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I think we are on the same page. Talking down to people, regardless of their background is a great way to drive people away.
The hopeful thing is that they are having a pro-climate discussion on their own. Those of us that are influenced by science have already been won over. The remainder are driven by greed or faith. The faithful tend to look toward their leaders for guidance not science. So we can have as many studies as we like, it won’t shift that group of people. They great thing is that the various religious leaders can just have a vision where God tells them to address climate change. No rational explanation for the change of heart is required.
I mean if they could get the shape of the Earth wrong, insist God Say’s it’s flat, and then finally admit it’s round and the faithful just what, shrugged and kept on tithing. Climate is way more complicated than the shape of the thing we are standing on. I’m sure the faithful will keep on tithing this time as well.
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Well, he’s also a trained scientist:
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That’s heartening, and this new Pope is pretty great as far as Popes go, but my point remains: he’s not a climatologist, or a statistician who could evaluate climate data, or or or.
To take against myself, though: arguments from authority are inherently suspect, too. His being a scientist wouldn’t necessarily make him right, even about his area of expertise.
That’s why I mentioned self-actualization: I think it’s incumbent on members of the modern world to be discerning, in the sense that 1) one admits readily of one’s ignorance, which is necessarily and always far larger than one’s knowledge, and 2) one seeks intellectual rigor and honesty in the specialists on whose opinions one relies.
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I think it’s more insidious than that. Some are driven by greed, some by faith but I think there is a large proportion, if not a majority, of deniers driven by an anti-intellectual creed. Politicians motivated by greed and power are successfully leveraging this partisanism because it is not based on any real philosophy or ideology, merely protest against a perceived enemy.
And so long as that is the case, faith, greed, common sense and any other factor are ancillary. It’s us Vs. them. If you want to be on our team, you’ll parrot the rhetoric and take comfort in your community of denial.
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In my experience, this is nurtured through religion. I was told many times as a kid about people “who got too smart for church” and left.
I guess I see what they meant now.
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In this case, the hardline conservative catholics and right wing evangelicals seem to be the major proponents of anti-woman legislation and climate change denial. I think some majority of catholics (in the US, at least) often disagree with the official teachings. I think that’s what this whole “year of mercy” thing is about - trying to square reality with how priests are expected to work with the faithful.
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Yup, I got that growing up too. “Oh, Jimmy’s family left the church. Why? Well, Jimmy’s daddy thought he was smarter than god. Jimmy’s daddy spent a lot of time at college and not praying or asking the pastor for answers. I’m sure that his books will protect him from the devil in hell though. It’s sad Jimmy has to watch from heaven his daddy burning forever in hell.” That kind of thing.
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Plus ça change - The House Homeland Security Committee had a chairman that was an unashamed IRA apologist -
Regarding the 30 years of violence during which the IRA killed over 1,700 people, mainly combatants, including Lord Mountbatten, Lord Kaberry, Sir Anthony Berry MP and over 500 civilians, King said, “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the IRA for it.”
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I was over simplifying for the sake of brevity. You are absolutely correct.
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