Baseball, Moneyball, and Climate Change

What Baseball Can Teach Us About the Climate Change Debate

Jacob Weindling, June 23, 2018 (Paste)

“Roughly half of Americans don’t believe that climate change is man-made, and the reasons surrounding this mass rejection of experts have been fiercely debated…[Baseball reveals] an aversion to new statistics and metrics that help us better understand…[A]ll pitching philosophies are concentrated around producing three results: 1. Limiting walks 2. Maximizing strikeouts 3. Avoiding home runs…[Because] those three outcomes are the only events on a baseball field that the pitcher has 100% control over…[O]nce the ball is in play, there are a multitude of variables…[But when this philosophy is translated into] statistics,] old school baseball folks tend to check out of the conversation…

[There is a new wave of statistics that old school baseball folks tend to decry, though they] are based in old school thinking…Which gets to a fundamental flaw in human nature…[P]roviding people with evidence which contradicts their beliefs will not change their mind. Stories are superior to facts and figures…Those of us that accept climate change as fact must do a better job of convincing the 52% of Americans who do not believe that climate change is caused by humans. Hurling facts and figures at them does not work—as I have learned in my time evangelizing advanced baseball statistics…Don’t tell climate change deniers that ‘studies say’ things—show them those things…[There is no shortage of evidence] and we should use it to try to rally people to the cause before it becomes catastrophically undeniable.” click here for more

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