This is a pretty important article for those of us trying to engage our neighbors and communities on climate change. We have a tendency to think of our opponents as scientifically challenged (to put it mildly), but these data show that opponents of climate action are at least as knowledgeable of what climate scientists think as climate action supporters. After 20+ years of hearing about it, they know the scientific arguments, but the problem is that they view it through the lens of protecting their values and culture. Many opponents view this as an issue of Big Government taking away their communities. The author cites the interesting example of South Florida, where local groups developed a local action plan to protect against rising sea levels. When communities come together to work out how to solve local problems, even the Republicans want to use sound science.
I suggest we need to use this concept to develop plans for climate action in West Virginia that avoid debates over global issues. Instead, our focus needs to be on how West Virginia communities can adapt to the changes ahead. The vast majority of West Virginians both support the coal industry, and know that it is declining. The vast majority also pay electric bills, and know that electric rates are going up. And almost all political leaders know that the state budget will face a really big hole as coal severance taxes decline. If we can get a conversation going about solutions to these problems, instead of getting hung up on an "Us versus Them" mentality, we may get some traction.
Whaddya Tink?
Jim Kotcon
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Paul Wilson pjgrunt@gmail.com Date: Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 8:17 AM Subject: [Coal Volunteers List] from ScienceDaily e-newsletter: Climate science literacy unrelated to public acceptance of human-caused global warming To: Resilient Habitats Listserve < CONS-AWL-RESILIENT-HABITATS@lists.sierraclub.org>, Coal Alerts < coal-volunteers-list@sierraclub.org>
Climate science literacy unrelated to public acceptance of human-caused global warming http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/4JDmSx7XEXI/150224083847.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
Posted: 24 Feb 2015 05:38 AM PST Deep public divisions over climate change are unrelated to differences in how well ordinary citizens understand scientific evidence on global warming. Indeed, members of the public who score the highest on a climate-science literacy test are the most politically polarized on whether human activity is causing global temperatures to rise. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment?a=4JDmSx7XEXI:l8PJjmGHbRg:Gqkty0xVXF4