Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how a lot of climate leaders freaked out when David Wallace Wells’s article “The Uninhabitable Earth” came out(before the book) bc they said it was too alarmist, too worst-case scenario and it was bad to scare people. And yet… - ThreadSky

amywestervelt.bsky.social • 142 days ago

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how a lot of climate leaders freaked out when David Wallace Wells’s article “The Uninhabitable Earth” came out(before the book) bc they said it was too alarmist, too worst-case scenario and it was bad to scare people. And yet…

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cityatlas.bsky.social•142 days ago

An interesting and useful research project would be to have people inventory how much they have already lost. Do it both qualitatively (interviews) and quantitatively. There will be obvious things like insurance, but also deep & otherwise harder to see issues. Do it at polling scale, 1500 or more.

carlnyberg312.bsky.social•142 days ago

The argument that we shouldn't alarm people on climate and instead use persuasion... this argument breaks down when the liberal establishment avoids doing the persuasion because they are more interested in persuading on [other matter].

amywestervelt.bsky.social•142 days ago

if you look at the rhetoric animating climate obstruction it is heavily fear-based. They’ll take your burgers, they’ll take your freedom, your way of life is threatened, etc. Notably it was predominantly physical scientists who were opposed to leveraging fear…

amywestervelt.bsky.social•142 days ago

ex#10000000 why I don’t think it’s a great idea to look to physical scientists for social and political expertise. Not that they shouldn’t communicate, they absolutely should and many have sacrificed a lot to do so. But…

solenodon.bsky.social•142 days ago

Absolutely.
Years ago, my one academic engineer friend and climate denialist absolutely would not listen to arguments that the biosphere was already being impacted by climate change. Likewise, I have deep experience dealing with evolution denial and it's physical scientists.

amywestervelt.bsky.social•142 days ago

given the broad agreement that this is a problem of political will, not science or tech, it’s odd to think physicists are likely to have the answer. It’s totally bizarre to me that so many reporters exclusively talk to climate scientists about policy/psych/behavioral questions

lynnaodel.bsky.social•141 days ago

This is so smartly observed. I grew up listening to preachers once or twice a week who got people to do all kinds of things using lots of types of persuasion, but especially fear.

lynnaodel.bsky.social•141 days ago

Not for nothing, also, it was fear about things they really believed - I'm talking local congregations not rich famous scam artists. I think about that a lot now that I'm surrounded by technical experts who are afraid to speak emotionally or just say they're scared.

lynnaodel.bsky.social•141 days ago

Losing my relationship to your point but I totally agree those technical folks aren't the ones to interview, we're the ones to cite maybe.

rlmrdlnz.bsky.social•141 days ago

~8yrs ago I met a German student of "environmental psychology" because in Germany it is thought sensible to have people study the relationship between the world as it is and the world as we believe it to be and how that relationship is created, sustained and changed
Seems sensible

rlmrdlnz.bsky.social•141 days ago

She asked me what % of people do NOT get that there is a climate crisis and my answer was 0%
We ALL live in the world and every moment, from every direction we KNOW it's crying in pain at what we have done, and the energy needed to ignore that is huge
Which is why so many are exhausted and enraged

mpusto.bsky.social•142 days ago

Just had our work retreat (Rewiring America) and we talked a LOT about the narrative and culture change, less about science. Change is hard in a place as personal as your home.

mpusto.bsky.social•142 days ago

Related: upcoming webinar about behavioral science and electrification https://www.linkedin.com/events/sparkingchangetoelectrifycleane7246911020223410176

kevinjkircher.com•142 days ago

The interplay between narrative/culture change and research is really interesting to me, especially around stuff like home electrification. So much messaging and decision-making centers on stoves, for example, even though they're among the least consequential fossil fuel uses in most homes.

jimismash.bsky.social•142 days ago

Could there be a viable argument along the lines of: cooking with gas is a connection to gas that some people care about and getting them on board with induction could be a step toward garnering more support for complete electrification. If I have gas for my stove, might as well have a furnace.

kateschapira.bsky.social•142 days ago

Just had a similar conversation yesterday in another thread about supporting biodiversity and the emphasis on planting for pollinators. There are some medium- and low-quality reasons why that happens, but I think some of it is a kind of circular assumption about which fruit is low-hanging?

kevinjkircher.com•142 days ago

But when a study about gas stoves and asthmatic kids comes out, it really kicks the culture-war beehive.

bobkopp.net•142 days ago

Yes, agreed, but where’s the social science to show that fear-based messaging is effective at promoting progressive policy change? Stopping action, yes. Reactionary policy change? Yes, fear is the core appeal of reaction.

valentenya.bsky.social•139 days ago

The gatekeeping on this by certain prominent physics based climate scientists sucks just sayin’.

johnsmillie42.bsky.social•142 days ago

Yup

tspampatti.bsky.social•139 days ago

Yes, we behavioral scientists are here to contribute!
Tbh, the effect of fear is somewhat paradoxical rn. Fear generated by anticipated personal loss (of burgers etc.) seems to motivate inaction - but the effect of fear about the consequences of climate change is currently not great…

tspampatti.bsky.social•139 days ago

For example, our recent big study of many climate messages found fear actually decreased pro-environmental behavior ( https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj5778)
We should def be aware of behavioral research in this domain when communicating about communicating!

rlmrdlnz.bsky.social•139 days ago

I've seen multiple people say exactly that, some of them climatologists tearing out their hair
We know, now, what DOESN'T work, so what are the behavioural scientists telling us about
a) what DOES work?
b) with whom?
c) how long would it take to get to a critical mass?
Because time is now short

ilikehikes.bsky.social•139 days ago

If I understand correctly, the most climate concerned people are motivated by fear frames while the less engaged are most motivated by positive frames. Tough paradox when the most concerned try to communicate with the less concerned

meadekrosby.bsky.social•142 days ago

I totally agree, with the caveat that there are many folks trained as physical/natural scientists who’ve worked at the science/policy/practice interface for so long they’ve developed much broader expertise than suggested by their formal training, and which can be helpful for sense-making.

meadekrosby.bsky.social•142 days ago

This is where disciplinary humility gets more difficult to navigate, because that work is so incredibly inter- (and trans-) disciplinary.

ketanjoshi.co•142 days ago

I was definitely one of the people who was yelling "listen to the science!!!!!!!!!!" constantly in the 2010s and I can't say I feel 100% great about everything that it caused

andrewstyan.bsky.social•142 days ago

Unless that was the only thing you were yelling then it was, and still is, never the wrong thing to say. The problem is that those who make the greatest impact - politicians - chose to ignore the message.

patrickcanning.bsky.social•142 days ago

Yup, I applaud the great climate scientists who have had the courage to speak out.
But - science provides information, not decisions. Decisions should be based on good information/ science, and ethics.

hoodiecraw.bsky.social•141 days ago

Nice idea, but do you know any humans up, close and personal?

patrickcanning.bsky.social•142 days ago

I wonder if our deference to science is because everyone is locked in the current neoliberal worldview that there is no ethics, no right or wrong, just everyone's opinion, and every opinion is just as good as every other.?

kirkmurphy.bsky.social•142 days ago

Deconstructionism may yet destroy us.

kevinjkircher.com•142 days ago

It was sort of wild how, after initials like "PhD" and "MIT" got attached to my name/job title, I became a quotable source on all sorts of stuff. My area of expertise, yes, but also all sorts of policy and business stuff that I just sort of followed and tweeted about like any other person.

kevinjkircher.com•142 days ago

It was fun and flattering - not gonna lie, it's something that a part of me misses about pre-Musk Twitter - but it's also just odd to treat a PhD or prof as an expert on stuff they don't really work on, just follow.

kevinjkircher.com•142 days ago

On the other hand, reporters and journos sometimes treat *other journos* as expert sources, and to me this seems fine. Someone like @volts.wtf who's been reporting on the climate beat for ages likely knows more than me about wider social/cultural/business issues around tech I work on.

valentenya.bsky.social•139 days ago

Speaking as someone with an interest in human politics and animal behaviour: the notion that fear isn’t motivating is a whole other level of daft. I don’t use fear to train animals but it absolutely motivates behaviour. I smell a rat in this space.

ryancbartlett.bsky.social•142 days ago

I struggle with using the extreme end of the scenarios as a cudgel (even though I think a helluva lot more people are fear motivated than climate comms research says), when we clearly have failed to communicate on a core level how bad even 1.5 degrees could be.

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