Finally got to read this post. I'm growing convinced that climate denialism is becoming a catch-all phrase to label someone as "other". In other words, it's meant to divide us from what we agree on.
Climate denial is a flag that gets raise by use of seemingly benign yet critical words. For example, Dolan uttered a few forbidden words that aren't allowed by climate policy activists: "low carbon", "nuclear", and "unreliable" in the context of renewables. Low carbon isn't good enough, only 0 carbon is good enough, nuclear is a crutch and anti-environmental, and the approved word to describe renewables is "intermittent" not "unreliable". Use of those forbidden words gets a person labelled a climate denier, or at best a climate delayer ("delayer" is a newer term I've also started to see used.)
Peer-reviewed literature, include the social sciences, have weighed in on the challenges of communicating about climate change and the language used. Moser confirmed a culturally dominant point that I've suspected exists: "[...] it may be telling that such resources [on climate change] dominate in the Anglo-Saxon world, where resistance to climate action, politicization of climate science, and polarization have been stronger than elsewhere." (Moser, Susanne C. “Reflections on Climate Change Communication Research and Practice in the Second Decade of the 21st Century: What More Is There to Say?”) The irony in this Western dominance of climate change communication coming from Anglo-Saxon sources is ironic given recent social justice trends to repudiate Western domination. I'd imagine the most ardent climate activist would align with social justice yet that well-intentioned person wouldn't realize that non-Western people could see climate policies pushed without equitable discussion as more fuel on the fire of oppression. Moser begs the question of whether any culture -- I'd argue especially the West -- admits its cultural lense: "[...] the critical takeaways from this body of work [on climate communication] is that, first, we all hear, perceive, make sense of, and judge incoming information (be it spoken, written, visual, or sensory) through the filters of culturally transmitted values and no one can escape this influence although we can become conscious of this influence and actively probe it, if we are willing". It's far too simplistic for those of us in the West to say China and India don't get it; that the science is above culture and unquestionably says to stop coal now, etc.
A recent example is the UAE not falling in line with the Paris Agreement, and Western activists saying COP28 shouldn't be hosted in Dubai, or otherwise undermining the common ground that can be found with a host whose national income is massively funded by fossil fuels. Revkin, for example, allowed his Substack to syndicate an article about climate misinformation that its author believes are from the UAE: https://revkin.substack.com/cp/126714568. By pointing fingers of doubt about intention and using language to divides us, we're missing the next phase of climate communication that Moser and others have found. We need to cross cultural boundaries and collaborate. Or the other C word: compromise. Compromise is probably the worst forbidden word that will get someone labelled a climate denier. ;)
You’re into something about the importance of the language we use to discuss climate change. It has an impact on how we see climate change and which actions we consider.
For one, we are in the comically bizarre situation where someone either (1) is a climate "denier" (or "delayer") or (2) wants to fix the climate "crisis" by quickly decarbonizing through wind and solar. Somehow there are no other options.
I don't want to shamelessly plug my other posts, but if you have 5 minutes take a look at the interview of Chris Wright by Bloomberg TV. Since Chris doesn’t endorse quick decarbonization, the Bloomberg anchor implicitly assumes he must be a climate denier. People like Chris are treated as "others" and excluded from the climate conversation. It's the same phenomenon with your example about COP28 in the UAE. Climate activists are horrified that oil and gas companies are no longer ostracized.
Also, my intuition is climate activists strongly emphasize "the science" in order to shut down any discussion between different groups of people who are in different situations and may want to address climate change differently. I’ll soon make a post about climate professor Katharine Hayhoe, but this snippet of her 2018 TED Talk is a gem: "Does the thermometer give us a different answer depending on if we're liberal or conservative? Of course not. But if that thermometer tells us that the planet is warming, that humans are responsible and that to fix this thing, we have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels as soon as possible (…)"
Your post's example of Chris Wright is classic example of loaded questions. The "news" anchor basically inferred Wright is a denier by the words she chose for her question.
Wright's position is challenging because of who he represents (fracking). If he's come to the table, why not attempt an olive branch? We might learn something -- even something about how to reduce the risks from things he represents. I already knew that electric power generation in the US has swapped coal power plants for gas power plants. That's what the AEI reports tell anyone willing to look. I didn't know that 60% of greenhouse gas reductions for the US are because of switching to natural gas. What Wright does (re-)tell is the high risk of energy price fluctuations because of how the current approach is rolling out. That's not what climate alarmists want discussed. I think it should. We need a conversation about whether governments should shield the consumer from price spikes if what Wright describes is high risk. Otherwise we face socioeconomic consequences that so-called climate deniers and delayers are warning about.
>my intuition is climate activists strongly emphasize "the science" in order to shut down any discussion between different groups of people who are in different situations and may want to address climate change differently
Yup, and that isn't just good intuition; it's also what peer-reviewed literature is pointing us towards.
I wrote a Substack about some about the psychology and sociology of climate change discussions. The literature doesn't say the dominant form of climate discussion is meant to "shut down" discussions when disagreements happen but at least one study found that the motivations of speakers weren't based on collaboration. Folks who speak up about climate change already believe they are competent in the subject and are seeking respect from their peers. In other words: high school cliques. Here's my shameless plug of my write-up :) https://hairesis.substack.com/p/climate-change-survey-saysdialetic
Professor Hayhoe is an interesting speaker. Her title is one I agree with, the storytelling is great at capturing attention, and avoiding politics is admirable, but her TEDTalk still succumbs to using words that divide. Re-telling what scientists say, so the appeal from competence and expectation of respect, a policy of de-carbonization, and renewables as the fix, attribution in the now as an alarm to not think but only to act, not moving fast enough on the pre-defined actions, etc. BTW - It looks like Hayhoe is now Chief Scientists at the Nature Conservancy.
> If he's come to the table, why not attempt an olive branch? We might learn something
100%. There's a tendency from some journalists and climate commentators to think they know everything and assume it's a one-way conversation: "I need to convince climate deniers." That's a poor mindset that is not conducive to learning. For instance the AR6 WGI report is over 2,400 pages. Who can say they understand it well? There's always scope to learn.
Not only coal to gas switching was a major cause of CO2 reduction in the US, but the industry is also decreasing its methane emission intensity: https://substack.com/@tianwen/note/c-16469631.
Finally got to read this post. I'm growing convinced that climate denialism is becoming a catch-all phrase to label someone as "other". In other words, it's meant to divide us from what we agree on.
Climate denial is a flag that gets raise by use of seemingly benign yet critical words. For example, Dolan uttered a few forbidden words that aren't allowed by climate policy activists: "low carbon", "nuclear", and "unreliable" in the context of renewables. Low carbon isn't good enough, only 0 carbon is good enough, nuclear is a crutch and anti-environmental, and the approved word to describe renewables is "intermittent" not "unreliable". Use of those forbidden words gets a person labelled a climate denier, or at best a climate delayer ("delayer" is a newer term I've also started to see used.)
I've been looking more into the language of climate discussions and am very intrigued because language shapes the way we think about something. There's been little journalism about it, and what does exist doesn't get at the heart of the challenge. For example: Revkin is a journalist who says he's been writing about this challenge but I find his articles don't admit bias and dig deep enough: https://archive.nytimes.com/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/can-better-communication-of-climate-science-cut-climate-risks/. The Guardian, perhaps not surprisingly, admitted in 2019 that its editing of articles about climate change would require authors to use more emotive language: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-guardian-is-changing-the-language-it-uses-about-the-environment. So climate change journalism is encouraged, at least openly by one source, to use emotive language. Emotive criticism however, like Dolan's, is a sign of Bad Think.
Peer-reviewed literature, include the social sciences, have weighed in on the challenges of communicating about climate change and the language used. Moser confirmed a culturally dominant point that I've suspected exists: "[...] it may be telling that such resources [on climate change] dominate in the Anglo-Saxon world, where resistance to climate action, politicization of climate science, and polarization have been stronger than elsewhere." (Moser, Susanne C. “Reflections on Climate Change Communication Research and Practice in the Second Decade of the 21st Century: What More Is There to Say?”) The irony in this Western dominance of climate change communication coming from Anglo-Saxon sources is ironic given recent social justice trends to repudiate Western domination. I'd imagine the most ardent climate activist would align with social justice yet that well-intentioned person wouldn't realize that non-Western people could see climate policies pushed without equitable discussion as more fuel on the fire of oppression. Moser begs the question of whether any culture -- I'd argue especially the West -- admits its cultural lense: "[...] the critical takeaways from this body of work [on climate communication] is that, first, we all hear, perceive, make sense of, and judge incoming information (be it spoken, written, visual, or sensory) through the filters of culturally transmitted values and no one can escape this influence although we can become conscious of this influence and actively probe it, if we are willing". It's far too simplistic for those of us in the West to say China and India don't get it; that the science is above culture and unquestionably says to stop coal now, etc.
A recent example is the UAE not falling in line with the Paris Agreement, and Western activists saying COP28 shouldn't be hosted in Dubai, or otherwise undermining the common ground that can be found with a host whose national income is massively funded by fossil fuels. Revkin, for example, allowed his Substack to syndicate an article about climate misinformation that its author believes are from the UAE: https://revkin.substack.com/cp/126714568. By pointing fingers of doubt about intention and using language to divides us, we're missing the next phase of climate communication that Moser and others have found. We need to cross cultural boundaries and collaborate. Or the other C word: compromise. Compromise is probably the worst forbidden word that will get someone labelled a climate denier. ;)
What a thoughtful comment JP.
You’re into something about the importance of the language we use to discuss climate change. It has an impact on how we see climate change and which actions we consider.
For one, we are in the comically bizarre situation where someone either (1) is a climate "denier" (or "delayer") or (2) wants to fix the climate "crisis" by quickly decarbonizing through wind and solar. Somehow there are no other options.
I don't want to shamelessly plug my other posts, but if you have 5 minutes take a look at the interview of Chris Wright by Bloomberg TV. Since Chris doesn’t endorse quick decarbonization, the Bloomberg anchor implicitly assumes he must be a climate denier. People like Chris are treated as "others" and excluded from the climate conversation. It's the same phenomenon with your example about COP28 in the UAE. Climate activists are horrified that oil and gas companies are no longer ostracized.
Also, my intuition is climate activists strongly emphasize "the science" in order to shut down any discussion between different groups of people who are in different situations and may want to address climate change differently. I’ll soon make a post about climate professor Katharine Hayhoe, but this snippet of her 2018 TED Talk is a gem: "Does the thermometer give us a different answer depending on if we're liberal or conservative? Of course not. But if that thermometer tells us that the planet is warming, that humans are responsible and that to fix this thing, we have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels as soon as possible (…)"
Shameless Substack plugs?! No way :)
Your post's example of Chris Wright is classic example of loaded questions. The "news" anchor basically inferred Wright is a denier by the words she chose for her question.
Wright's position is challenging because of who he represents (fracking). If he's come to the table, why not attempt an olive branch? We might learn something -- even something about how to reduce the risks from things he represents. I already knew that electric power generation in the US has swapped coal power plants for gas power plants. That's what the AEI reports tell anyone willing to look. I didn't know that 60% of greenhouse gas reductions for the US are because of switching to natural gas. What Wright does (re-)tell is the high risk of energy price fluctuations because of how the current approach is rolling out. That's not what climate alarmists want discussed. I think it should. We need a conversation about whether governments should shield the consumer from price spikes if what Wright describes is high risk. Otherwise we face socioeconomic consequences that so-called climate deniers and delayers are warning about.
>my intuition is climate activists strongly emphasize "the science" in order to shut down any discussion between different groups of people who are in different situations and may want to address climate change differently
Yup, and that isn't just good intuition; it's also what peer-reviewed literature is pointing us towards.
I wrote a Substack about some about the psychology and sociology of climate change discussions. The literature doesn't say the dominant form of climate discussion is meant to "shut down" discussions when disagreements happen but at least one study found that the motivations of speakers weren't based on collaboration. Folks who speak up about climate change already believe they are competent in the subject and are seeking respect from their peers. In other words: high school cliques. Here's my shameless plug of my write-up :) https://hairesis.substack.com/p/climate-change-survey-saysdialetic
Professor Hayhoe is an interesting speaker. Her title is one I agree with, the storytelling is great at capturing attention, and avoiding politics is admirable, but her TEDTalk still succumbs to using words that divide. Re-telling what scientists say, so the appeal from competence and expectation of respect, a policy of de-carbonization, and renewables as the fix, attribution in the now as an alarm to not think but only to act, not moving fast enough on the pre-defined actions, etc. BTW - It looks like Hayhoe is now Chief Scientists at the Nature Conservancy.
> If he's come to the table, why not attempt an olive branch? We might learn something
100%. There's a tendency from some journalists and climate commentators to think they know everything and assume it's a one-way conversation: "I need to convince climate deniers." That's a poor mindset that is not conducive to learning. For instance the AR6 WGI report is over 2,400 pages. Who can say they understand it well? There's always scope to learn.
Not only coal to gas switching was a major cause of CO2 reduction in the US, but the industry is also decreasing its methane emission intensity: https://substack.com/@tianwen/note/c-16469631.
Thank you for pointing that out.
These people are deliberately arguing in bad faith, and we should do whatever we can to not let them get away with it.
I try to make use for your material in reader comments.
Glad you appreciate this post Christoph! There is no shortage of these silly "climate denier" claims and I'll continue posting on them.