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Climate change skeptics should be “treated,” says enviro-sociologist -- Kari...Prof of biology....)
Hot Air ^ | posted at 4:15 pm on March 30, 2012 | Tina Korbe

Posted on 03/31/2012 12:09:58 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach

This just smacks of the same mentality that inspired climate change activists to say global warming deniers should be purged from meteorology. Kari Mari Norgaard, a professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon, suggests that resistance to the threat of climate change at individual and societal levels must be “recognized and treated” before real action can be taken to effectively address the problem global warming poses. From a University of Oregon press release:

“Climate change poses a massive threat to our present social, economic and political order. From a sociological perspective, resistance to change is to be expected,” she said. “People are individually and collectively habituated to the ways we act and think. This habituation must be recognized and simultaneously addressed at the individual, cultural and societal level — how we think the world works and how we think it should work.” …

At the personal level, climate-change information raises fear about the future, a sense of helplessness and guilt. These emotions clash with individual — and often national — identity, sense of self-efficacy and the need for basic security and survival. In small groups, interactions often subvert political conversations and/or submerge the visibility of climate-change issues. At the macro level, or society at large, the co-authors point to an absence of serious discussion of climate change within U.S. Congressional hearings and in media coverage.

In many discussions in the last 30 years, climate change has been seen as either a hoax or fixable with minimal political or economic intervention, said Norgaard, author of the book “Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions and Everyday Life” (2011, MIT Press). “This kind of cultural resistance to very significant social threat is something that we would expect in any society facing a massive threat,” she said. The discussion, she said, is comparable to what happened with challenges to racism or slavery in the U.S. South.

Norgaard clearly assumes that climate change science is settled — but it still isn’t. Just three days ago, for example, Princeton physics professor William Happer wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal under the headline, “Global warming models are wrong again.” Here’s a bit of what he had to say:

It is easy to be confused about climate, because we are constantly being warned about the horrible things that will happen or are already happening as a result of mankind’s use of fossil fuels. But these ominous predictions are based on computer models. It is important to distinguish between what the climate is actually doing and what computer models predict. The observed response of the climate to more CO2 is not in good agreement with model predictions.

We need high-quality climate science because of the importance of climate to mankind. But we should also remember the description of how science works by the late, great physicist, Richard Feynman:

“In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience; compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.”

The most important component of climate science is careful, long-term observations of climate-related phenomena, from space, from land, and in the oceans. If observations do not support code predictions—like more extreme weather, or rapidly rising global temperatures—Feynman has told us what conclusions to draw about the theory.

Norgaard is surely right that there are plenty of unscientific reasons to wish to think climate change does not pose the threat some scientists say it does. An acceptance of that hypothesized threat might impose certain obligations — to, say, purchase a low emissions vehicle — that a person might wish to avoid. Yet, there are surely plenty of unscientific reasons to wish to think climate change does pose the threat some scientists say it does. A desire for the power and latitude to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, for example, might motivate some politicians to accept climate science that they would not otherwise.

In charged debates like this one, it’s not helpful to use rhetoric that suggests dissenters are diseased. Far better to patiently engage in respectful discussion.



TOPICS: Conspiracy; Science; Weather
KEYWORDS: afw; climatechange; climategate; climategate2; climateskeptics; globalwarm; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax
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To: peeps36

Just wow. I wonder what happened to her. I would say...I’d hit it...with a rolled-up newspaper...but I think that someone or something hit in the past with something that was far, far worse.

Liberals are getting scarier by the minute-but usually, I am referring mostly to their ideas.


21 posted on 03/31/2012 1:06:59 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
I know it's not polite to make fun of the handicapped, but.........*jeezus*.........

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats."

--H.L. Mencken, The Sage of Baltimore


22 posted on 03/31/2012 1:07:22 PM PDT by Viking2002
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To: Viking2002

Please tell me this thing isn’t human. Yeegads!


23 posted on 03/31/2012 1:11:29 PM PDT by ogen hal (First amendment or reeducation camp?)
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To: ogen hal
Great Caesar's Ghost. I lifted this from her bio at Whitman College:

'Here at Whitman I am a member of both Sociology and Environmental Studies. Within the field of Environmental Sociology I am particularly interested in the intersection of social inequality (e.g. gender, race, class) and environmental problems. This area is also known as environmental justice. I frequently teach Environmental Sociology (Soc 309) and Citizenship and Leadership (ENVS 479) the Senior Seminars for Environmental Studies, and the Intro to Environmental Studies (ENVS 120). I also teach advanced seminar courses like Environmental Justice (Soc 353) and Environmental Social Movements (Soc 349).

Well, that ties it. Her mommy ingested way too many insecticides during pregnancy. Probably didn't help that the short bus she was on hit a pothole, and she fell out the rear emergency door and onto her noggin.

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats."

--H.L. Mencken, The Sage of Baltimore


24 posted on 03/31/2012 1:41:20 PM PDT by Viking2002
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To: Viking2002

She was the window licker on that short bus!


25 posted on 03/31/2012 1:46:53 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: GeronL
Yeah - is it just my active cranial sandbox, or can you also see her getting off said bus wearing a backpack and a bicycle helmet on her head?

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats."

--H.L. Mencken, The Sage of Baltimore


26 posted on 03/31/2012 1:54:53 PM PDT by Viking2002
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

yup that’s the mug


27 posted on 03/31/2012 1:56:28 PM PDT by Nifster
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

yup that’s the mug


28 posted on 03/31/2012 1:56:54 PM PDT by Nifster
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
As beethovenfan made comment to you:
"This is one stupid bi*ch." Dittos are in order.
29 posted on 03/31/2012 1:58:36 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle
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To: Viking2002

lol. or a football helmet


30 posted on 03/31/2012 2:07:30 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: GeronL
Nah, just the bicycle helmet. A face mask wouldn't have helped prevent any of that damage. Brrrrrr. LOL

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats."

--H.L. Mencken, The Sage of Baltimore


31 posted on 03/31/2012 2:15:01 PM PDT by Viking2002
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Jesus Harold Christ!

Genetic democrat alert!


32 posted on 03/31/2012 2:22:36 PM PDT by chris37 (Heartless.)
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To: Viking2002

lol.

right, that is all-natural beauty... *shivers*


33 posted on 03/31/2012 2:29:59 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: molson209

What degrees mean:

B.S. = Bull Sheet
M.S. = More of the Same
Ph. D. = Piled high and Deep


34 posted on 03/31/2012 2:39:45 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Occupy DC General Assembly: We are Marxist tools. WE ARE MARXIST TOOLS!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Let’s give the author and the top 10 alarmists a dose of truth serum and see what we learn.

Not THAT is a “treatment”!


35 posted on 03/31/2012 3:08:59 PM PDT by G Larry (We are NOT obliged to carry the snake in our pocket and then dismiss the bites as natural behavior.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

She looks like all the other women I see on the road with Obama bumper stickers on their vehicles.

I have yet to see one who’s even marginally attractive.


36 posted on 03/31/2012 3:15:20 PM PDT by CatherineofAragon (I can haz Romney's defeat?)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Whoa Nellie!!! This is gettin way outa hand!!!

What the heck do they think we are? A bunch of "subjects?" Or worse yet, soon to be "Soilent Green?"

37 posted on 03/31/2012 4:38:48 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Negativity must die because it's self-fulfilling!!!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Grampa Dave
Ah (BLEEP!) I thought this was series!!! I din't read far enough to see this dorcas/donkey's picture. Since this came out of what Grampa Dave likes to call "Oregone," have you pinged him yet?

Never mind, I do it myself. (grimace)

38 posted on 03/31/2012 4:47:08 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Negativity must die because it's self-fulfilling!!!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

(so sue me)

39 posted on 03/31/2012 4:48:13 PM PDT by tomkat ( FU baraq ! (check here often for fresh gulag bait)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Just like the soviet union. The chemical straitjacket was used to control dissidents.


40 posted on 03/31/2012 5:17:09 PM PDT by dynachrome ("Our forefathers didn't bury their guns. They buried those that tried to take them.")
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