jacob wrote:
Obviously, this anti-scientific sentiment is a problem in more than just one field and it seems to be spreading. It's a problem because people are literally dying because of ignorance. Now, we know from multiple fields, that presenting the facts is not going to work. Satire and ridicule has been suggested and rejected by a majority in this thread because while it works on some, it rejects others, and it strongly polarizes the situation.
What other more effective suggestions may there be?
As a design consultant, the most important thing I learned about influencing people is to first understand the target audience and to adjust your presentation to put it in terms that they personally relate to. "This is how my idea will make your life/job easier." The presentation for the exact same product would be very different for the CFO (capital required, revenue potential, execution plan), marketing VP (new market reach, target customers, price points), engineering director (technical specs, realistic schedules, risks and mitigation strategies), and end customers (features, benefits, how freaking cool it is). I learned early on that rolling into a marketing or finance meeting with an engineering presentation was a waste of time and likely to do more harm than good. But by recognizing the very different motivations of each party and by speaking in their terms, I became pretty darn effective at promoting new ideas that everyone could get on board with.
When it comes to climate change, I'm admittedly a subset of Group 2 that accepts that many of the proposed facts of Group 1 are based in good science but rejects their most apocalyptic predictions, recognizes that the required tradeoffs may not always make the alternative plans a net positive for humanity (continued third-world poverty so that we can still fly to climate summits in Rio in a carbon-neutral way), and notices that many of the proposed "solutions" are politically expedient (massive carbon taxes and global wealth redistribution) rather than true science-based remediation (nuclear energy). But here's the thing -- I largely share a similar vision for a better environmental future and accepting the same "facts" is completely unnecessary to identify common ground. If anything, I believe that shifting the environmentalism focus from air quality, water pollution, deforestation, wildlife diversity, etc (all issues that the vast majority of people immediately appreciate and support) to theoretical sea level changes hundreds of years out has set back the movement tremendously. It has distracted people from areas where real consensus can be formed, and diverted resources from projects where measurable progress can be made.
FWIW, I personally believe Jacob and MMM have accomplished great inroads in improving the environment not by beating the climate change drum but by appealing to the other very real motivations for people to behave responsibly. Living in a low-impact way and rejecting consumerism is an effective way to eliminate money stress, free yourself from the machine, and live a happy life. The fact that it also benefits the environment and fights climate change is a happy side benefit. IMHO, we need more of these types of diverse asymmetrical arguments and fewer calls for homogeneous thinking. Any strategy that first requires every human to agree on the reasoning and share the same motivation is a practical non-starter.
