tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/climate-change-skeptic-62758/articlesclimate change skeptic – The Conversation2019-06-11T20:12:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1182552019-06-11T20:12:24Z2019-06-11T20:12:24ZNot everyone cares about climate change, but reproach won’t change their minds<p>So much for Australia’s “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01543-6">climate election</a>”. In the event, voters in last month’s federal poll didn’t put climate policy at the top of their wish list. </p>
<p>Contrary to opinion polls predicting a groundswell of support for Labor’s relatively progressive agenda on climate and economics, the election results revealed that <a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-disagree-on-how-important-climate-change-is-poll-117171">Australians are more divided on climate change</a> than we thought.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-disagree-on-how-important-climate-change-is-poll-117171">Australians disagree on how important climate change is: poll</a>
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<p>Voters for progressive climate policy were dismayed at the re-election of a prime minister who <a href="https://theconversation.com/that-lump-of-coal-73046">famously brought a lump of coal into Parliament</a>. Perhaps understandably, one of the immediate responses among these progressive voters was to express anger at those who don’t share their concern.</p>
<p>But anger feeds a divisive politics that cannot help us to address our big collective challenges. By retreating into <a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/08/22/social-media-echo-chambers-are-hurting-climate-debate/">social media echo chambers</a> where mockery and disrespect are the norm, we risk losing entirely the social cohesion and trust needed for democracy to work. </p>
<p>A whole-of-society discussion about our collective future is urgently needed. Now is the time to reinvent how we communicate about climate change, particularly with those who don’t see it as an urgent concern. Here’s how.</p>
<h2>Addressing the ‘climate-unconcerned’</h2>
<p>Contrary to the assumption that unconcern about climate change is evidence of selfishness or politically motivated denial, our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/gvKIxuuyQIjKzXcA9tcR/full">research shows</a> that people who resist climate concern are just as likely to be caring, ethical and socially minded as anyone else. </p>
<p>While there is a small minority of people who actively campaign against climate action, within society at large, those who are simply unconcerned about the climate crisis encompass a broad range of political views and levels of political engagement. </p>
<p>Far from being prejudiced, unreasonable, apathetic or ignorant, our studies in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/gvKIxuuyQIjKzXcA9tcR/full">Australia</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-46744-3">the UK</a> show that many people who are unconcerned about the climate nevertheless care about issues including justice, the common good, and the health of ecosystems.</p>
<p>Belonging to a social group that doesn’t have its own narratives of climate concern is one of the most common reasons for unconcern. People who are unconcerned about climate change often see it as a “greenie” issue. If they identify themselves as opposed to green politics, they are unlikely to prioritise calls for climate action. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/people-and-issues-outside-our-big-cities-are-diverse-but-these-priorities-stand-out-110971">rural/city divide</a> also plays a key part in polarising narratives of climate action, as regional and outer-urban Australians, who are more likely to be economically dependent on natural resources, feel ignored and devalued by policies designed to appeal to capital city electorates. If we want to break down polarisation on climate change, we need to understand what matters to rural and conservative social groups.</p>
<h2>Bridging the divide</h2>
<p>Our findings suggest a set of principles for engaging with people who are unconcerned about climate change:</p>
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<li><p><strong>Respect difference</strong>. Don’t assume that being unconcerned about climate change is a moral failing. People have other active concerns that are no less valid.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Listen</strong>. Build relationships with people who have different life experiences to your own, by asking what is important to them. Appreciate that some people may find social change more threatening and immediate than climate change. Empathising with this feeling can foster understanding of the core concerns that underpin resistance to change, and potentially help identify ways to address these concerns.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Value values</strong>. Avoid arguments based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/facts-wont-beat-the-climate-deniers-using-their-tactics-will-24074">appeals to the authority of science</a>, or the consensus of expert opinion. “Debating the science” is a red herring – people’s responses to claims about climate change are motivated primarily by what they value, and the narratives of their social group, not their acceptance of scientific fact. Focus on values you might have in common, rather than getting caught up in disputes over facts.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Move beyond Left and Right</strong>. Don’t conflate political ideology with stance on climate. Showing that climate is not a defining issue for social groups is really important to avoid polarisation. We need to work against the idea that action on climate is an exclusively left-wing or “greenie” agenda.</p></li>
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<p>Adopting these principles can help to build a political culture around climate science and policy that responds to the different priorities of Australians, all of whom are simply seeking a safe and secure future. This approach recognises that no action on climate change is possible without public trust and involvement in democratic institutions.</p>
<h2>What can we learn from the UK?</h2>
<p>Australia’s parliamentary system and media environment have much in common with that of the UK. Although the UK has not been immune to political divisions on climate change, with levels of concern typically <a href="http://orca.cf.ac.uk/97309/">higher on the political left than on the right</a>, Britain has maintained a bipartisan approach. </p>
<p>With the help of intiatives supporting a <a href="https://www.green-alliance.org.uk/greenroots.php">pluralistic approach</a> to climate policy discussions, the UK <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/contents">Climate Change Act</a> passed into law in 2008 with almost unanimous cross-party support.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-has-a-national-climate-change-act-why-dont-we-115230">The UK has a national climate change act – why don't we?</a>
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<p><a href="http://climateoutreach.org/">Research in the UK</a> has provided an <a href="https://climateoutreach.org/resource-type/centre-right/">evidence-based set of language and narratives</a> to use when discussing climate change. This is focused on core socially conservative values such as maintaining the status quo (protecting it from a changing climate), avoiding waste (of household energy), and investing in secure (renewable) energy. There is also a push to reinvigorate democratic debate through <a href="http://sharedfuturecic.org.uk/">citizens’ assemblies on climate change</a>.</p>
<p>Now is the time for Australians to listen to each other, and develop a pluralistic approach to discussions on our shared future. The alternative is to sink deeper into partisan hostility and recrimination. And after a decade of division on climate policy, is that really the best way forward?</p>
<p><em>Join author Chloe Lucas at 3pm today for a live Q&A. Post your questions about #ClimateChange politics in the comments section below and she will answer.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chloe Lucas is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania. Her research on unconcern about climate change was funded by the Australian Government Research Training Program. She currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Institute of Australian Geographers and the International Environment Communication Association.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Corner (as a member of staff at Climate Outreach) receives funding from a number of philanthropic foundations including KR Foundation, and the European Climate Foundation, as well as UK Research Councils including the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aidan Davison receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peat Leith currently receives funding from the Soil CRC and has previously had research funded by various State and Commonwealth Government agencies and Rural Research and Develop Corporations. </span></em></p>In the end, climate policy didn’t swing the federal election, and for those on the losing side it can be tempting to play the blame game. But listening and respect are much better ways to move forward.Chloe Lucas, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of TasmaniaAdam Corner, Research Director, Climate Outreach & Honorary Research Fellow, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff UniversityAidan Davison, Associate Professor, University of TasmaniaPeat Leith, Research Fellow, Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1126502019-03-27T10:33:02Z2019-03-27T10:33:02ZExtreme weather news may not change climate change skeptics’ minds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265960/original/file-20190326-36270-1eb53yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=59%2C101%2C1892%2C1245&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How do people respond to media coverage of weather influenced by climate change?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Psychology-of-Hurricanes/a3b42217902f4d07af6481fff9f87243/6/0">AP Photo/Andy Newman</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The year 2018 brought <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/counting-cost-year-climate-breakdown">particularly devastating natural disasters</a>, including hurricanes, droughts, floods and fires – just the kinds of extreme weather events scientists predict will be <a href="https://doi.org/10.17226/21852">exacerbated by climate change</a>.</p>
<p>Amid this destruction, some people see an opportunity to finally quash climate change skepticism. After all, it seems hard to deny the realities of climate change – and object to policies fighting it – while its effects visibly wreck communities, maybe even your own.</p>
<p>News outlets have hesitated to connect natural disasters and climate change, though these connections are increasing, thanks to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/climate-experts-now-cite-global-warming-during-extreme-weather-disasters-n895976">calls from experts</a> combined with <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05849-9">more precise data about the effects of climate change</a>. Media voices like The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/07/climate-change-media-coverage-media-matters">advocate for more coverage of the weather events</a> “when people can see and feel climate change.” Harvard’s Nieman Foundation <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2019/01/the-year-of-the-climate-reporter/">dubbed 2019</a> “The Year of the Climate Reporter.” Even conservative talk radio host <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/rush-limbaugh-says-hurricane-florence-forecast-trying-heighten-belief-climate-1117416">Rush Limbaugh worried</a> that media predictions about Hurricane Florence were attempts to “heighten belief in climate change.”</p>
<p>But a recent study from Ohio State University <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WFIpOQEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">communications</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ffk3cpwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">scholars</a> found that news stories connecting climate change to natural disasters <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2018.1546202">actually backfire among skeptics</a>. As someone who also studies scientific communication, I find these results fascinating. It’s easy to assume that presenting factual information will automatically change people’s minds, but messages can have complex, frustrating persuasive effects.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265961/original/file-20190326-36276-1k49f7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265961/original/file-20190326-36276-1k49f7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265961/original/file-20190326-36276-1k49f7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265961/original/file-20190326-36276-1k49f7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265961/original/file-20190326-36276-1k49f7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265961/original/file-20190326-36276-1k49f7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265961/original/file-20190326-36276-1k49f7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265961/original/file-20190326-36276-1k49f7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The flooded Platte River in Nebraska is one example of a recent extreme weather event.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Winter-Weather-Flooding/b30f053a699846399613db1f67cfb427/1/0">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</a></span>
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<h2>Investigating how skeptics hear the news</h2>
<p>Social scientists have an unclear understanding of how climate change news affects public opinion, as not enough research has specifically explored that question. To explore the question, researchers from Ohio State recruited 1,504 volunteers. They divided them into groups who read news stories about natural disasters – fires, hurricanes or blizzards – that either emphasized or omitted the role of climate change.</p>
<p>Cleverly, the researchers recruited participants from geographic areas most likely to experience the disasters they read about; for instance, participants in hurricane-prone areas read the news articles about hurricanes. Further, the researchers ran the study in fall 2017, during hurricane and wildfire season, when these sorts of disasters are presumably top of mind.</p>
<p>After reading, participants answered 11 questions meant to measure their resistance to the article, including “Sometimes I wanted to ‘argue back’ against what I read” and “I found myself looking for flaws in the way information was presented.”</p>
<p>It turned out that climate change skeptics – whether politically conservative or liberal – showed more resistance to the stories that mentioned climate change. Climate change themes also made skeptics more likely to downplay the severity of the disasters. At the same time, the same articles made people who accept climate change perceive the hazards as more severe.</p>
<p>The study findings suggest that reporting the relationship between climate change and hazardous weather may actually increase the skepticism of skeptics, even in the face of blatant contrary evidence. Psychologists call this the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_effect_(psychology)">boomerang effect</a>, because the message ultimately sends people in the opposite direction.</p>
<h2>Who’s hearing the message matters</h2>
<p>The boomerang effects seen in this latest study are less surprising than you might think. Researchers have tried a variety of strategies, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2018.1548369">emphasizing scientific consensus around climate change</a> and describing the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650211416646">negative health impacts of climate change</a> on people near and far, only to find that skeptics often end up more entrenched after reading attempts to persuade them. </p>
<p>Messages can work when they use place to increase people’s concern and willingness to act on climate change, but individual studies show inconsistent results. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.01.002">One new study</a> gave Bay Area participants maps showing the increased flood risk in their zip code due to projected sea level rise. The maps made no difference in people’s concern about the effects of climate change on future generations, developing countries or the Bay Area. But the maps did make people who accept climate change less concerned that it would personally harm them. These participants may have replaced their abstract, apocalyptic assumptions about climate change threats with the more tangible predictions, causing them to feel less vulnerable.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-16-0119.1">Another study</a>, also involving Californians, generated slightly more success for place-based climate change news, but only among participants who were already <a href="http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/about/projects/global-warmings-six-americas/">concerned about climate change</a>. Study participants read news articles explaining that climate change would increase droughts either globally or in California. The global message made people more likely to want policy changes, while the local messages made people more likely to say they would change their personal behavior.</p>
<p>Place-based appeals often have some <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2017.1385002">positive effect on people’s willingness to act</a> on climate change and environmental issues.</p>
<p>But most studies about local messaging suggest that you cannot persuade everyone with the same message. A complex relationship of factors – including previous beliefs on climate change, political affiliation, and attachment to place and gender – can all play a role.</p>
<p>And psychologists offer compelling reasons <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2760">why persuasive attempts sometimes backfire</a>. Messages about the local impact of climate change might actually replace people’s abstract, altruistic values with utilitarian concerns. In the case of skeptics resisting news about climate-driven disasters, the researchers from Ohio State suggest that these people are engaged in <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/motivated-reasoning">motivated reasoning</a>, a cognitive bias where people force new and threatening information to conform to their pre-existing knowledge.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265963/original/file-20190326-36260-1fk66ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265963/original/file-20190326-36260-1fk66ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265963/original/file-20190326-36260-1fk66ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265963/original/file-20190326-36260-1fk66ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265963/original/file-20190326-36260-1fk66ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265963/original/file-20190326-36260-1fk66ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265963/original/file-20190326-36260-1fk66ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265963/original/file-20190326-36260-1fk66ya.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">More and more info doesn’t necessarily convince.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Southern-Flood-Threat/0e91c7a501174d83816f6742d7e5243e/5/0">AP Photo/Jay Reeves</a></span>
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<h2>More news may not convince</h2>
<p>Resistance to news about climate change disasters might be frustrating, but even the media often ignore the role of climate change in disasters, according to an analysis by the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization <a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/public-citizen-carbon-omission-extreme-weather-2018.pdf">Public Citizen</a>. They found only 7 percent of American news stories about hurricanes mentioned climate change in 2018. Percentages increase for stories about wildfires (27.8 percent of stories), extreme heat (34 percent of stories) and drought (35 percent of stories). But an overwhelming amount of extreme weather news coverage never mentions climate change.</p>
<p>Some omissions are particularly striking. Liberal research organization <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/07/12/Major-broadcast-TV-networks-mentioned-climate-change-just-once-during-two-weeks-of-heat-wa/220651">Media Matters</a> found only one mention of climate change in 127 broadcast news stories during two weeks of extreme heat in 2018. Only about 4 percent of stories about Hurricane Irma and Harvey mentioned climate change, according to an <a href="http://lifescienceglobal.com/pms/index.php/IJCC/article/view/5215">academic analysis</a> that included The Houston Chronicle and the Tampa Bay Times.</p>
<p>Despite these low numbers, U.S. climate change coverage related to extreme weather and disasters actually rose in 2018, according to the report from Public Citizen. This increase aligns with a trend of news slowly improving its climate reporting. For instance, U.S. print media has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662515612276">dropped some of the skepticism</a> from its climate change reporting, both in terms of outright skepticism of the basic science and a subtler version that involved creating a false balance by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.11.004">including voices which both affirm and deny</a> the reality of climate change. </p>
<p>Even if the media continues to increase and improve its climate change coverage, it might not change skeptics’ minds. Of course, the media has a responsibility to report the news accurately, regardless of how some people process it. But those hoping that climate change news will convert skeptics might end up disappointed. </p>
<p>Given this resistance to news, other approaches, such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916515574085">avoiding fear-inducing and guilt-based messaging</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547017715473">creating targeted messages about free-market solutions</a>, or deploying a kind of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0040437">“jiu jitsu” persuasion</a> that aligns with pre-existing attitudes, may prove more effective at influencing skeptics. In the meantime, social scientists will continue to investigate ways to combat the stubborn boomerang effect, even as the consequences of climate change intensify all around us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112650/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Weber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Media reports are starting to directly connect climate change to its weather effects in local communities. But how you respond to those linkages depends on what you already think about climate change.Ryan Weber, Associate Professor of English, University of Alabama in HuntsvilleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1055552018-12-03T22:06:50Z2018-12-03T22:06:50ZWhy we should stop labelling people climate change deniers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246943/original/file-20181122-182065-1fpd4zm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We are not doing a good job of communicating climate change. People have diverging interpretations of how climate change fits into their own stories. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the westernmost reaches of Nunavut, on the Northwest Passage, Inuit hunters have told me some pithy things about climate change.</p>
<p><em>The land is changing. It isn’t climate change. This is part of cycles. Our elders saw this coming.</em> </p>
<p>Some of the most visible and profound effects of global warming are occurring in the Arctic. Some Inuit are worried climate change will permanently alter the world. Others say it will pass, as other times of want and plenty have passed through the Inuit’s long cycles of life in the Arctic. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.itk.ca/taimannganit/">Inuit Nunangat</a>, the Inuit homeland in Canada, perceptions about climate change cannot be divided into two camps of “believers” and “deniers.” The situation is far more complex.</p>
<p>To understand climate change communication and adaptation in maritime communities, my research team has travelled to the Canadian Arctic, Indonesia and the Philippines to find out what local communities have to say about climate change. </p>
<p>The answer so far? It varies.</p>
<p>Some fear climate change, some deny it’s real and some don’t know what, or whom, to believe. Many don’t want to talk about climate change at all. Others say we must talk. The diverse interpretations of how climate change fits into their own stories are beautifully captured in the documentary <a href="https://vimeo.com/154369764"><em>Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change</em></a>. </p>
<p>It’s simplistic to divide people into only two opposing camps of climate change: believers or deniers. The way we have been communicating the science of climate change has not been persuasive.</p>
<h2>Place matters</h2>
<p>Scientists warn that human activity, industrialization and our dependence on fossil fuels have caused a warming of global temperatures that threatens life on Earth. By contrast, climate change deniers dismiss such dire premonitions as conspiracy. The weight of scientific facts is often presented to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17524032.2017.1333965">better inform</a> or <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/gch2.201600008">inoculate</a> a misinformed public.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246941/original/file-20181122-182056-18upj4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246941/original/file-20181122-182056-18upj4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246941/original/file-20181122-182056-18upj4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246941/original/file-20181122-182056-18upj4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246941/original/file-20181122-182056-18upj4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246941/original/file-20181122-182056-18upj4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246941/original/file-20181122-182056-18upj4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People walk along a path in Iqaluit, Nunavut in December 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)</span></span>
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<p>Yet between those two polarized positions are local populations living with the immediate effects of climate change on the environments they depend upon.</p>
<p>Few people can claim to share the Inuit’s experience of climatic variation. Many process the concept of global warming with facts about climate change, but also by the geographies they occupy. As University of Cambridge geography professor <a href="https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/geo2.5">Mike Hulme</a> suggests, we should conceive of climate change as the cultural evolution of the idea of climate. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hope-and-mourning-in-the-anthropocene-understanding-ecological-grief-88630">Hope and mourning in the Anthropocene: Understanding ecological grief</a>
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<p>Local experience, traditional knowledge and personal experience may blend in a swill of contradictory impressions about climate change. People are shaped in part by their place in the diverse physical and social spaces undergoing climate-related events, whether they are marine, mountain, urban or desert regions. </p>
<p>The history and experience of individuals and communities may influence how they interpret and prioritize climate change. This diversity of lived experience and worldviews contradicts the divisions between climate change belief and denial.</p>
<h2>Facts aren’t enough</h2>
<p>Climate change science alone is not convincing. <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2507">Recent research</a> suggests the public is split into two conflicting groups: those whose views align with the scientific community (believers) and those who do not. These opinion-based groups have distinct social identities, beliefs and emotional reactions to environmental change; they are set apart by cultural differences and political leanings.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378015300273">A recent study</a> found that social networks influence people’s stance on climate change. So, how you talk about climate change matters. An <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937801500031X">international survey of 24 countries found</a> that personal experiences, beliefs, knowledge, values and worldviews are important factors that shape climate change belief. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-some-conservatives-are-blind-to-climate-change-91549">Why some conservatives are blind to climate change</a>
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<p>The viral response to last year’s <em>National Geographic</em> video of a starving polar bear <a href="https://collections.plos.org/climate-change-age-of-denial">shows how easily climate change narratives can be hijacked</a> by deniers. </p>
<p>The video was initially swiftly embraced by climate change champions. For instance, Canada’s Environment Minister <a href="https://twitter.com/cathmckenna?lang=en">Catherine McKenna tweeted</a>: “THIS is what climate change looks like. Climate change is real. As are its impacts. Time to stand up for our polar bears and our planet.” But the photographers were later criticized for assuming the polar bear was starving because of climate change, laying the “believe” camp open to ridicule. </p>
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<p>The dominant climate change narrative is one of permanent, near-irreversible human-induced changes to the climate accompanied by a rise in global temperatures. </p>
<p>This is what I thought I heard as an Inuit hunter eloquently described how the land has stayed greener for longer during each of the last 40 seasons he has travelled since his honeymoon. </p>
<p>Then I pondered his words again, and I asked him, “Do you think climate change is permanent or cyclical?” He paused and replied, “It’s cyclical.”</p>
<h2>Listen to local people</h2>
<p>In its new report “<a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/">Global Warming of 1.5°C</a>,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says the prognosis is dire if we do not contain a rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C. </p>
<p>The debate over “1.5 to stay alive” is not new. It was central to the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Paris in December 2015. </p>
<p>Will the IPCC’s latest message finally convince the climate change confused or their leaders, who failed to make 1.5°C binding in the Paris text three years ago? The debate will rage on at the 24th COP in Katowice, Poland in December.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, far from the pomp and formality of COP meetings, do local populations feel engaged in climate change action? I doubt it. </p>
<p>Inuit hunters must increasingly navigate unpredictable sea ice. One explained their seeming indifference to climate change this way: “What are we going to do about it? We Inuit take care of the land.” </p>
<p>Elsewhere, a community leader hinted at his weariness of a problem that has been known to Inuit but ignored by the world for too long: “What’s there to say? We’ve said it all before.”</p>
<h2>Be better communicators</h2>
<p>After attending three COP meetings since Paris, I question the reach of the existing narrative and governance of climate change. I suggest we move beyond a simplistic division between believers and deniers, and talk to people in local communities to examine how climate change complexity and confusion are hindering effective action on climate change. </p>
<p>We need to communicate at the local scale where resource-dependent or climate-susceptible populations live with the actual or foreseen threats of climate change. </p>
<p>We should heed the words of Thai marine scientist <a href="http://www.tascmar.eu/chulalongkorn-university">Suchana Chavanich</a>, who told delegates at a workshop at COP 23, hosted by Fiji but held in Bonn, last year that to make a difference we need more than scientific knowledge; we need to connect with local people on the ground, in the places they live and work, to learn about the relevance of climate change in their lives. </p>
<p>That is more effective than theorizing about what might happen in a 1.5°C or 2°C world.</p>
<p>For many, climate facts are not convincing nor do they speak for themselves. And because people are not necessarily swayed by climate change facts but rather the communicator of facts, the nature of communication, their personal affiliations and networks, and their personal experience, labelling someone who is confused about climate change as a denier does not advance us to a world of collective effort to confront climate change. </p>
<p>We are not doing a good job of communicating climate change. Maybe we can do a better job if we recognize that people are not just passive receivers of climate change facts, but actors with their own history and knowledge in place and interpretations of how climate change fits into their own stories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chui-Ling Tam receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>We must recognize the complexity of perspectives on climate change if we want to confront it.Chui-Ling Tam, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.