Barriers to engagement

I worry that there are some things in the US that have so far made it difficult to engage on climate change, even to the level seen in many other developed countries. This must go beyond the presence of powerful self-interested groups, whose continued accumulation of wealth would be hampered by action on climate change. The need for politicians to fund expensive campaigns allows wealthy lobbyists to support, and thereby gain influence over, those politicians - as well as politicians natural incentive to ignore problems that need action now, even though the benefit will not accrue for some years to come. Yet this is true in other countries as well (though the US is certainly worse in terms of the amount of money in politics - for example the entire campaign budget for the 650 Tory candidates in the last UK election was about 1/25th that spent by a single presidential campaign, so even accounting for different population sizes this would be about 1/5th per capita). The main other factors I see are listed below. These challenges just make it even more important for responsible citizens to ensure that we are doing the right thing:

  • It’s become politicized: Certainly there is a strong correlation between someone's political party, and their belief in climate change. A 2019 AP poll [1] showed that 92% of Democrats, and just 56% of Republicans, even believe climate change is occurring, and the percentage of those who believe occuring, and due to human activities, is 71% for Democrats, just 18% for Republicans! Yet these first two questions - is it happening, and why? - is purely a question of science and facts, and should not be influenced by political ideology at all. Certainly later questions, such as how to address the problem, one would expect different answers from people with different political viewpoints, but not on pure questions of facts and science. Obviously we could be mixing up cause and effect - maybe if you believe the facts about climate science, it makes you a Democrat, because traditionally this issue is higher up the Democrats agenda? Yet given that the level of belief, and associated concern, is growing in both groups (from 35% overall back in the period 2010-2012, to 51% now) [2] that explanation means we would have seen an extremely large swing from Republican to Democrats. More likely it seems that it is because the consequences of accepting climate change (likely regulations, or taxes, or societal expectations) is particularly unpalatable to Republicans, meaning that their ideological viewpoint causes them to cast doubt on the facts, to avoid that conflict. A particularly worrying finding of the AP poll was that of Republicans, only 30% agree that “climate scientists are a source of accurate information about climate science”. Note that this wasn’t asking whether climate scientists have perfect predictive models of the atmosphere and weather systems - of course they don’t - but simply are they giving an accurate picture of the state of the science itself. By analogy, when my wife and I consulted with her oncologist, we trusted him in giving us an accurate picture of the current science and treatments, despite the fact that his ability to predict (and cure) was obviously limited. And as climate scientists obviously back the NCA reports released by USGCRP/NOAA, that means only 30% trust their own government agencies. As if there is a giant worldwide hoax involving 1000s of scientists. Unfortunately the poll did not ask the question as to whom, if not climate scientists, do they trust to inform them? To solely believe the representatives of their party and the media outlets that support them, both of which have a strong vested interest to downplay the risks, is to relinquish their responsibility to be properly informed. Applying the “Why didn’t you do anything, Mummy?” litmus test, the answer “Because I’m a Republican” doesn’t seem a defensible position.
  • It’s so complicated: Well yes, and no. Yes, in the sense that this kind of science is complex, and if you dive into even one paper it would take a lot to understand it (and of course at a certain level of paranoia one could simply believe the raw data was made up). Then you can get truly lost in the 100s of such papers written, as well as playing wack-a-mole trying to understand (and then, in my experience, discredit and dismiss) the sources of bogus information we are now blessed with on the internet. Then depending on your media source, you could be getting biased information one way or the other fire hosed down you. But of course, just because something is complex doesn’t mean it’s not true - I didn’t fully understand general relativity whilst at Oxford, but even so other humans understanding of it means the GPS in my phone works property.

Think of it another way, and it’s really not complicated at all - US government agencies absolutely believe human caused climate change is true, and a serious threat to the US, and this is backed up by almost all the world’s scientists in this field, and numerous respected US & world leaders are convinced and are acting, and we can see and imagine how horrendous worsening fires, floods, and droughts will be. Again by analogy - the science of cancer is horrendously complex, but most people would trust their oncologist or surgeon if they were offering such clear advice.

  • Not every scientist is error free - not every scientist is pure in their intent: As in any other scientific field, scientists as going to disagree about and debate the validity of certain approach/assumptions, some are going to make poor judgements or errors, and one assumes, being human, some are going to be self-serving (though to be so in a peer reviewed paper is challenging). Those hoping to seed doubt will latch onto one error, or one example from a climate scientist exaggerating their findings, as somehow disproving the wealth of other sound, reviewed, and substantiated evidence. The internet is littered with such garbage - “the whole of climate change is false because of what this one scientist/study did/said/predicted”. To let that outweigh the body of evidence is analagous to meeting one incompetent doctor, or one doctor making exagerated claims for his particular treatment, and never going to the doctor again, for any illness. We can imagine how that would turn out.
  • It’s scary and/or depressing: Agreed! . But of course that’s no justification to not be informed. Especially as we are not helpless here, and the cost of acting now is bearable. In my experience, it’s not reading the official papers like NCA4 that is the most depressing. We can even see such a challenge as a unifying force, where America can come together and truly be a world leader (and likely even profit from our leadership if we lead the way in the technology to address). What is depressing is seeing some parties distort, misrepresent, and lie, and seeing our politicians not even vaguely show the leadership needed. Indeed, they exploit the fact that it is scary. We all would like the science to be proven wrong, the dire predictions to not be borne out. Meaning that it’s tempting to latch onto a little seed of doubt that is spread - “scientist X doesn’t believe it”, “there was lots of CO2 60m years ago”, “it was really really cold in New York yesterday” - and use that as reason to ignore having to face up to the reality. But we are not children, and shouldn’t trust someone clearly treating us as children to exploit our fears.
  • Accused of being alarmist: I admit that when I do discuss with friends and colleagues, it’s difficult not to think of “End of the world is nigh” cartoons! But what is happening is alarming, and reading the literature makes one alarmed, so I think we should avoid the kneejerk reaction that anyone talking about it with a suitable level of urgency is considered an alarmist - unless we can show that their worry is needless.
  • Accused of being a hypocrite: Given that everyone has a CO2 footprint, everyone who speaks out about climate change, who is trying to change the current direction of the nation/world, is accused of hypocrisy. One extreme example - Bill Nye (“the science guy”) was invited to talk to the President on climate change, and is accused of being a hypocrite because he flew to the meeting. That makes even less sense as refusing to donate to someone shaking a Red Cross tin because they haven’t yet donated all their money themselves.
  • Relying on scientists for a solution to the mess to come: Firstly, there seems something truly absurd in ignoring scientists who tell us a crisis is coming, and avoidable if we act, and then rely on them to sort out the resulting mess when we ignore them. More importantly, there seem to be a whole class of problems - droughts, floods, hurricanes - which are as yet something we have not been able to control/fix by technology, despite the losses and misery they have caused for years. To bet that technology will later fix seems a very long odds bet. Surely less risky is to avoid the problem.
  • Not everyone urging action will do so scientifically: There will of course be people who reasonably (like Gates, and Bezos, and Nadella…) believe climate change is a threat, and we should act, who will then make sloppy, unscientific statements. To then pounce on these as evidence that all climate change is unscientific is absurd. In particular, social media is riddled with repetitions of interchanges like this:

“Here’s a picture of the Aussie fires/Mumbai floods/European drought/post hurricane Puerto Rico… - #ClimateChangeAction”

“You can’t say that any one event is caused by climate change - so you are dumb as rocks, and unscientific, therefore I deny all climate change science”

I think it will be more productive to treat the initial statement as shorthand for the perfectly reasonable, and scientific, statement that

“Climate change is occurring, and one of the predicted outcomes is worst droughts/floods/fires/hurricanes…, and there is evidence of that coming true. Now here is a photo demonstrating again how powerless we are to stop those events when they occur, and the human misery they bring. Let’s avoid increasing frequency & severity before it’s too late. #ClimateChangeAction”