Ecocentric

Why Facts Don’t Always Help in the Battle Over Climate Science Skepticism

  • Share
  • Read Later

For my weekly Going Green column on the Time.com mainpage, I have a piece examining why belief in climate science—especially among conservatives—has waned so much in America lately. Tuesday’s climate science hearings in the House of Representatives—which featured significantly more politics than science—seemed to show that facts really aren’t driving the debate over climate change any longer. And perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising—we’re not exactly purely rational creatures. As I pointed out in a post yesterday, significant numbers of Americans reject scientific concepts that are even better established than climate change. When the facts clash with our values—or our self-identified group’s values—we’re more likely to change the facts than our minds. That means environmentalists need to find a new way to frame the climate problem—even though the science on their side.

Check out the piece here.