Thongchai Thailand

WHAT WE FIND IN “THE CONVERSATION”

The numbers of climate sceptics are dwindling. But they remain a noisy and at times powerful minority that continues to have political influence. This group is unmoved by the near-universal agreement among scientists on the reality and impact of climate change. Past research into climate change scepticism has focused on sociodemographics. It has found people are more likely to express scepticism if they are older, male, highly value individualistic beliefs and don’t value the environment. These characteristics are generally entrenched. It means this information, while interesting, may be of little use when trying to increase public support for climate action. Our latest study of Australian sceptics focused on potentially more malleable factors – including the thought processes of people who reject climate science messaging. Our findings suggest some people reject consensus science and generate other explanations due to mistrust in climate science and uncritical faith in “alternative science”. We hope these findings help researchers, scientists and those responsible for public messaging to understand and overcome sceptics’ concerns. Almost 90% of us now believe climate change is a problem across all political persuasions.

For our research, we surveyed 390 Australian climate change sceptics. They were recruited via social media, including from sceptic interest groups and websites. We explored whether the following variables predicted climate change scepticism above and beyond sociodemographic factors: These factors are (1) the extent to which you feel your life’s outcomes are within your personal control, or are mostly influenced by external factors and (2) whether their opinion is based on defending the industrial capitalist system against accusations that its activities are causing harm.

We broke scepticism down into four types. They are: (1) the reality of climate change, (2) the causes of climate change, (3) the impacts of climate change, (4) the need to follow scientific advice.

In terms of who these deniers are, we found this pattern: older people were more likely to be sceptical of the reality of climate change, conservatives were more likely to be sceptical of the reality, causes and impacts of climate change., lower environmental values were strongly linked to all types of scepticism.

In the end, reality will bite. Multi-year droughts and successive never-before-seen floods will struggle to fit a sceptic narrative of yet another “one-in-100-year event”.

A significant and positive finding of this research iis that scepticism is rapidly becoming a topic for historians, not futurists. Climate denialism is dying out by virtue of the scientific weakness and contradctions their narrative.

CONCLUSION

WHEN THE SCIENCE IS GOOD SELL THE SCIENCE BY POINTING OUT ITS STRENGTHS.

WHEN THE SCIENCE IS BAD, SELL THE SCIENCE BY BY DENIGRATING ITS CRITICS.