alarmist but also I see a lot of hypocrisy and suppression of alternative viewpoints.  In addition, I see governments using climate alarmism as a way to control the population.  I think anyone should be skeptical when it seems like every solution is raising taxes and taking personal freedoms.

You can't have alarmist telling me that we are all doomed and sea levels are going to rise therefore I must give up my v8 car and turn off my air conditioning.   Meanwhile, the elites are still buying beachfront mansions and flying private.  I mean Al Gore's guest closet has a bigger carbon footprint than my entire home, yet he is supposed to be telling us inconvenient truths?  ****H.

Lastly, there is one question I can never get a solid answer on.   What is the optimal climate?  For climate change to be an issue, it then must follow that there is some optimal climate since we are so concerned about it changing.  Are scientist now saying that the present climate is the optimal climate?  Why not the climate from 500 years ago?  Maybe climate change is a good thing.  If it is warming that would help food production and crops.

I'm open to honest debate and discussion of facts.  I'd love to see the climate alarmist and skeptics have a detailed and thorough debate.   What I don't think we should be doing is screwing up our economy and spending trillions on a theory without thorough debate and discussion of all viewpoints.

[Arbenol]

2 hours ago, Edumakated said:

Lastly, there is one question I can never get a solid answer on.   What is the optimal climate?  For climate change to be an issue, it then must follow that there is some optimal climate since we are so concerned about it changing.  Are scientist now saying that the present climate is the optimal climate?  Why not the climate from 500 years ago?  Maybe climate change is a good thing.  If it is warming that would help food production and crops.

I don't think there's any optimal climate, but our societies and Earth's ecosystems have developed in a period of climate stability. Whilst it's true that climate certainly does change over time, the real issue here is the rate that it changes. And right now we're seeing significantly rapid changes. The Earth's ecosystems, and all their inhabitants, have adapted or died in response to environmental changes throughout the planet's history. But it's arguable that speed of change will happen too fast. When this has happened historically the evidence suggests great upheaval in the planet's biosystems.

Ecosystems often struggle to adapt to rapid change causing extinctions.

Human civilizations developed in areas where the going was good. We built on flood plains and on the coasts. The displacement of people driven from these areas by more frequent extreme weather events will likely be a huge issue for future generations.

Warmer weather will help food production. But a warmer atmosphere is more energetic. This will produce an increase in severe weather events. There's evidence that we are already seeing the effects of that. Severe, crop-damaging weather is likely to offset any benefits of warmer temperatures.

It's probably too late to reverse it. We should focus on mitigation. Either way (tax hikes to reduce emissions vs dealing with the effects) the cost is going to be massive. This is one of the main reasons kids are so mad about it. They know it's going to be them that have to bear the brunt of that cost.

[Twoplustwoskin]

2 hours ago, Edumakated said:

Ok.  I'll bite.

I am a skeptic.  Climate is always changing and we know from the historical record there have been some significant changes well before man was driving 5000lb SUVs.   With that said, I do think we should always be trying to improve our technology to reduce our impact on the environment.  So no, I don't support guys rolling coal and I generally do like alternative fuel sources.

The reason I'm a skeptic is there is this religious fervor from climate alarmist but also I see a lot of hypocrisy and suppression of alternative viewpoints.  In addition, I see governments using climate alarmism as a way to control the population.  I think anyone should be skeptical when it seems like every solution is raising taxes and taking personal freedoms.

You can't have alarmist telling me that we are all doomed and sea levels are going to rise therefore I must give up my v8 car and turn off my air conditioning.   Meanwhile, the elites are still buying beachfront mansions and flying private.  I mean Al Gore's guest closet has a bigger carbon footprint than my entire home, yet he is supposed to be telling us inconvenient truths?  ****H.

Lastly, there is one question I can never get a solid answer on.   What is the optimal climate?  For climate change to be an issue, it then must follow that there is some optimal climate since we are so concerned about it changing.  Are scientist now saying that the present climate is the optimal climate?  Why not the climate from 500 years ago?  Maybe climate change is a good thing.  If it is warming that would help food production and crops.

I'm open to honest debate and discussion of facts.  I'd love to see the climate alarmist and skeptics have a detailed and thorough debate.   What I don't think we should be doing is screwing up our economy and spending trillions on a theory without thorough debate and discussion of all viewpoints.

I'll say my opinion. Not that it matters but I'll give a little background of where I come from information wise.  I have a geology degree, no not climate science but I did take undergraduate courses that teach about climate and paleoclimate.  I also have a nerdy interest in science and have watched and read many things regarding this topic as I have some family members that like to openly debate and claim it's BS, so I have looked into it myself more than I would have liked to.  

You make some great points but I'll address a few things. 

Yes the climate has always changed.  The problem is that we have not seen it change this fast before.  The major problem with that is that many life forms have problems adapting to this swift of a shift in climate, and there's a real chance that many will go extinct, which is bad for the whole balance of nature. Nature will find a way of course, but it could have negative consequences on food production.  In fact, many species are currently going extinct and scientists think we are now officially in the middle of a mass extinction event.  This is due to humans infiltrating into nature and not leaving many areas left for these creatures to live, compounded with a changing climate, and pollutants.

I agree it's super annoying and misleading how the media portrays this all, especially from the left, which makes up the majority of media. They make it sound doom and gloom and that is bogus. 

I dont' have an answer to what the optimal climate is. It depends what each individuals definition of that would be based on where they live, but as for humanity I would assume that to be the optimum temperature to produce the maximum amount of food, and I'm guessing the optimum climate would be a little warmer than it is now.  however, like I said earlier, the problem is not that its warming, but how fast it's warming.

The main things that will effect humans is that the oceans will rise, which if I remember correctly, will displace roughly 3 billion people. The other thing is that with changing climate, some agrictural lands wont be arable any more. literally the arable lands will shift as some areas become too arid to farm.  some places will be able to just change what crop they grow, and that is already happening.

Basically it will cost a bunch of money and there will be a mass exodus of people since billlions live on the coasts. Some food chains could also collapse.  We should do something about it but it's not some apocalypse for humanity, and I agree we shouldn't have to pay more taxes because of this.

Edited May 9 by Twoplustwoskin

[OpenMindedSceptic]

Climate change is a hoax, designed to get more tax, control movement and ramp up the fear message.

We currently have low CO2 levels. We would benefit by having higher amounts.

My personal bug bear statements:

"97% of climate scientists agree"... errrrr, no they didn't. Read the question they were asked.

"Rising sea levels"... errrrr if you mean meaningless rises then maybe but nothing cataclysmic.

"EV is a better for the environment"... probably not but even if it is, it's such a marginal call.

"It's destroying the vegetation".... errrr no, we have something like 15% more vegetation since 2000.

This climate emergency was first brought to me around 1986. We had to "act now" to save water, whales and the planet. 30 years later, with the 'meedya' telling me CO2 levels rising, (what happened to good old CFC?) it's an emergency = no emergencies have happened.

It's another 'hole in the ozone layer' scam. 

[Essan]

3 hours ago, OpenMindedSceptic said:

Climate change is a hoax, designed to get more tax, control movement and ramp up the fear message.

Yes, and those dastardly climatologists have been working on the hoax for over 150 years .... 

Back in the real world:

Atmospheric research provides clear evidence of human-caused climate change signal associated with CO2 increases

[Essan]

3 hours ago, OpenMindedSceptic said:

It's another 'hole in the ozone layer' scam. 

You do realise the reason the hole in the ozone layer has recovered is because we banned use of the chemicals that created the hole in the first place? 

[+joc]

The really big news would be if there was no Climate Change.  The Climate is always changing.  The entire, mankind is responsible for Climate Change is the hoax.  Even if we are...so what?  We all die someday?  News flash!  Helloooooo!  We are all going to die.  At some point the planet will go extinct.  It happens...uh...it Always happens.  

If you can convince people that We are responsible for the change, and only the Ones Who Get It can stop it...then you have suddenly acquiesced a large degree of control over that part of the population.  It's really easy to manipulate those who are in their twenties because they think 40 years is like, Forever...but those of us who were in our twenties fourty years ago no better.  It's not that long.

A good rule of thumb might be to just wake up every morning and think okay...who is going to try to control me today.  Because that's all it's about.  How to control YOU!

Edited May 9 by joc