Question: What mistakes are made in the effort to communicate information about global warming?
Matthew Nisbet: Well, you know, what's interesting is that the conservative movement actually used audience research to figure out the frames that would downplay the urgency of the issue. So, Frank Luntz a well known GOP pollster using focus groups in polling wrote a now infamous memo earlier this decade suggesting to conservative leaders if they wanted to downplay the urgency, keep reinforcing for the public that the scientific debate remains open and that any policy action will lead to unfair economic consequences for the United States. Why? Because countries like the India and China are not playing along. Environmentalists, initially Al Gore in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" and even some scientists and then following their lead, journalists decided that the best way to respond to this strategic framing on the part of conservatives is to really to go with what I call the Pandora's box frame, dramatize the urgency of climate change and the science by using examples of major climatic impacts such as more intense hurricanes, melting polar ice, the threat to polar bears, et cetera. There is really three problems with that message. The first problem is that compared to the general phenomena of human activities leading to rising temperatures, each one of these impacts the level of scientific uncertainty is much greater than the general phenomena of global warming. So, each one of these claims can be answered by conservatives as "Oh, you're just engaging in alarmism." The second problem is that it's kind of like the anti-drug message in the 1980s. "This is your climate. This is your climate on greenhouse gasses." It's essentially a fear appeal. And what we know from research is that if you go at the public with a fear appeal and you don't give them solutions or ways that they can take into account some type of action to deal with that risk, it translates into fatalism. "Oh, there's nothing we can do about it. It's so complex. The train has left the station. There's nothing- nothing can be done about climate change." And the third problem is that it really only appeals to people who already have strong environmental values. Many people living in urban cities, many moderate republicans, they don't care about polar bears. They might think polar bears are cute. They might think that the polar region is an important place, but they have a lot of other more important things that they care about. And it really only intensifies the opinion of people who already care about climate change to go within the Pandora's Box presentation. So, that's why we suggest that there needs to be new interpretations on climate change that in fact, activate that hard to reach in many cases Republican base and to recast climate change as an energy problem, an energy opportunity to grow the economy around investment in renewable energy or to put into the mental box that this is fundamentally a national security problem or alternatively say, in fact, actually this is a moral and religious problem. We have a duty to future generations and we have a duty to God's creation to take care of the Earth and if we don't do so, then it's not being a good Christian.
Discuss
Vicki Nikolaidis on July 13, 2009, 10:56 AM
Matthew, I appreciate this research and the suggestions you make are good, I’ve tried to use them if I’m having a conversation with someone who starts calling me names or swears at me because they won’t discuss the environment using their own thoughts and experiences. I say won’t rather than can’t because they could but they are invovled in the phenomena of the “true believer” and won’t allow themselves to consider facts.
I’ve found it uncanny how almost immediately the conversation turns to calling me names, in particular an “alarmist.” That alerts me to the way the conversation will proceed and I try to continue with patience and respect. So although I’m considering something interesting, such as how to get water to people when their glacial reservoir of water has melted, I’m accused of bringing up a scare tactic. Strange and boring but I try to carry on civilly.
If you consider the whole population of the world, the majority of people grasp that there is a problem with world climate and can intelligently discuss at least some of the implications of this destructive proces.
The “climate change” label for global warming seems to have backfired as the problems are in fact climate disrubtions/extreme weather phenomena and can most simply be described as climate change. Some one watching tornadoes unfold on the weather report or living in Tornado Alley can easily understand that a change is happening.
The argument that “develping countires have to do an equal share” or the burden of problem solving measures is unfair – this is how children argue. The U.S.A has used more resources than other countries and caused more environmental problems in their own country and around the world. The insistance of being a military super power has destroyed much of the environment and the particles dispersed from war and military tests into the air are showing their full danger.
The circumstance that a moderate Republican urban couple cannot understand immediately why the extinction of the polar bear has an implication on their own future is a sad commentary on the educational system in the U.S.
People have to be very oblivious to changes in their surroundings and their weather to notice surprising changes. Even an urban balcony garden will be experiencing different growing seasons than in previous years.
Goodness, I DO have a point! We need to engage those in the U.S.A. that argue about the need to remedy the pollution problems in order to lessen the damage from global warming. Otherwise we are regarding them with as little respect as their leaders regard them. Vicki
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