“Members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization was greatest.” Kahan, Peters et al (2012)
…survey evidence showing the number of Americans endorsing anthropogenic climate change fell during the Great Recession, between 2007 and 2009. The authors' basic theory is that when people sense economic threat, they are more likely to value order and stability, which motivates them to justify the existing economic system and downplay evidence suggesting the system itself is a problem.
There's something about psychologizing that's invalidating. As if psychology was the science of human error. But does it have to be so? Humans are pretty good at tracking reality, thanks to biases and heuristics that work well most of the time. Error can be an ally in the search for truth.
Up-front costs impede the adoption of sustainable practices and technologies. So we need to create incentives for farmers to make that initial investment. Want more farmers to adopt no-till cultivation? Allow farmers to deduct the entire cost of expensive no-till planters in the first year of purchase.
In the case of corn-soybean farmers in Michigan, winter cover crops can delay or complicate spring planting; land that is not tilled for years might be invaded by difficult-to-control weeds; reducing fertilizer, insecticide, and herbicide use may sacrifice crop yield and boost the risk of herbicide-resistant insects and weeds. These are real concerns in a low-margin business.
“…Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes understood that great revelations create great enemies. He once warned: “You never need think you can overturn any old falsehood without a terrible squirming and scattering of the horrid little population that dwells under it.”
More land for agriculture means less land for grasslands, wetlands, and forests. Looking at the Big Picture, "sparing" the wild things is better than "sharing" with them. Of course, there will always be exceptions, but that's the general rule.
Here’s the thing: yeah, what with pesticides, fertilizer run-off, and habitat encroachment, farmers haven't done birds any favors - but that's not the whole story of declining bird populations. Nature will not simply revert back to some pristine state if we give back what we took: sorry - the habitat is yours now - multiply and prosper!
If 80% of wild plants depend on insects for pollination, the decline of insects spells trouble for just about all birds, not just the insect-eating ones. So what can we do?
This is the exploration process: questions are paths, you keep going down them until you reach a clearing - some light! Then you look around and find another path/question. Repeat. Hope for partial illumination (a clearing!). Yeah, some people think they can achieve total illumination: out of the woods at last! I'm skeptical about the 'total' part, yet ever hopeful another clearing is just down the road. All the while aware that some problems require decisive and timely action, even though the light could be better.
"...estimates a seasonal decline of 76%, and mid-summer decline of 82% in flying insect biomass over the 27 years of study."
Is it any wonder that a lot of Republicans soured on the environmental movement or came to doubt the "consensus" on climate change? Sure, as members of a pro-business/limited government party, it's not surprising that Republicans would be a bit less gung-ho about environmental regulation than Democrats. But that doesn't explain the change in Republican opinion over the last decade or so.
Of course, we must remain vigilant! But measured optimism is not the enemy.
What stands out in this map is that Red States are less densely populated than Blue States. They're more rural with plenty of room for people to spread out. Since rural homes are bigger and traveling distances farther, it should come as no surprise that Red States consume more energy per capita than Blue States. This is a function of landscape and livelihood, not politics. If you're a farmer, you don't tootle around in a Prius - you've got a pick-up.
According to the Conference of State Legislatures, net metering policies "have facilitated the expansion of renewable energy through on-site, also known as distributed, generation." Common distributed generation sources include solar panels, natural gas, micro-turbines, methane digesters, and small wind power generators.
The hypothesis: many Republicans would like to see a reduction in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, whether or not they believe in anthropogenic climate change. Please see Part I of this series for how I arrived at this hypothesis. ... Now, let's test the hypothesis.
According to a recent Pew Research Center report, most Republicans and Republican-leaning Americans (heretofore "Republicans") do not believe in anthropogenic climate change. Does that mean they won't support policies or regulations that reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions?