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Responding to Climate Change MythsJohn Cook
Date: 14 July 2013
One Model of the Human Brain
A More Accurate Model of the Human BrainA More Accurate Model of the Human Brain
The Familiarity Backfire Effect
The Familiarity Backfire Effect
Danger, Will Robinson!Approaching
myth!
The Overkill Backfire Effect
• A simple myth is more cognitively attractive than an over-complicated correction (Schwarz et al 2007)
The Overkill Backfire Effect
• A simple myth is more cognitively attractive than an over-complicated correction (Schwarz et al 2007)
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one
instead.”MARK TWAIN
The Worldview Backfire Effect
One last psychological pitfall
An Alternative Explanation
An Alternative Explanation
Fight Sticky IdeasWith Stickier Ideas
Questions?
Communicating “Sticky” Ideas
Sticky ideas are:
•Simple
•Unexpected
•Concrete
•Credible
•Emotional
•Story
SUCCES
Sticky Ideas vs Mathematics
Sticky ideas are:
•Simple
•Unexpected
•Concrete
•Credible
•Emotional
•Story
Climate Science is:
•Complicated
•Perplexing
•Abstract
•Attacked
•Detached
•Numbers
SUCCES
“New data released two weeks ago
shows the pause in global warming has
now lasted 16 years.”
Andrew Bolt
Is global warming happening?
The most dangerous climate misconception
“There is no scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming”
Cook et al 2013
The importance of consensus
Ding et al 2011 found that people who believe scientists disagree on global warming are less likely to support climate policy
McCright et al 2013:“Climate change communicators should therefore identify opportunities and employ techniques to effectively counter the denial machine’s campaign of challenging the scientific consensus. Overcoming its success in generating belief that scientists do not agree about anthropogenic global warming seems to be crucial for increasing public support for emissions reduction policies.”
Media Coverage of The Consensus Project
“97% of scientists, including, by the way, some who originally disputed the data, have now put that to rest. They’ve acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA
Questions?
Examples of sticky climate messages?
1. Fake Experts
5 Techniques of Consensus Denial
2. Logical fallacies
5. Conspiracy Theories
3. Impossible Expectations
4. Cherry Picking
FLICC
Consensus
Consensus Fake Experts
“The Oregon Institute of
Science and Medicine, the
OISM, released the names of
some 31,478 scientists who
signed a petition rejecting the
claims of human-caused global
warming.”
Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman
Fake Experts
Logical Fallacies
• Examples of logical fallacies: ad hominem attacks,
strawman arguments, misrepresentation.
• Most popular climate myth uses the Non Sequitur
fallacy: “it does not follow”. The premise does not
lead to the conclusion.
• Example: “climate has changed naturally in the past
therefore current warming must be natural”.
Premise Conclusion
“The paleoclimate record shouts out to us that, far from being self-stabilizing, the Earth's climate system is an ornery beast which overreacts to even small nudges.” Wally Broeker
Impossible Expectations
• Demanding unrealistic standards of proof before
acting on the science
“0.3% consensus, not 97.1%The latest paper apparently showing 97% endorsement of a consensus that more than half of recent global warming was anthropogenic really shows only 0.3% endorsement of that now-dwindling consensus.”
CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON
Cherry Picking
Consensus
Conspiracy!
Climategate
Two distinctive traits of conspiracy theories:
Conspiracy Theory
1. Ascribe omnipotent power to the conspiracy
Two distinctive traits of conspiracy theories:
Conspiracy Theory
1. Ascribe omnipotent power to the conspiracy
2. Evidence against the conspiracy is proof of the
conspiracy
Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman
“Even though hand-picked
panels of their peers held a
“kangaroo court” and loudly
proclaimed that there had
been no wrongdoing, public
confidence was justifiably
shaken.”
Fight sticky ideas with stickier ideas
SUCCES
FLICC
Summary
(Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Story)
(Fake Experts, Logical Fallacies, Impossible Expectations, Cherry Picking, Conspiracy Theories)
www.skepticalscience.com
John CookGlobal Change Institute, University of Queensland
Web: http://www.skepticalscience.com
Email: [email protected]
