Failing climate science 101
NYT: 52% of Americans flunk Climate 101, including 43% who believe that “if we stopped punching holes in the ozone layer with rockets, it would reduce global warming”. How well do you understand the basics? And where would you go to find out more?
CP: Big oil goes to university. Corporate interests and public research - the oil and water are mixing.
As an aside, one detail that jumped out at me from this report was the fact that in the US, R&D funding for national defence is greater than all other forms of R&D combined.
Posts
4 comments:
SkSci: Here is a quiz to test your basic knowledge.
The Conversation: The basics of climate science.
Daily Kos: Climate literacy matters.
Michael Tobis: Top 10 Things Aunt Sally Doesn't Know About Climate and Greenhouse Gases. See also this recent post: The deficit model and again here.
And my reply to the second post (with which MT agreed):
"Public understanding is necessary but not sufficient. Necessary, because without at least some clear inkling of the scale of the threat and the nature of the changes required (and the identity the most problematic behaviours, structures, assumptions and organisations) the necessary political will and (more broadly, and I would argue, more importantly) cultural changes will never materialise but will remain subject to passive and active resistance from cultural inertia stoked by the skills of vested interests. Yet not sufficient because information alone does not change behaviour. For that, a moral disposition is required that finds in change something desirable and/or obligatory. And so improving public understanding of both the science and the social science of climate change (and planetary crises more generally) is a sine qua non, but not itself the silver bullet."
Video: Lines of evidence for climate change.
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