I would appreciate any advice on how to improve my communication methods to conservative friends and family regarding the need to address air and water pollution as a global crisis.
The following is a copy of a post and comments on my Facebook page from this past weekend.
============
Me:
Facts don’t always matter if your only intent is to justify your position…
The ugly delusions of the educated conservative
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/24/the_ugly_delusions_of_the_educated_conservative/
Better-educated Republicans are more likely to doubt global warming and believe Obama’s a Muslim. Here’s why
Saturday at 3:00pm
3 friends like this.
Friend 1: Ted:
That’s a good, if disheartening read Tom. On the selfish side, it’s good to you jump into the fray of posting things that get your conservative friends all mad at you like they get at me 🙂 It’s not easy to penetrate the conservative bubble, but I keep poking at it!
Saturday at 3:26pm
Me:
Likewise, Ted, I enjoy your posts and have decided that the risk is worth it. I am sure that my educated conservative friends will be more mad at the messenger for calling them gullible than being mad at the ones who have been lying to them. Worth the risk, I think…
Saturday at 3:36pm
Friend 2: Dan:
Our minds are strange places. Here’s a great lecture on roots of moral consciousness, liberal v. conservative, why we choose sides and ignore the truth, and the challenge of stepping outside the moral matrix to challenge our self-righteousness:
Sunday at 11:25am
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives | Video on TED.com
TED Talks Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.
Sunday at 11:25am
Friend 2: Dan:
BTW, I’m quite concerned with some of my conservative friends’ ability to disregard climate science; otherwise smart people doing exactly what the article you posted describes. One of them recently emailed me a quote which I think he was using to justify a willful ignorance: “Only intuition can save you from the most dangerous individual of all, the articulate incompetent.” In other words, don’t try to confuse me with the facts when my gut tells me it’s wrong — instead I’ll declare you incompetent.
Sunday at 11:32am *
Me:
Excellent lecture, thanks Dan. Now, here’s the problem (and you touched on it): I really am convinced that a large percentage of people in the world need to understand the need for us to collectively address the problems of air and water pollution. My efforts to persuade with logic, science, and economic facts isn’t working because of the reasons laid out in both of our links. So, I am now forced to either give up, or to try to appeal to moral values and intent. Of the 5 moral foundations described in your link, all but one should lead a moral person to the conclusion that these pollution problems should be fixed.
(1) harm and care
(2) fairness (pollution is caused by some and hurts others)
(3) in-group loyalty (here is what is causing the problem, I think).
(4) respect for authority (unfortunately, the scientific institutions, such as the national academy of science and my alma matter Penn State, are not respected due to #3).
(5) purity/sanctity (clean air and water are virtuous).
So, instead of attacking through logic, I should work on getting my friends and the public in general to take a hard look at their morals and intentions. If I am not in trouble with my conservative friends already, I will be now!
Sunday at 3:48pm *
Conservative Family Member: Jim:
I have two questions for you. I want to know two things. Can you tell me who has the data sets for the last hundred years of temperature? The raw data, including collection points and methods? That’s what science is about, yes? Where is the data? Who has it? Why are they not public record? Do they still exist, or have they been “lost?” For my second question, once you have the data, can we see the source code for the computer models that predict catastrophic results? I ask because the data is the basis of science, and the source code can tell us if the climate scientists are also qualified programmers. My guess is that it doesn’t, and they are not. If you can provide those two things, then you have an argument based on logic and the scientific method. Anything else, and you’re introducing politics and funding into the equation, which changes your argument substantially.
Sunday at 6:31pm *
Conservative Family Member: Jim :
I’ll believe climate change is a crisis when the people telling me it’s a problem start acting like it’s a crisis. Sell the jets and the big homes, get China and India on board, start publishing the data instead of hiding behind FOIA requests, and come up with a global plan that if it’s going to cost $15 trillion does more than slow down the temperature rise by a tenth of a degree. Since none of us are climate scientists, the easy way to find out what is happening is to look at the solutions. And the solutions are always the same. More taxes, more control, and more subsidies to well-connected lobbyists. Green technologies have filtered billions of dollars to failed companies in wind, solar, and alternative fuels. It made some people very rich, and has raised tens of millions for politicians, and has made the career of a lot of journalists. We don’t allow drilling domestic oil or even pipelines now to save the planet, but we’re fine with Brazil drilling? We’re supposed to take the word of people like Peter Gleick? I do believe morals and intentions have a lot to do with it. See, it’s easy to talk about “saving the world.” It makes people feel good to vote based on good intentions. It’s much harder to stand up to people who consider you an idiot for daring to ask where they got their data.
Sunday at 6:36pm *
Me:
The National Academy of Sciences is one of many credible sources. Try here:
http://dels-old.nas.edu/climatechange/
I had you as one person in mind as I wrote this. My Alma Mater, Penn State, one of the leading institutions in the field of environmental sciences, was forced to investigate one of its leading scientists (Dr Mann) in this field, because politically motivated people like you accused him of scientific misconduct. Your unqualified assessments, pedantic at best, were done with what intent, Jim??
Climate Change at the National Academies
http://dels-old.nas.edu/climatechange/
Sunday at 6:49pm *
Friend 2: Dan:
http://data.worldbank.org/climate-change
Open Data Resources for Climate Change | Data
Free and open access to the world’s most comprehensive collection of economic and development data. Browse, map, graph, or download data by country, topic on over 4,000 indicators. Available in English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Arabic.
Sunday at 7:55pm *
Friend 2: Dan:
I see what you mean, Tom.
Sunday at 7:56pm
Conservative Family Member: Jim:
Dan – that link you provided is a series of models pulling data from the CRU 2003 series. It’s not raw data. It’s the massaged data that is at the center of Climategate. Ask the CRU. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/availability/ Phil Jones said the data was no longer available. Except it was. They released different sets finally last summer, 9 years after getting the FOIA requests. So while you’re smugly winking at Tom about stupid conservatives, the data you’ve provided isn’t the raw data at all. it’s the massaged version that has already had a series of problems when compared to the actual data in New Zealand, Australia. You just gave me temperature modeling that is designed to show catastrophic effects of climate change, based on data that has been massaged to hide the MWP. You know – the famous Hockey Stick that was at the center of the IPCC “consensus” that was not a consensus.
CRU Data Availability
www.cru.uea.ac.uk
The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) has, since 1982, made available gridded datasets of surface temperature data over land areas and averages for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and the Globe.
Sunday at 10:31pm
Friend 2: Dan:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-10/climate-skeptic%E2%80%99s-new-climate-study-confirms-%
E2%80%98global-warming-real
Climate Skeptic Sponsors New Climate Study, Confirms `Global Warming Is Real’ | Popular Science
Last year, as climate change deniers were up in arms over the so-called “Climate-gate” controversy involving alleged manipulation of climate data, one skeptical scientist proposed taking a fresh look.
Sunday at 10:35pm
Conservative Family Member: Jim:
I’m not qualified to judge the climate data, but then neither are either of you – even you Tom, haven’t looked at the data and studied statistics and software sufficiently to make any claims. You’re working off your research of the matter in your spare time. I didn’t go to Penn State, and don’t know Michael Mann, but I do have a stake in the political decisions made from research into the climate. I have a right to question it, and to discuss it, and to work against bad solutions (like the statism I mentioned before), but I also have an interest in improving the level of discourse. When you start by calling me stupid (having me in mind with the title of that post), can you say that my intent is somehow to attack Mann? Or is it to find the truth? If Climate science is real, then why is Peter Gleick manufacturing evidence about Heartland just as Heartland is suing UVA to get Mann’s original logs? You know about Peter Gleick, right? He’s a climate expert. He’s also a fraud facing possible criminal charges for publishing a fake memo about global warming skeptics. You’ve made the charge that i’m pedantic and politically motivated. I’ll make the charge that to protect your school’s reputation, and that of the scientific community in general, you’re closing ranks around frauds because the thought of them being wrong is too painful to contemplate. One of us is emotionally involved in this decision. The other is just a blogger who reads and wonders why every climate solution ends with massive government bureaucracy and slush funds to connected donors (solyndra anyone?).
Friend 2: Dan:
Well James, as you’re smugly dismissing one link, here’s another, in which a former sceptic reviewed extensive data and realized he was wrong. I’ve got friends who won’t acknowledge the evidence either, so I’ll leave the conversation to you and Tom, but the scientific community at large has agreed on the facts, and they don’t have private planes and big homes to sell, like the entrenched cabal of big oil and energy execs do.
Sunday at 10:47pm
Conservative Family Member: Jim:
Don’t go yet Dan.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-prove
d-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html
Professor Muller’s epic report showed that the temperature has not risen in at least 13 years, contrary to all of the models. But don’t believe me, ask Professor Curry, on Muller’s team. See what happened was you went to Google and pulled a bubble gum article out, without knowing much about it. Professor Muller jumped the gun, which is why he’s sending the papers back to peer review, and the folks like PopSci writer Rebecca Boyle jumped all over it. But if Muller’s data doesn’t show it, and his team disagrees with his statement, does that mean there’s no warming? No, it just shows that I’ve been paying attention longer than you have, and don’t count Google as my primary source. We don’t know what is happening. The lack of warming is now being attributed to the oceans, and to falling clouds, which could be the case. But if the scientific consensus was correct in 2003, why do they have to keep coming up with new theories to fit the facts?
Scientists who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague.
Sunday at 10:59pm
Conservative Family Member: Jim:
But remember, there are clear evolutionary reasons why I believe what I do. It’s completely reasonable to suggest that people are Republicans because of their genetic code based on a single study in Nebraska.
Sunday at 11:27pm
Me:
I have several conservative friends and family in mind as I write this. My intention is to appeal to your moral foundations to consider the following:
The most highly reputable scientific organization, during the Bush administration in 2005, has concluded that we must act regarding air pollution.
I assume we share the moral values of not wanting people harmed and that we seek fairness. For example, we do not want to make everybody pay for something unnecessarily if there is not a costly problem. I am asking you to consider the values of purity and sanctity: doesn’t it make sense that clean air and water are things to be valued? Now the hard part. Ask yourself, do you really think that the vast majority of qualified scientists are flying around in private jets and conspiring to make this stuff up?? Yes, you can find some lone examples. But the fact is they are outnumbered by 100 to 1. I have given up trying logic and reason. Instead I appeal to your sense of and respect for authority. Let’s start with the National Academy of Sciences, the largest organization of the best scientists in the World
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Academy_of_Sciences
Sunday at 11:52pm
Me:
An example of how a reputable publication discusses important subjects with authority and good intentions:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-peter-gleick-incident
The Peter Gleick Incident: All Heat and No Light: Scientific American
Me:
How about MIT?? Far more credible than getting information from the (British) tabloids! On which should you base your moral judgments?? The Daily Mail tabloid or MIT??
http://globalchange.mit.edu/files/document/MITJPSPGC-Outlook2012.pdf
Conservative Family Member: Jim:
I deleted several comments because you’re not actually discussing anything. You’re posting random bits of information and citing authority from them, but your original post was an insult, claiming that Republicans (a political party, not a genetic group) have an abnormality that prevents them from understanding logic. You actually posted that. Examine your own intentions, and the next time you’re going to call me stupid, keep it to just a few words and do it directly. It will save all of us some time.
