Comments on: Delaying Climate Action Is More Costly: Study

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 05:58:00 +0000

People in lots of the world are much more aware of climate than are many in the US who spend their lives indoors. Awareness of how the climate is changing is high.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 05:57:00 +0000

Marshall, in most of the world people don’t question climate change. “Deniers” are somewhat unique to the US and a couple other places. I do some traveling in out of the way places in Asia and South America and commonly villagers and farmers know what is happening.

I was in Nepal a couple of years back when for the first time anyone could remember there was no snow on the mountains around Pokora. People stood in the street and talked about climate change.

Even in the US a significant majority understand that the climate is changing and that humans are almost certainly the reason it is happening. It is my opinion that “willful deniers” post out of proportion to their numbers. I wouldn’t suggest that counting posts on the web as a way to measure general attitudes.

Only about 10% of Americans deny that the climate is changing. Another 10% or so attribute it to non-human causes. Of course they have no idea what the cause may be. They seem to believe in magical sine waves.

There are people who spend their time posting the same junk over and over on different sites. It’s like the anti-wind turbine crowd. A relatively small number of people making a lot of noise.

How you deal with it, I think, is post facts so that passerbys get a chance to hear the counter argument. And do what you can to help educate people in general.

I think one of the best things to do is to simply point out that the poster is repeating a disproved myth and give the link to Skeptical Science.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

By: Adam Johnston

Adam Johnston — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 05:36:00 +0000

Marshall, I think how you convince people climate change is a serious problem is when weather that should not normally be happening happens.That gets people thinking.

People have to see it with their own eyes to believe it.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 02:00:00 +0000

That’s a good question, a hard one… the only thing I can say is: keep drilling the truth/facts. Sooner or later, the overwhelming majority will get the point.

Also, speak up with extreme weather hits — this is what really helps people to connect the dots. And discuss the effects global warming is already having today — when people see story after story about the way our world is changing today, some obnoxious denier’s comments won’t hold any sway.

Thanks for the note — keep up the good work!

By: Marshall

Marshall — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 04:53:00 +0000

I don’t doubt even for a second that humankind could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid catastrophic climate change. The problem right now is, that we have a good portion of the populace that is aware of the problem, and another portion of the populace that is completely oblivious and/or willfully ignorant on the subject. Check out the posts you see from regular people on other websites. All they do is perpetuate discredited myths that have been debunked for the umpteenth time. How the heck do you deal with such a depressing level of misinformation?