Discussion: How to talk to climate skeptics
in: blairtrewin; blairtrewin > 2020-01-12
Jan 14, 2020 9:52 AM
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If you're after a resource for counters to specific sceptic arguments, https://skepticalscience.com/ is a valuable site.
More generally, if I'm speaking to an audience which I think is going to have more than its fair share of sceptics (say, a rural community), my strategy is two-pronged; one is to present a lot of information about what's been happening in their local area (people find it hard to relate to a 1-degree rise in average temperatures, but they can relate more to the idea that the first 35C day of the season is a month earlier in spring than it was 50 years ago), and the second is to be frank about areas where there is still a lot of scientific uncertainty - in Australia, two examples are what's going to happen to extreme high rainfalls, and what's going to happen to tropical cyclones - because I think being honest about areas where we're uncertain gives you more credibility when speaking about the areas which are certain.
Helps that I'm an observations person; would be harder for a modeller to do that successfully.
And if anyone starts getting into details about specific observation sites and us supposedly not knowing enough about them, I have been known to use the story about how I drowned my car at Kalumburu...
More generally, if I'm speaking to an audience which I think is going to have more than its fair share of sceptics (say, a rural community), my strategy is two-pronged; one is to present a lot of information about what's been happening in their local area (people find it hard to relate to a 1-degree rise in average temperatures, but they can relate more to the idea that the first 35C day of the season is a month earlier in spring than it was 50 years ago), and the second is to be frank about areas where there is still a lot of scientific uncertainty - in Australia, two examples are what's going to happen to extreme high rainfalls, and what's going to happen to tropical cyclones - because I think being honest about areas where we're uncertain gives you more credibility when speaking about the areas which are certain.
Helps that I'm an observations person; would be harder for a modeller to do that successfully.
And if anyone starts getting into details about specific observation sites and us supposedly not knowing enough about them, I have been known to use the story about how I drowned my car at Kalumburu...
Jan 14, 2020 8:59 PM
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I will have to hear that story sometime. Thomas has pointed a mild skeptic (someone who was maybe more hoping it's not true, but is relatively scientific) to the ippc report I think. But it's harder when they are an obnoxious pro oil skeptic (like someone who my parents know...).
Jan 14, 2020 11:29 PM
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I think the hardest thing to deal with is not pro-oil vested interests, but tribal identification. This does not just apply to climate change, but to any one of the fractured debates where tribalism trumps evidence - vaccines, GMOs, alternative agricultures come to mind.
This discussion thread is closed.