What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

What shapes your beliefs about the climate crisis? It’s not just left vs. right.

Kate Yoder, July 12, 2019 (Grist)

“Unless you’ve lost your home to a super-charged hurricane, evacuated from wildfire country, or survived some other kind of climate disaster, it’s not too hard to [to ignore scientific conclusions and forecasts and] live as if we weren’t in the middle of a planetary crisis…[It’s more difficult] to brush off your friends and family when they start talking about climate change…Liberals and conservatives alike shift their opinions on the subject to align with the people closest to them…[New studies confirm that the influence of close relationships was ‘massive’…

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…[T]he more people discuss the topic with friends and family, the more convinced they become that climate change is happening, caused by humans, and something to be worried about…[Those] discussing the climate more often had developed a slightly better grasp of the scientific consensus around climate change…[and people] who had a better understanding of the scientific agreement ended up discussing climate change more, in a self-reinforcing cycle…There’s one problem here: Most people aren’t talking about climate change at all, so they’re not part of this feedback cycle…[Y]ou don’t have to be fluent in the science to discuss climate change…[It is only necessary to] connect the dots between the values people already have and why they would care about a changing climate…” click here for more

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