So You Want to Convince a Climate Change Skeptic
Mr. Bokat-Lindell is a writer in The New York Times Opinion section. Happy New Year! Its 2020, and the forecast for this next decade is cloudy with an apprehension of doom. According to the United Nations, to cut carbon dioxide emissions down to roughly half those of 2010 levels to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the more ambitious target of the Paris Agreement. (The world has already warmed by about 1 degree Celsius since the 19th century.) The outlook, in the words of a United Nations report released in November, is Daunting as the problem may be, millions of people still dont accept the premise of its existence: Depending on how you ask, only about believe that climate change is caused by humans, according to the University of Pennsylvanias Annenberg Public Policy Center. How do you convince someone that climate change is real? Should you even try? If you want to convince someone about climate change, dont lead with data, in The Times. Dr. Hayhoe is a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, and shes also an evangelical Christian, two identities she realized after moving from Canada were supposed to be entirely incompatible in the United States. Understanding why thats the case is crucial when attempting to convert climate change skeptics, she writes, explaining: It turns out, its not where we go to church (or dont) that determines our opinion on climate. Its not even our religious affiliation. Hispanic Catholics are than other Catholics to say the earth is getting warmer, according to a 2015 survey, and they have the same pope. Its because of the alliance between conservative theology and conservative politics that has been deliberately engineered and fostered over decades of increasingly divisive politics on issues of race, abortion and now climate change, to the point where the best predictor of whether we agree with the science is simply where we fall on the political spectrum. In her experience, Dr. Hayhoe has found that the best way to neutralize the partisan charge on climate change is not by appealing to science which some prominent Republicans, such as , have cast as a competitor to religion but by emphasizing shared values. For some, this could be the well-being of our community, she writes. For others, our children; and for fellow Christians, its often our faith. In such conversations, it may be important to remember how your interlocutors values differ from your own. In Vice, the , according to which liberals and conservatives prioritize different ethics: the former compassion, fairness and liberty, the latter purity, loyalty and obedience to authority. Ms. Puniewska writes: If youre trying to convince someone who leans left, you can stick with the polar bear and keep tugging at their heart strings with talk of how unfair it will be to our children if the world is poisoned, but if youre with a conservative, its wise to change up your approach science has found that personalized climate-related messages work better. For example, that conservatives are more likely to support a pro-environmental agenda when presented with messages containing themes of patriotism and defending the purity of nature. For many skeptics, in Quartz, delineating the myriad potential harms of unmitigated climate change is not an effective strategy. Instead, it can be more productive to illustrate the potential benefits that mitigation may carry. She writes: A published in 2015 in Nature surveyed 6,000 people across 24 countries and found that emphasizing the shared benefits of climate change was an effective way of motivating people to take action even if they initially identified as deniers. For example, people were more likely to take steps to mitigate climate change if they believe that it will produce economic and scientific development. Most importantly, these results were true across political ideology, age, and gender. People are more likely to listen to a message when it comes from someone they trust, in The Washington Post, and messages about climate change are no different. For example, he writes, experimental research discovered that when free-market enthusiasts who are concerned about government regulation hear from experts who emphasize how companies are developing climate responses, they are more likely to accept climate science. Who makes for the best messenger depends, naturally, on the intended recipient. in May, for example, found that when it comes to parents, children may be especially effective persuaders: Because climate change perceptions in children seem less susceptible to the influence of worldview or political context, it may be possible for them to inspire adults toward higher levels of climate concern, and in turn, collective action. Child-to-parent intergenerational learning that is, the transfer of knowledge, attitudes or behaviors from children to parents may be a promising pathway to overcoming socio-ideological barriers to climate concern. While leading with data and studies can cause people to shut down, Ms. Puniewska writes, talking about around climate change in general can help, acting as a kind of gateway to greater trust in the conclusions of climate science. (This rhetorical strategy has found a prominent champion in Greta Thunberg, who implores people to first and foremost.) She explains: In a 2015 , Maibach and colleagues found that telling people that experts agreed on climate change increased the chances that those individuals would accept that climate change was happening, was human-caused, and presented a real threat. Extra encouraging: That strategy was also particularly influential on Republicans, though liberals might also need a nudge. To the extent that a persons denial of climate change stems from mistrust of science in general, however 13 percent of Americans have , according to a 2019 Pew survey invoking expertise may never bear fruit. Attempting to convert deniers is not the most productive way to fight climate change, in Georgetown Universitys Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. In their view, climate change is a problem less of individual belief than of collective action, a failure that can be remedied only through public policy. The most efficient route toward enacting such policy, the authors argue, lies not in convincing deniers to believe in climate change but in galvanizing those who already do. They write: With a significant majority of voters supporting taxing or regulating greenhouse gases, those who want to spur climate action ought to focus instead on getting a critical mass of climate believers to be appropriately alarmed. Doing so, we contend, may prove more useful in creating the political will necessary to spur bold climate action than would engaging directly with climate deniers. Theres no one way to talk to people about climate change, the Columbia University climate scientist in The Times, but dialogue, language and mutual respect matter. on how to have a discussion about climate change. write social psychologists Leaf Van Boven and David Sherman. Tik Root, Lisa Friedman and Hiroko Tabuchi follow the money. Vicki: Im surprised Moonlight wasnt mentioned as a best film of the decade. I am a straight, white, 50-something-year-old woman who was able to see the world as a gay, black, young man through this film. Ive enjoyed many films over the years, but this one was simply magic. I was ecstatic to see it win the Best Picture Oscar and it has made me a huge fan of Mahershala Ali. Larry: I am disappointed that none of the four guest commentators mentioned climate change, either as a best book or as an issue that will have major ramifications but isnt sufficiently appreciated yet. Climate change will most likely change our future more and for the worse than any other single phenomenon. An earlier version of the photographs with this article included a misidentified photo. The woman identified as a climate scientist was S. Hollis Woodard, an entomologist, not Katharine Hayhoe. How we handle corrections Spencer Bokat-Lindell is a writer for the Opinion section.