The problem with the global warming and climate change debate right now is that the deniers do not seem to want to debate anything.  Scientists stand ready to talk about why they think the problem is happening, but corporate interests do not want to debate fairly – they do not produce solid scientific studies or information to refute what the scientists are saying.  Instead we get information from the denier side that is hypothesized by those receiving money from corporate interests, or gathered from study results that have not been peer reviewed and have obvious flaws in methodology.

To make matters much worse, the Supreme Court stepped in and gave corporate interests a much louder voice, and an insurmountable financing edge, with their ruling in Citizens United.  That ruling allows deep pocketed companies who have a stake in wanting to promote denial and skepticism, to spread the PR necessary to wage their partially successful unfair fight with no limits on this spending.  And any backlash against these companies may be subdued, since they can give their money through front groups such as The US Chamber of Commerce who does not have to disclose its donors.

All that many who believe global warming and climate change are happening want is a fair debate – they enter this debate very confident in what they have found scientifically.  However, an unfair fight has muted the debate, and that disparity only got worse with the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.

- Concern about Climate change and global warming was related most strongly to political party and political affiliation, with “republicans” and “conservatives” having the lowest level of concern about the problem.  There is no surprise here, and the fact that the numbers of republicans and conservatives were mirrors of each other does suggest that our theory that the psychology of conservatism may be a motivating factor in the denial of global warming.

- There was no relationship between level of education and worry about global warming and climate change.  In our view this is the most surprising part of the poll, given that the scientific evidence is so strong.  The increased skepticism among conservatives about global warming specifically and science in general is also an example of the evolving psychology of conservatism.

- Younger people are more worried about the problem of global warming and climate change, as are independents.  This bodes well for the future.

The poll did show a small uptick in overall concern about global warming, with 55% of people showing some of a lot of concern.  This is still a very subdued and concerning number, but not surprising given how much corporate PR is being pumped into the argument, and how this motivates an already existing and powerful psychology of a large swath of the population.

Unfortunately there was one controversy that has given those who want to push the buttons of the deniers some fodder.  In 2009, computer hackers unearthed hundreds of emails between climate scientists in the U.S. and U.K. which discussed which climate change data should be shared with the public.  The discussions at times refered to ways that they could present their data in the most compelling manner to show the effects of climate change and global warming.  In some cases these scientists seemed willing to only publish the most compelling evidence and leave weaker findings out.  This is what the pushers of denial pounced on – why were they leaving these weaker findings out?  Were they trying to create fear and worry so they could get more research money?  Yet the most important takeaway, and the one that has been completely blotted out by the power of corporate money and conservative denial, is that even the data that was not as compelling in many cases pointed to man-made global warming.  The scientists were just trying to make the biggest splash possible, and this led to their missteps.

It will come as no surprise to people who are frustrated by these deniers that there is something even more powerful than the influence of corporate greed and cash going on here.  In fact, corporations such as big oil companies are lucky that the money they are putting into fostering denial and skeptisism is resonating so easily with many people.  Perhaps they are even surprised because in many cases the public has turned on big business but in this case a large group seems to go right along with the push for denial.

Why is all of this happening?  Psychological and biological research has uncovered the key.  Conservatives (in this case we do not mean “fiscal” conservatives but those who hold more wide-ranging conservative views) have certain patterns of thought, comfort levels with their external world, and congitive styles that motivate them to want to deny global warming and climate change.  The powerful need for predictability and cognitive closure that many scientific studies have found that conseravtives have runs counter to the idea that something huge, potentially unstoppable, and out of control may be happening.  Fleeing to denial and skepticism brings a welcome break to some conservatives who do not want to consider changes they have no control over.

Some have suggested that companies that are initially motivated by greed have seen a way to manipulate a large group of people to do their bidding by continuing the spread of denial and skepticism, and that even these corporations are surprised by how easy this is.  The hope has to be that as the problem of global warming and climate change gets worse, many conservatives switch gears and the psychology of conservative thought actually motivates people to want to fight the possibility of even more unwanted and unpredicatable change.

More information about conservative psychology can be found on two places:

As it relates to the issue of global warming and climate change, conservtive thought is explored on our own page

Our sister site Conservative Psychology provides a more general and deeper view of this topic

- Not adapting to changes in the global economy - with regulations that might be more effective and acceptable if they changed in relation to the state of the economy (we will post more about this in our “solutions” section soon)

- Unfairly asking the larger and more industrialized countries like the U.S. to make grand changes too quickly or too deeply.

- Allowing some larger countries to opt out, which would eventually give these countries an unfair advantage economically and doom the agreement to fail in its goals in addressing the problem.

Global solutions to the problem of climate change and global warming may be possible, but a fully rational look at those solutions is vital

We firmly believe that global warming will become an issue that only a fringe will end up believing is not “real”, and that the majority of people will begin to see this issue as an example of how the evidence and the science of climate change was all around us yet we did too little to act.  Moreover, we think that global warming in the near future will become a model for how we come to realize the power of corporate interests to corrupt using their money to distort the truth for their own purposes.

Hopefully the learning that occurs as more and more people see the role of corporate interests in promoting denial and skepticism about climate change will not only motivate innovative solutions to global warming at that point, but will also teach us the lesson that listening to science has got to trump allowing corporate interests, hyper-coservative thought, or general fears of change from drowning out scientific evidence.

Therefore, we have a page called Holding them Responsible that will indelibly mark the words of those who wield power but choose to fight the obvious science.  We should not forget how this kind of abuse of power and neglect of science for the sake of campaign contributions can be destructive.  This lesson from the present can serve as a model for the future when inevitably once again corporate interests try to drown out our collective good and scientific evidence.

Unfortunately we are afraid that some in the scientific community may have fallen for the same difficulties, and this only gave the deniers fodder.  When a scientist purposely leaves out some conflicting evidence, or exaggerates the results of a study, etc., all it does is allow those who deny global warming’s existence to paint the entire scientific community with a brush of being untrustworthy.

This has happened several times recently, and even though these incidents are very small in the scheme of all the sound and undeniable evidence of global warming that is uncovered every day, they give the deniers PR fodder.  With corporate money flowing to groups looking to spread denial and skepticism about climate change, any small exaggeration or omission in a study by an over-eager scientist, or by a scientist worried that his or her study will not get re-funded unless the results are entirely compelling, only serves to allow for new doubt to be aggressively spread.  The scientific community just does not have the same PR resources (and in many ways nor should it!) to fight back fairly.

Climate change: Rational and Realistic Solutions

The solution to begin to reverse the momentum of global warming is to immediately shut down businesses that use electricity, oil, or gas.  Enough said.  

As much as the above is an exaggeration, this seems to be the overly radical approach that big business fears that “greens” would take if they had their way.  However, most rational people realize that addressing climate change cannot be overly simplified because if business interests are overly affected, our economy will come to a screeching halt.  In turn, if the global economy were to fail, there will not be the will, nor the capital, to do much about climate change!

While some hardcore greens reading this post may say that short-term pain is necessary and worthwhile no matter the cost because the problem of climate change is that dire, we feel that a more balanced approach is necessary to ensure that the country remains strong. 

Many of those spreading denial and skepticism fear that if global warming is fully recognized the solutions will be tremendously expensive and burdensome.  We feel that there are solutions that can be explored that are balanced and fair to business and consumer interests.  This is not a far left or hard-core green publication, but rather an independent look at the problem of global warming and the ways that people from all political backgrounds and personal interests can work together to address this important problem.

For example, on our creating change page we talk about things that can be done right away such as dramatically reducing the number of trees we cut down each year. Not only are trees themselves able to absorb carbon dioxide that can cause global warming, but the harvesting process itself sends significant amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

On the Psychology of Denial page we will use information from studies done regarding people with different political beliefs, persuasion theory, and the role of personality traits.  We will refrain from injecting opinion, but rather we will turn to scientific studies to determine how corporations and their interest groups have been able to successfully promote denial – what is it about some individuals that creates a susceptibility to wanting to disbelieve global warming.

Global Warming and Climate Change: How did we get here?

Global Warming and Climate Change: What happened to get us so close to a worldwide crisis?

The climate change journal is here to provide a different view on Climate Change and Global Warming.  The science behind these problems is settled, and we invite any visitors who still have doubts to go to our “Science” page. Thus the Climate Change Journal is not here to encourage scientific debate and discussion.  There is no reason to spend time debating settled science.  Instead this web site is designed to try to understand how so many people can be convinced or other wise choose to deny the existence of a problem that could have catastrophic consequences and will be very expensive to fix.  In other words, what is it about us that got us here, inexplicably on the edge of global crisis.

We will explore the cycle of denial when it comes to climate change and global warming, as follows:

- Step 1 Corporate PR: Some corporations and their interest groups have a strong motivation to promote global warming and climate change denial.  We explore the current state of ethics when it comes to big oil and gas producers, as well as manufacturers who seem to be willing to use any means necessary, including spreading flawed data, myths that have no scientific basis, and manipulated statistics.  Some business, to their credit, are spending money to debate the fact that many solutions would be too expensive and damaging, which is a completely fair debate.  But why does this corporate PR work?  How do they make it compelling?  The answer is that they know their audience, and this is explored in steps 2 and 3 of the cycle of global warming denial.

Step 2: Organizing the PR into a collection of myths: The intended audience at which the corporate denial campaigns are targeted to like to have a coherent and steady set of “facts” to back the denial and skepticism that is being pushed.  This group, as can be seen in step 3, is comforted by certainty and threatened by uncertainty.  Thus this group will be susceptible to an unwavering set of “facts”, even if they not based on sound science, because they will give the feeling of certainty that sometimes complex science cannot provide.

- Step 3: Tapping into the psychology of denial: For a certain group of people, a large swath of the population, the global warming and climate change problem taps into a set of deeply held fears” Fears of government taking too much control, fears of expensive solutions, and worries about something that in itself may be uncertain yet dangerous.  Thus one reason it is so easy to promote deial and skepticism about global warming and climate change is that this group is already looking for psychological relief ?

- Step 4 How we can create change: The next step is a new step that is not fully taking place.  This step would find ways to effectively break through global warming denial and skepticism - how can we actually promote healthy debate and discussion about potential solutions that is balanced and not too far to the extreme of hurting business with cumbersome solutions but also addressing this growing threat?  How can we effectively help limit the effects of the psychological need to deny global warming even if it exists so this debate can start?

We also have a page dedicated to Holding the purposeful deniers responsible.  We have to learn from our mistakes throughout human history, and this includes understanding those who promoted ideas that were harmful to society so that we can recognize the next round of issues.  We predict that Global Warming and Climate Change will become a great example of the power of denial, the strength of a certain psychology, and the corrupting effects that big business can have when it wants to.  This sections aim is to hold those people, political parties, and groups who are promoting denial and doubt responsible so that we see these issues more clearly and prevent this kind of problem from repeating in other areas.

Thanks for visiting, and we welcome your participation!