On the Public and Climate Change, It's Not the Heat or the Cold, It's the Curve
This week's triple-digit heat wave has raised both temperatures and hopes among climate activists that this can move public opinion about global warming – just as climate skeptics grasped onto last winter's "snowpocalypse" as a talking point. From our point of view, what policymakers and activists really need is a better reading on the public, not a better reading on the thermometer.
When it comes to complicated problems, like energy and climate, public thinking goes through a "learning curve." The learning curve runs through several stages, from initially learning about an issue to "working through" the different alternatives and finally to a resolution, according to Public Agenda's founder, Dan Yankelovich. This can be a long process, and there are a lot of potential hurdles that can block progress. Scientists and policymakers, in particular, often believe that more information is the answer, but information is only one element in public thinking.
The hardest part of this process is the middle stage of "working through," where the public weighs a particular problem against other priorities, and various options to solving it against each other. This takes time, and there are a lot of potential roadblocks, like wishful thinking, mistrust, a lack of urgency, and a lack of clear alternatives.
On energy, the public is certainly wrestling with a lack of knowledge, but the question of whether climate change is real or not is only a piece of that puzzle. Four in 10 Americans can't name a fossil fuel, and even more can't name a renewable energy source. People overestimate the amount of oil we have domestically and the amount of energy we get from renewables.
So even if Americans believe we need to overhaul our energy policy – and surveys show they do – they're hampered in dealing with the options to making that change happen. The decisions needed to change our energy mix require serious tradeoffs based on economics, technology and politics. Without key facts and clear choices, the public can't judge what's realistic and what's not, and that's bound to hamper constructive, practical decision making.
There are good reasons to be skeptical of whether heat waves actually change the public's sense of urgency on global warming. But even if a hot spell made the problem more urgent for the public, without better ways of working through the choices, people could still be lukewarm when it comes to buying into practical solutions.
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"The public's belief in global warming as a man-made danger has weathered the storm of climate controversies and cold weather intact, according to a Guardian/ICM opinion poll published today.
Asked if climate change was a current or imminent threat, 83% of Britons agreed, with just 14% saying global warming poses no threat. Compared with August 2009, when the same question was asked, opinion remained steady despite a series of events in the intervening 18 months that might have made people less certain about the perils of climate change. Emails between climate researchers that were released online in November 2009 had led to unfounded suggestions that the scientific basis for global warming was flawed. World leaders also failed to agree to a global deal to combat warming and a mistake over the melting of Himalayan glaciers was handled badly by the UN's science panel.
Supporters of action on climate change, from government to business to campaigners, will be relieved that this series of negative news failed to increase scepticism significantly. Polling by other organisations in early 2010 suggested a rise in the proportion of those unconvinced of the danger of climate change. But over the 18-month period between the ICM polls, the proportion of people saying climate change is not a current threat rose by just 3% and was balanced by a 3% rise in those saying it is a threat, representing a small polarisation of the opposing viewpoints.
sim so dep"
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