Archive for the ‘Climate Change’ Category
Climate hawks can get annoying with their “why you don’t see the danger that I see” message. And, I’m saying this as one of the allies – we’re long overdue for acting affirmatively about climate change, and our options are probably down to hunkering down and adapting to the hammering we’ll get from Gaia. Another annoying message that’s part of the climate hawk conventional wisdom is that people dismiss climate change because their unable to understand it. Confronting that conventional wisdom is a new paper, “The Tragedy of the Risk Perception Commons”, published by a group of risk communicators (one the names I recognize is Paul Slovic, at Oregon University). I saw this browsing through Scienceblogs, with the findings being characterized as “troubling”, and something’s not quite right”.
I’m surprised there is any surprise that education and numeracy doesn’t necessarily translate into concern about climate change. A few observations come to mind: the science around assessing climate change hazards is dominated by uncertainties – that’s not a bad thing, it just is when it comes to using the findings for decision making. The research published by Tversky and Kahaneman indicates that we’re generally really bad at making decisions with uncertainty. The research published by Gerd Gigerenzer indicates that even smart people aren’t as numerate about risks as they think. As an aside, it’s probably a fallacy to think that all educated people will converge onto one answer, regardless of other cultural factors.
The simple issue with climate change is that the mitigation and adaptation that might be needed is going to require society-transforming changes and the leadership to compel or persuade a lot of people to take actions that aren’t in their short term interest, for the benefit of future generations. And, we don’t even know if any of this is necessary – but, by the time we’re more certain, it may be too late and we as a species (particularly in Western societies) will be screwed. That seems to be the key issue, and more education about climate science is unlikely to help resolve this dilemma.
One line of inquiry Jim Hrynyshyn might consider is how opinions about climate change correlated with income and education – people who are well-off are the ones who will be asked to make the most significant changes to their lives (i.e. give up stuff they already have) to achieve climate mitigation or adaptation.
Considered to be a probable human carcinogen through inhalation, formaldehyde for several years has been the subject of a risk assessment being conducted by EPA, as well as a candidate for development of emissions standards under the Clean Air Act. Formaldehyde is used in manufacturing of building materials, and the offgassing from new building materials is a source of formaldehyde exposure in indoor air for potentially millions of people.
There have been several signal events related to formaldehyde which have occurred within the past few years. Temporary housing units used by FEMA to house people rendered homeless from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were found to have concentrations of formaldehyde in air at levels that were sufficiently high that public health officials were concerned about potential health risks to the occupants. Recently published epidemiological studies of workers indicate that exposed to formaldehyde is associated with an increased incidence of leukemia (formaldehyde is already thought to be associated with an increased risk of nasal cancers in workers). Senator David Vitter has held up nomination of a key EPA deputy administrator over the formaldehyde risk assessment, insisting that the risk assessment undergo review by the National Academy of Sciences, a step that would delay any regulation of formaldehyde emissions by a few years. Finally, the California Air Resources Board finalized air toxics control measures for the manufacturing of some building materials containing formaldehyde.
Beyond the fact that formaldehyde has been recognized as a human cancer risk and a widespread indoor air contaminant for over two decades, an argument can be made that the existing regulatory frameworks will not produce real reductions in formaldehyde exposure for many years. It is not simply a matter that more information is needed to make a decision. Collecting and analyzing more information can in certain cases create more opportunities to create doubt and distraction. The problem then is defining the kinds of information, messaging and framework that would mobilize enough power to effect changes; in this case, reengineering the manufacturing of building materials to “green” the formaldehyde out of them.
This involves either molding the views of decision makers or creating an enormous groundswell of public opinion. . . . [To be continued]
I ran across this story in Science Progress, a “progressive science blog” which comes across as earnest, involved and. . . dull. Dull and earnest meant that I couldn’t get too worked up about this screed by Chris Mooney about climate change denialism, which mentions the Pew Center statistic that a declining fraction of the American public is concerned about climate change.
However this does raise a good question about why, with the majority of the scientific community that is knowledgeable about the topic of climate change issuing alarms, is climate change risk communication so ineffective. I look at climate change, and see nothing but ways to make capital flow so that lots of people can make money. There’s some kind of a lesson about how being smart and committed about a topic isn’t necessarily enough to galvanize interest and concern about it.
As always, Peter Sandman has some sensible things to say about the problem of climate change apathy and precaution advocacy. However, I recall a few months back something on his blog about him planning to retire soon. I wonder who’s going to be picking up the slack here.