President Trump it seems, has given us permission to backslide with our thinking about climate change. Until we have rule or law that tells us we must do something about climate pollution, “those that would rather it not be real” have won. This allows the debate to rage encouraging doubt. The Clean Power Plan and…
A never-ending string of stories is needed to move our society from a world of climate science disbelief to one of action. The stories must include two main focus areas: 1) communication of why we distrust climate scientists so much more more than any those of other sciences, and 2) Seven principles of communication of…
We have entered the non-linearly increasing phase of climate change impacts. This is pretty much standard climate science that climate scientists said we would endure if we delayed action. Could they have imagined that we would delay for 20 years? What would they have said 20 years ago about what we should expect if the had…
First Published on Truthout, December 4, 2015 The perceived debate on climate change has discredited traditional climate science communications to such an extent that we are just now implementing policies developed during the Kyoto Protocol era that began in 1992. New climate science knowledge is simply not making it out of academia and into public…
(See more on the Drexel/Stanford research on the climate change counter-movement here.) Merchants of Doubt, A film by Sony Pictures and Robert KennerAustin Premiere and Lecture by Bruce Melton PE Inspired by the acclaimed book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, MERCHANTS OF DOUBT takes audiences on a satirically comedic, yet illuminating ride into the…
Not an April Fools joke! Warren Business Consulting, Oil and Gas industry specialists, have come out with a climate change poll that not what one would think it is. 474 oil and gas industry insiders completed the poll where 85 percent believe global warming was happening and 58 percent were either very sure or extremely…
Bolsen, Druckman and Cook have summarized the emerging discipline of global warming psychology rather well with this paper. Scientists and policy makers are more likely to believe than the public and more likely to believe that warming is caused by man. There is political influence in what liberals and conservatives believe about the existence of…
A new interactive website from Yale Climate Communications is up and it is very cool. And very scary too as the inset image shows. Only 63 percent of poll respondents believe climate change is happening and only 48 percent believe it is caused by man. Yale Project on Climate Communication Opinion Maps: http://environment.yale.edu/poe/v2014/
I recently had the privilege of being the second reader on a thesis titled: Climate Change Virtue Ethics and Ecocriticism in Undergraduate Education, Barbara Krueger. Basically, this work evaluated the role of ethics and virtues in climate change education. To put the topic in my own words, to convey a chapter of climate change ethics…
(Author’s note: Although this report focuses on the 18 to 25 year age bracket, these things appear to include communications techniques that are ageless.) From the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science we have a new detailed look at young people and climate…
The Yale Project on Climate Communication brings us work that shows us climate regulations are far behind. A very significant majority of republicans support. This study also looked at Conservative Catholics vs. Conservative non-Catholics. Overall, 65 percent of Republicans support policies to reduce global warming. Breaking down Catholics, 71 percent of Catholic Republicans and 64…
This study uses 1,008 survey participants to evaluate where extra effort should be applied to leverage increasing awareness in climate issues after extreme weather events. Extreme weather has already increased because of warming in some circumstances (including cold weather extremes) and experiencing extreme weather increases climate change awareness of individuals. This work suggest using extreme…
Itzcuauhtli (Eat-Squat-Lee) is an 11 year old indigenous eco hip-hop activist who went on a 45 day silence strike to draw awareness to climate change. http://www.climatesilencenow.org/ This child’s action is extraordinarily selfless and I have something important to relate that is highly relevant. One of my climate science colleagues and I were talking about how…
The new discipline of global warming psychology tells that clear and concise communications of climate science can no longer provide the public knowledge needed to advance climate pollution policy. In 2013 alone, 13,000 papers were published about “global climate change” or closely related topics. How scientists interact with the public however has changed very little,…
From the 2013 Yale report Climate Change in the American Mind. “Only one in four know that there is a scientific consensus on climate change—only 25 percent of Americans understand that there is no argument about whether or not global warming is occurring among climate scientists. Between 97 and 98 percent of actively publishing climate…
A 30 page booklet by the American Psychological Association that helps us understand how behavior is ultimately responsible for this climate pollution mess we are in. Whether it is from $7 billion in climate change counter-movement funding (link) or sheer laziness, the results are the same. This booklet can give insights into why it is…
Relative to most of the 20th century, Austin’s January highs and lows were not 2.9 and 1.4 degrees above normal, but 9.9 and 10.4 degrees above normal! (First published on The Rag Blog, April 25, 2013. http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/bruce-melton-calling-all-earthlings.html ) AUSTIN — Average temperatures have risen rapidly at the Austin reporting station since the turn of the…
Have I got a couple of good ones for you tonight(?!) From the Australian National Institute of Science (CSIRO–Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) and the Dresden University of Technology in Germany; One’s opinion on climate change is not as common as one thinks. We tend to overestimate how many people have the same opinion…
Published on Truthout.org March 13, 2013: Climate change messaging is changing these days. One only needs to look as far as the Sierra Club’s unprecedented encouragement of civil disobedience with the Keystone Pipeline to see this happening. The polls are telling us that some 70 percent or more of Americans believe the Earth is now…
This report says: “Environmental groups overlooked growing opposition to environmental protections among conservatives voters and, underestimated the rising force of the Tea Party, believing – wrongly, as it turned out – they could still somehow win over Republican members of Congress through insider grand bargaining.” It goes on to let Obama off the hook and…
