This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change. Part VII: Climate Change Consensus: Update from the 97% Folks Climate Change Consensus and Lessons from Social Psychology Climate Change Consensus: Digging Deeper Climate Change: Degrees of Certainty within the Consensus Climate Change: Exploring the Consensus
This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change. Part VI: Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change, Part II Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change, Part I Energy Efficiency über Alles What Does It Mean Not to be a Climate Change Skeptic?
This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change. Part V: The Carbon Footprint of Consuming Experiences Instead of Things Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change, Part V Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change, Part IV Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change, Part III
This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change. Part IV: Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part IIIb: Reduce Black Carbon Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part IIIa: Reduce Emissions of Short-Lived Pollutants Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part II: Energy Efficiency Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part I Staying within a 1.5° C Rise by 2100 is Still Possible Plus the Obligatory Warnings
This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change. Part III Concerned Scientists, Climate Change and History as the Context of Trust Concerned Scientists, Building Trust, and Climate Change Explicit Persuasive Intent and Concerned Scientists Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part IIId: Reduce Methane Emissions from Anthropogenic Sources Mitigation Measures for a Less Warm Planet, Part IIIc: Reduce Wetland Methane Emissions
This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change. Part II: States of the Nation: Red States/Blue States and Environmental Policy, Part IV States of the Nation: Red States/Blue States and Environmental Policy, Part III States of the Nation: Red States/Blue States and Environmental Policy, Part II States of the Nation: Red States, Blue States and Environmental Policy - Part I Concerned Scientists, Climate Change and Why Some People Still Resist
This series consists of links and excerpts from my last 12 months of posts touching on the science and politics of climate change. Part I: A Framework for Finding Common Ground on Climate Change Psychology and Politics, Part IV: System Justification and Climate Change Psychology and Politics, Part II: Truth and Research Agendas First Step in Helping Farmers Help the Environment: Listen, Don’t Tell, Part II Environmental Politics The Science Behind the Headlines, Part II: Is the 2°C Target Beyond Our Reach?
“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)
For example, someone uninterested in higher education may not feel all that deprived compared to college graduates. Nor is it likely that a college undergrad would feel anger and resentment towards all those graduate students at her school if she considers the system for getting into graduate school to be fair and reasonable, expects to be a graduate student herself one day, and believes people who don't get accepted into graduate school have only themselves to blame.
We perceive social justice through a prism of intervening considerations, like how much:
...people have control over their circumstances
...luck figures in life outcomes
...the rules of the game are fair
...people deserve what they get.
…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.
The implicit message of the above quotations is that one side is driven by psychology (e.g., "motivated reasoning" ) and the other side is driven by the quest for truth. I propose that all sides are driven by psychology and by a quest for the truth. Doesn't matter if you're for the status quo, or against it.
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.
In the bad ol' days of bureaucratic communism, psychiatrists contributed their diagnostic services to the state to help rein in trouble-makers. Take "sluggish schizophrenia", a diagnosis characterized by “pessimism, poor social adaptation and conflict with authorities” and frequently used to facilitate the psychiatric incarceration of political dissenters in the USSR and Eastern Bloc countries. Thanks to sluggish schizophrenia, the Soviet Union had three times as many schizophrenic patients as the US.
Most people accept that merit should be rewarded and bad behavior punished, but that doesn't tell us much. The difficult question is: how much? Part of the answer to that is: according to the rules of a legitimate system. And what makes a system legitimate?
Wealth is usually calculated as what the household owns that can be cashed in for future spending. But shouldn't external sources of future spending be counted as household wealth as well? Why not count the value of investments into which other entities pay but the household collects, like government- or employer-funded pensions? For example, the median pension benefit for newly retired teachers in California is $40K a year. That works out to $1 million over 25 years.
For instance, inequality was associated with higher happiness in countries where people felt they or their children were going places. Well-dressed rich people reminded them of their own possibilities, not of something they can never have because the system is rigged. In these countries, exposure to the good fortune of others wasn't depressing or an occasion to rage against the machine. It was inspirational: an occasion to double-down on one's resolutions. Okay, that's simplifying a bit, but you get the point.
…if we're around someone who's "higher" than us on a dimension that matters (e.g., wealth, looks, personality), the degree to which we feel good or bad about it depends (in whole or part!) on whether we feel we have what it takes to get where they are.
…what one considers fair or equitable is partly based on whether a person’s allotment is deserved - that is, earned by virtue of personal qualities or actions. Deservingness isn't just about what a person is or does, though. It's also about the broader social and economic context: the rules of the game that dictate which qualities or actions are rewarded.
Average profit margins for insurance companies have hovered around 3% for years. That's not wasted money, though; in our current healthcare system, insurance companies play a vital role: they rein in providers who are prone to over-treat and over-test.