Simon Donner, a climatologist at the University of British Columbia, is seen in a video "Making Sense of Climate Science Denial." (Disclaimer: I am a sometime physical scientist, but amateur observer of politics.) Briefly, I found Donner's little talk to be 1/3 mumbo jumbo (about the (pop-?)psychology of AGW acceptance or, mostly, denial), 1/3 his science on El Niño that was pretty interesting, and 1/3 rambling on personal observations. The following is my reaction in more detail, finding irony at every Q & A.
The most blatant thing that jumped out at me was his excellent advice in dealing with "denialists", to come at them with a sense of humility. But this is ironically in direct contradiction to advocates' and his own continued use of the term "denial" or "denialist" and his discounting much of their psychology to "religion" (not religion per se, but to deep, historically held beliefs and superstitions that he discussed in the video interview). These approaches, whether or not you think you are being humble) have the great danger of sounding or even being a very condescending, non-humble approach to dealing with the AGW argument, of the sort Obama got in trouble with when speaking of people (everyday folks) "clinging to their guns and religion."
I also perked up when Donner was asked about scientists and advocacy, but while he had good advice to students about honestly considering their own abilities and potential impact, he disappointingly only vaguely alluded to the issues this could bring to the quality of their science itself. I had more to say about my concerns in this regard last year discussing the Jim Hansen hat/handcuff photo/meme, in Activism vs Objectivity.
IMO, the huge problem here is that we have become hung up, perhaps even holding a preference to continuing this never-ending confrontation between the enlightened and the benighted. The advocates feel more enabled by making fun of people and calling them names, and the "denialists" are offended and dig their heels in even more. It goes nowhere except over the same old ground.
My personal problem, my denialism if you will, is one of a healthy skepticism not so much about the science as about the proffered solutions. I characterize the only solutions placed on the table as knee jerk reactions of stopping or slowing the burning of fossil fuels. But various proposals to implement this goal either ignore or are sorely lacking in analysis of the trade-offs, the realistic benefit that might be achieved versus the costs and downsides incurred. Scientists and economists just have to do a better job of this if anything is going to be accepted publicly and forward movement can occur if AGW is the focus.
It's pretty clear that some form of government intervention is going to be needed, either in terms of "investment", forward looking regulation (happening to a limited extent now), or full scale authoritarian control (outright nationalization of energy?). Donner focuses on the psychological idea that thousands of years of living in an uncertain, uncontrollable physical world is behind denialism, and that if we could just understand this, we would know how to approach people with compelling arguments. I tend to a more political explanation of climate change denialism, that over the past 100 years of increased government intervention and control, the lies politicians have told to effect it, and the various and significant ensuing problems that it has created, all act to promote a real skepticism in people about the ability for government to fix anything, as well as skepticism in politician's motivations in wanting the power to fix it. In short, big government types have themselves created the public perception problem they now decry, and which now limits their ability to convince people of their sincerity (and humility).
What to do? Alas, politics reigns, and if the relationship between science and religion is thought to be problematic, mixing science and politics is worse. Primarily, the problem is that we only promote reduction in "bad" greenhouse gases and do not propose or promote viable replacement technologies (conservation helps only at the margins). Irony abounds here. AGW advocates strongly protest the anti-scientific opinions of the denialists, but they, too, have had their own anti-scientific heydey, which directly bears on today's problem. I have used my classic example of this before. It is quite ironic that if the Clinton-Gore administration had allowed 4th-generation nuclear research and development to proceed in the 1990's, we would not have had to depend on regulation and (mostly) fracked natural gas to reduce coal use by 10-20%; we would instead be poised today to reduce coal use by 100%, to zero. Instead, Clinton-Gore reacted to political expediency and advantage, driven by nuclear FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) and effectively killed nuclear energy in this country. If they had instead tackled the FUD problem head on, scientifically and rationally, they could have convinced people of the value of developing the technology and engineering, and provided support based not on any global warming issues whatsoever, but simply on saving and improving the quality of lives for hundreds of thousands to millions of people relative to the case with continued coal use. The tremendous plus for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and warming would have been a beneficial side effect, and orders of magnitude better than any Kyoto Protocol or other "agreements" to promise to cut emissions by some voodoo, political, non-substantiated process.
So let's learn from our mistakes. If you want to make a serious dent in greenhouse gases and not incur the alternative government control side effects such as non-market driven price controls and punishing third world millions to reduced development and continued privation, stop imagining that you must somehow understand the stupid denialist's innermost psychology in order to convince them, to somehow win them to your side. Sidestep this goofy, never-ending advocate/denialist conflict altogether and instead start convincing people today that nuclear is safe and will save millions of lives over 20 years as nuclear replaces coal (and gas), allowing time for renewables' issues to be resolved and implemented worldwide.
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