Reframing climate change

[pscot]

Human beings are not freestanding reasoning machines. They are situated in the world, inheritors of particular socioeconomic conditions, worldviews, dispositions, and interpretive filters. They come complete with a strong set of overlapping, mutually reinforcing frames.

To a great extent, those preexisting social and psychological commitments — which are outside the scope of any conceivable climate communication campaign — are going to determine how people assess a specific phenomenon like climate change.

Bernauer and McGrath put it this way: "[A] large amount of research shows that climate policy preferences are strongly shaped by factors that cannot be affected or offset through climate change communication per se (for example, political ideology, income, gender, general social norms, weather or climatic conditions, economic conditions of the respective country)."

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/15/11232024/reframe-climate-change?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=article%3Afixed&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

[GliderGuider]

1. At least it's refreshing not to hear that people are just stupid!

This is another rancid morsel of information for those who are still trying to get the news out, influence public opinion and get people to wake up to the severity of climate change.

Long story short: None of it worked. The researchers found that different framings had no consistent or statistically significant effects on subjects’ willingness to support climate action.

Human psychological factors win out over reason and knowledge yet again.

[pscot]

2. we're just clever enough to create insoluble problems for ourselves

We're all guilty but no one's to blame.