Wow …. I’m still a bit shocked by one of those ads. It just made me think that the makers were sick … I know they’re trying to get a message across but it looked like a form of mindless violence to me. I know violence is not mindless, but that’s how it feels. I want to say: “You sick fuckers!” not “I’ll fly less.” It felt like nothing more than a journey into a mind that I’m pleased I don’t inhabit. I don’t want to be rude about it, but I had quite a reaction to it, just not the one I think it was soliciting.

Anyhoo, back on topic … I think this is a really interesting issue. I’ve been thinking a lot about it because I’m doing some research into myth and mythical thought, like that found in dystopian novels (eg 1984, Handmaid’s Tale), and whether we use a kind of mythology of the future as a way of calling for the application of forethought. That is, making a link between a threat in the future that we can avoid or mitigate if we ‘do something now’. This is a tricky area though because we’re not set up to deal with future threats, our biological instincts kick in when there is an immediate problem. I think that’s where the drink driving ad works, making the viewer inhabit a future threat in their imagination and therefore ‘do something now’ to avoid it.

“But if the evidence demonstrates that people are more moved to action on climate change when they are prompted to think about the impact it could have on them personally”

Well, yes, perhaps, but the problem here is that the effect of climate change upon us people (thankfully) living in the rich world is going to be pretty negligible. So the temperature goes up a degree or two? So?

We’re *not* all going to die from floods, rising sea levels, the stopping of the gulf stream and all that stuff. We’re rich enough that over the next couple of centuries it’ll be a piece of piss to protect ourselves from all of that. Indeed, it’s entirely arguable that the effects on those living now (actually, it’s absolutely bloody certain that) of attempting to prevent climate change will be greater than the effects of climate change upon any of those alive now in the rich countries.

This may or may not be true of those in the poor countries. Which is why you do indeed have to appeal to people’s empathy instead of their self interest.

You’ve a nice idea but it just won’t work. Because stopping climate change is a cost to us living now in the rich countries. We’re just not threatened by it, however much people in 200 years might be, or however much the people in poor countries today might be.

‘Climate scientists would, rightly, argue that it’s impossible to say with certainty that any single event, like a particular flood, was caused by climate change. The video would need to avoid taking advantage of anyone’s suffering, so it couldn’t draw on a specific flood like, in the UK, Boscastle or the 2007 floods.’

It couldn’t draw on specific floods because of the first sentence.

The problem is selfishness isn’t as great a motivator as you seem to think – otherwise we’d follow other countries and pay people to give blood, etc.

I’m on fairly high ground and, to be honest, it gets a bit chilly for me here in the winter. A campaign based on self-interest is more likely to put me off.

I didn’t quite understand your reference to the chilliness of your high ground Shatterface. Can you explain?

This is an assumption, but that comment makes you sound like you’re from the UK. I’m not suggesting I’m an expert on international responses to this issue, but my experience is that people in other parts of the world don’t say they might be glad for a little bit of a temperature rise (if that’s what you meant with the comment), but Brits seem to say it all the time! I find it particularly odd given that climate change will more than likely make the British Isles colder …. *shrug*

Apparently, the ‘Bedtime Stories’ campaign was based on market research which suggested that they way to get people to worry about climate change was through reference to their children. A way of making the future personal…?

Blogpost on it

@2. Tim

But because we haven’t yet encountered catastrophe, and because we are rich we can afford to make changes. A couple of centuries from now the human race wont be able to travel back in time and put right what is wrong now and will be affecting us in the future . We are informed by the science now so we can’t say we didn’t know. You have to appeal to people’s empathy instead of their self interest . What about the self interest of the human race as a whole? Surely it is better to collectively avoid catastrophe than hurtle towards it as part of some libertarian ideological expression of personal freedom?

“Surely it is better to collectively avoid catastrophe than hurtle towards it as part of some libertarian ideological expression of personal freedom?”

Sure. I think you may not understand my views on this. It is happening, it is a problem, we do need to do something about it. Hey, in my day job I actually work on this (specifically, the weird metals necessary to get the alternative energy systems working).

I disagree to a large extent with what we should do about it, sure, but that’s rather different.

My point here was simply that attempting to appeal to the self-interest of rich world people won’t in fact. work. Because it’s not in the self-interest of current rich world people to do anything about it.

It is in the interest of their descendeants: it’s also quite possibly in hte interests of current poor world people. But that means appealing to empathy, not to self-interest.

“those who report experience of flooding express more concern over climate change, see it as less uncertain and feel more confident that their actions will have an effect on climate change”

In completely unrelated news, people are funny old things. Whether they’ve been flooded or not shouldn’t have any particular bearing on their climate change beliefs; we are after all, constantly being told that “weather is not climate”.

I suspect that if the antis even considered using tactics such as those suggested in the OP there would be a wailing and gnashing of teeth, decrying them as illogical, anti science and down right evil. That you believe you are right doesn’t give any greater justification for you to use such methods.

Falco @ 8

I suspect that if the antis even considered using tactics such as those suggested in the OP there would be a wailing and gnashing of teeth, decrying them as illogical, anti science and down right evil.

Er, this is exactly what you do; however we, by and large, respond in none of those ways you describe.

Your entire ethos is based on naked greed and short term self interest, and most of the response you get is one of patiently reiterating the science in the hope that you eventually get it.

It is only a minority of people like, well me, that describe you people as nasty, anti science vermin. Most of the science people just think you are misguided but essentially decent people.

The polar bear ad is terrible. And the one about the animals, with the monkey hanging itself …. what can I say … without being deleted?

How about some ads about the consequences of the world’s primary and most urgent ecological problem – the unrestrained growth in numbers of the mammal homo sapiens – you know, the one responsible for global warming. No? I forgot – the unrestrained growth of this mammal, at the expense of most other species, is, in the eyes of lefties and standard greens, an unmitigated good.

“the unrestrained growth in numbers of the mammal homo sapiens”

Because there isn’t unrestrained growth in the human population perhaps?

The rate of growth is slowing down and soon we expect (within 40 years, which is soon for a species which lives 70-80 years) total numbers to start falling.

We even know why, too. The poor are getting rich.

“We even know why, too. The poor are getting rich.”

More horseshit.

Remeber all that correlation != causation stuff? Hello? Anyone home?

I’m not even convinced by the methodology of the survey to which the OP links.

The survey was conducted by knocking on doors and asking people whether they would spare 30 minutes of their time for a survey. Respondents were not paid for their time. The survey is thus biased towards respondents (flooded or non-flooded) who are willing to sacrifice 30 minutes for no reward.

The number of questions (six) relating to climate change is very modest and would be answered in five minutes. It can be assumed that the questions were included with other surveys about other topics. We can’t assume any bias for or against climate change believers on that basis.

According to the Methods section at http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n1/full/nclimate1059.html
“Sample points were selected randomly…” and “Output areas containing fewer than 80 postal address files were excluded from the sample.” So it wasn’t a random sample. The survey explicitly ignored hamlets and villages, which are often close to the flood plain. Respondents from those districts would be less likely to associate flooding with climate change.

The sample of flooded respondents is thus skewed towards those who were victims of “surprise floods”. I use the expression surprise flood loosely to describe historically unusual events (eg two huge floods in quick succession in Carlisle) and predictable events that were unrecognised by home owners (eg those who did not identify a discoverable risk). Victims of a surprise flood may choose to seek a rationale based on climate change rather than to blame themselves or luck.

The Nature article does not report any demographic or socio-economic data about respondents. Thus we cannot determine whether flood reporting respondents are representative of any population; I’d like to know what people similar to those who have been flooded think. (To be fair to the researchers, the sample size was not sufficient for such analysis, but it should have been recorded as a caveat.)

Please note that I am questioning the validity of the survey and its relevance to the climate change argument, not climate change itself.

@13. If you’ve a better explanation as to why population growth slows, then goes into reverse, with rising incomes, then let’s hear it.

For the UN and all buy it, why don’t you?

“For the UN and all buy it”

Better get scribbling, Little Timmy – that’s a hundred lines of “I will not appeal to authority” you need to do now, in addition the hundred “I will not confuse correlation with causation” you earned yourself earlier.

“Better get scribbling, Little Timmy – that’s a hundred lines of “I will not appeal to authority” you need to do now, in addition the hundred “I will not confuse correlation with causation” you earned yourself earlier.”

Most amusing. So, given that it is in fact the UN which makes the projections of what future population is going to be, who should we believe about future projections of population other than the UN?

And as to population growth stalling then falling as incomes rise, what on earth is your problem with that? It’s not something that is just generally accepted it’s something that is blindingly obvious. Absent immigration none of the rich nations are even replacing their own populations at the moment.

Worstall – which bit of “correlation does not equal causation” do you not get?

“Worstall – which bit of “correlation does not equal causation” do you not get?”

Which bit of “we have investigated the correlation and decided upon the causation” do you not get?

Rich societies have fewer children. That’s the correlation.

So, why? Because rich societies offer women other useful opportunities than continually pumping out the babies so as to gain that essential goal of life, grandchildren. As well as rich societies offer women the probability of having those grandchildren without having to have 8 babies in the first place.

So, over to you. Why is it that the rich countries, absent immigration, are not growing in population? What is your explanation for the causation of this correlation?

“Worstall – which bit of “correlation does not equal causation” do you not get?”

So, “all of it except some shit I just made up” – glad we’ve cleared that up!

“All of which is a pretty clear lesson for anyone campaigning on climate change.”

That they should stop campaigning on the science and find some personal tragedy to hitch their wagon to?

Surely this is just an admission Global Warming has failed as a public cause.

Well, yes, perhaps, but the problem here is that the effect of climate change upon us people (thankfully) living in the rich world is going to be pretty negligible.

There’s a whole bunch of people who can no longer get flood insurance or sell their flood-prone houses who might not entirely agree with you there.

Would it really have been so hard to avoid writing a title that sounds like “climate activists should go around threatening people”?

In terms of the videos: I think you’re between a rock and a hard place here. If you go with possible but unlikely doomsday scenarios, you’ll be shouted down by sceptics as using unrealistic narratives to inspire fear, and they’ll have a point. Go with more realistic scenarios and people won’t care as much, even if they should. People dying in the Third World? I don’t live there. Floods in parts of Britain? Meh, that’s the sort of thing that happens to other people, not me. Mass immigration due to parts of the world becoming uninhabitable? We’ll just tighten our border restrictions.

As you say, using animals to evoke an emotion response is unlikely to work, because you’ll mainly be preaching to the choir. However, it might help to inform people that one of the more likely scenarios for Britain under global warming is not that we’d get a Mediterranean climate, but rather one that resembles Norway’s.

@SMFS #21:

“[a pretty clear lesson for anyone campaigning on climate change] That they should stop campaigning on the science and find some personal tragedy to hitch their wagon to?”

No; a pretty clear lesson that people who have experienced the expected outcomes of climate change are more likely to take the risks seriously and not dismiss them as the imaginings of a global conspiracy.