We are not doing a good job of communicating climate change. People have diverging interpretations of how climate change fits into their own stories.
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Cheap fossil fuels contort the global economy in ways that have systematically harmed some and benefited others. Justice demands that those of us who have benefited take responsibility.
Many farmers are now facing a future in which it is much harder to make a living off the land.
AAP Image/Dan Peled
A decade ago, only a third of farmers accepted the science of climate change. But surveys show attitudes have shifted in recent years as the farming community begins to confront what the future holds.
A scholar of climate misinformation campaigns explains how, in part, the large gap in public opinion on global warming emerged since a scientist’s landmark clarion call for action.
People will listen more when they like what they’re hearing.
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Facts will only get you so far when it comes to climate change. To get conservatives on side, climate communicators must focus on the values conservatives hold dear, such as preserving the status quo.
Could seeing things in black-and-white terms influence people’s views on scientific questions?
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While Tony Abbott’s London climate speech has been widely criticised, research suggests his views have long had a sympathetic ear in Australia’s coal heartland.
There was a time when Tony Abbott followed the prevailing wind on climate policy. No longer.
AAP Image/Jim Rice
Tony Abbott will deliver a speech to the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Has the human weathervane stopped spinning? What does it mean for climate politics?
Some claim that scientists avoid publishing results that go against the consensus on man-made climate change. But this is simply untrue.
So large are the nation’s daily greenhouse gas emissions that if yours is a typical Australian lifestyle you’re contributing disproportionately to climate change.
Carbon Visuals/flickr
It would take a lifestyle upheaval to drop most Australians’ household emissions to a sustainable level. Even many of us who urge equitable action on climate change act as if this doesn’t apply to us.
Exxon funded climate scientists while the bulk of its public-facing advertorials argued the science and cause of climate change was uncertain.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
A new study confirms what many already know: Exxon for years sowed uncertainty and doubt about climate change in the public. Should scientists reject certain funding sources?
When Tony Abbott went too far in his advocacy for the coal industry, his government faced a public backlash.
Dan Peled/AAP
While climate denialism impedes policymaking in both the US and Australia, there are key differences in their political and public cultures.
People reject science such as that about climate change and vaccines, but readily believe scientists about solar eclipses, like this one reflected on the sunglasses of a man dangerously watching in Nicosia, Cyprus, in a 2015 file photo.
(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
People universally believe scientists’ solar eclipse calendars, but vaccine warnings or climate predictions are forms of science that strangely do not enjoy equivalent acceptance.
Thredbo, scene of the latest attack on the Bureau of Meteorology’s methods.
AAP Image/Alison Godfrey
Three years ago The Australian newspaper launched a broadside at the Bureau of Meteorology. But when it did it again this week, it seemed to get less traction from the top echelons of government.
Children play in the DDT fog left by the ‘fog truck’ in a New Jersey neighbourhood.
George Silk/LIFE 1948
The undermining of environmental science, and the creation of lies and bribes to distort public policymaking, is as old as industries that know their products do harm, but lie to keep them in use.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses G20 health ministers in Berlin in May.
Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch
If the G20 is to remain relevant in the quest for more inclusive and fair global governance, Africa offers an historic opportunity for collective action, despite the absence of the US under Trump.
Professor of Management & Organizations; Professor of Environment & Sustainability; Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the Ross School of Business and School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan