[dohboi]

[Lore]

The discussion is actually about who is dragging their feet. Policy makers willfully ignoring the problem equals no action.

[Timo]

The discussion is actually about who is dragging their feet. Policy makers willfully ignoring the problem equals no action.

Agreed, but at times those same policy makers succeed in blocking action, or even acknowledging a problem exists. There is no climate change in Florida or Wisconsin. The rest of us are F'd.

[Keith_McClary]

Online course from University of Queensland (Started April 28th, 2015, no mention if it will be repeated)
Making Sense of Climate Science Denial

Climate change is real, so why the controversy and debate? Learn to make sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial.

About this course
In public discussions, climate change is a highly controversial topic. However, in the scientific community, there is little controversy with 97% of climate scientists concluding humans are causing global warming.

Why the gap between the public and scientists?
What are the psychological and social drivers of the rejection of the scientific consensus?
How has climate denial influenced public perceptions and attitudes towards climate change?
This course examines the science of climate science denial.

We will look at the most common climate myths from “global warming stopped in 1998” to “global warming is caused by the sun” to “climate impacts are nothing to worry about.”

We’ll find out what lessons are to be learnt from past climate change as well as better understand how climate models predict future climate impacts. You’ll learn both the science of climate change and the techniques used to distort the science.

With every myth we debunk, you’ll learn the critical thinking needed to identify the fallacies associated with the myth. Finally, armed with all this knowledge, you’ll learn the psychology of misinformation. This will equip you to effectively respond to climate misinformation and debunk myths.

This isn’t just a climate MOOC; it’s a MOOC about how people think about climate change.

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What you'll learn
How to recognise the social and psychological drivers of climate science denial
How to better understand climate change: the evidence that it is happening, that humans are causing it and the potential impacts
How to identify the techniques and fallacies that climate myths employ to distort climate science
How to effectively debunk climate misinformation

Level: Introductory
Length: 7 weeks
Effort: 1-2 hours per week
Subject: Communication
Institution: UQx
Languages: English
Video Transcripts: English
Price: FREE
Add a Verified Certificate for $100

Prerequisites
Basic high school science recommended.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ate-denial

[ennui2]

You might as well have a MOOC about why people think we didn't land on the moon or the earth is 6,000 years old. It's a neverending battle.

[jedrider]

Well, an interesting article here, with a very appropriate title as well:

Destroying What Remains

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dahr-jamail/destroying-what-remains_b_7361170.html

Seems to me to be a rightwing obligation, to get closer to the rapture or whatever they are seeking.

[kmann]

As a card-carrying rightwinger, I can tell you what we seek is peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

[Scrub Puller]

Yair. . .

Kmann You did forget to press the Sarc. button . . . no?

Cheers.

[sparky]

.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnAzoDtwCBg
for the impatient start at 5:16

[dohboi]

This pretty much says it all: https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/ ... png&w=1484



As usual, double click and pick 'view image' to get the whole picture.

[onlooker]

Great find Dohboi, yes that for sure says it all. Got to feel bad so much ignorance abounds. These people have truly been brainwashed. Just goes to show you just having a brain is not sufficient. One must learn to use it and use it critically.

[Tanada]

Great find Dohboi, yes that for sure says it all. Got to feel bad so much ignorance abounds. These people have truly been brainwashed. Just goes to show you just having a brain is not sufficient. One must learn to use it and use it critically.

You are looking at it all wrong if you see that graph as everyone is ignorant. 38 percent of the hardest hard core Conservatives believe climate change will effect their lives and another 29 percent believe their will be effects in the future after they are themselves dead. This question is a bit deceptive because the older a conservative is the more hard core they tend to be so by the time you get to the hardest core you have a lot of elderly folks in the mix who do not expect to live another 20-50 years. All those elders who believe Climate Change will effect their children and grandchildren fall into that 20 percent.

You have to interpret political graphs about the future by age group, the most left are often the youngest while the most right are usually elderly as an average. The other factor is most voters tend more towards the middle than either extreme.

[Pops]

That is a great chart. Here is is smaller (using tinypic.com) because the important part is hidden:




What is striking is the "who's to blame" part.

Makes perfect sense and really it has nothing to do with who is stupid or who has the money but is totally explained by the label — "conservatives" by definition, do not like change, they do not want to think that change is necessary, they do not want to think that they have done anything that warrants change. Typically they think God is on their side and they are made in his image so how could anything be their/His fault?

All the ad homs are pointless, you are as apt to change a conservative's mind on the environment as you are on religion — to a conservative this is all a veil, just a pop quiz to see who gets the 72 virgins. And good portion of them believe the rapture will happen in their lifetime, whether the oceans rise a few inches means nothing.

I've been saying this from the beginning of the Great Climate Change Doom faction co-opting the environment forum here, you might as well try to shame "deniers" and "shills" into saying they don't believe in God
.

[sparky]

.
and not a comment on Margaret Thatcher being the leading figure on the danger of climate change !

....for shame , you guys are useless !

[dohboi]

Thanks for resizing that, Pops.

"conservatives" by definition, do not like change

Except their actions and non-actions are in the process of bringing about some of the fastest ecological changes seen by the planet in hundreds of millions of years.

That's the kind of change I don't like, so I guess that makes me some kind of 'paleo-conservative'?

sparky, we're talking about modern US arch-conservatives, here. It's actually quite a recent thing even for US right-wing Repugs to be this uniformly anti-climate science.

And yes, Thatcher, trained as a chemist, understood full well the dire consequences of GW and the long-term devastating consequences to her beloved little island. (It was just the poor and needy that she threw under the bus! )

[Ibon]

I've been saying this from the beginning of the Great Climate Change Doom faction co-opting the environment forum here, you might as well try to shame "deniers" and "shills" into saying they don't believe in God
.

We should also remember that those who surrender their reason to a patriarchal god secretly desire to have their bottoms spanked for bad behavior. What conservatives don't tell you is that they are the first ones who will welcome climate chaos as a chance to frame this as an opportunity at redemption to please father.

[ennui2]

This also explains why I bristle at all of the heat Obama has gotten on his environmental record. Everything's relative and if you had an arch-conservative in the whitehouse then his or her actions would be 10x worse.