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A team of psychological researchers from Australia is delving into the mindset of those who refuse to buy the notion that man-made climate change is quickly creating an unlivable, barren wasteland on Earth. Researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast looked to explain why such “cranks” continue to deny what they call “the reality of climate change, its causes, impacts and the need for mitigatory action.”
The study’s authors — Breanna Fraser, Patrick Nunn, and Rachael Sharman — set out to discover why climate change skeptics think the way they do, beyond what they call “sociodemographic and value factors.” Instead, the study proposed to look at psychological factors involved in climate change skepticism. The study asked 390 Australian participants why they refused to buy the climate change narrative.
“This mixed-methods study investigated whether more malleable psychological factors: locus of control; information processing style; and anti-reflexivity, predicted climate change scepticism above and beyond socio-demographic and value factors,” the study’s abstract declares.
According to the researchers, climate change skeptics were guilty of using “mental gymnastics” in order to deny what they called “the near-universal agreement among scientists on the reality and impact of climate change.”
Near universal? Really? What about the 1,100 scientists — including a Nobel laureate — who recently signed a declaration proclaiming “there is no climate emergency?” Among those scientists were 134 signatories from Australia, the same nation the participants in the survey were from.
The researchers found one very interesting result: Those who actually study an issue instead of blindly relying on government propaganda were actually more likely to be skeptical of so-called climate change.
“Contrary to our predictions, people with high analytical abilities were even more likely to be sceptical about this,” stated study authors Nunn and Sharman in a piece for The Conversation.
Imagine that — people who take the time and effort to study the issue of climate change have a tendency toward skepticism.
Also, in the study’s view, people who value individual liberty are less inclined to buy into the notion of a full-blown climate crisis.
“Those with stronger individualistic worldviews — their priority is individual autonomy as opposed to a more collectivist worldview — were more sceptical about humans causing climate change,” the authors stated.
Or, put in other words, people who are less inclined toward communism and globalism are also less likely to swallow the climate emergency narrative.
Among the study’s other findings:
Older people were more likely to be sceptical of the reality of climate change.
So, older people, set in their ways and unable to change their minds, are a large part of the reason why so-called climate action is taking so long to begin.
Conservatives were more likely to be sceptical of the reality, causes and impacts of climate change.
So, conservatives, in the view of the researchers, are simply unable to see the “reality” of climate change.
Lower environmental values were strongly linked to all types of scepticism.
So, the elderly and the conservatives just care less about the environment, according to the study.
In other words, according to the researchers, a certain amount of naivete among the citizenry is useful when selling the climate crisis narrative.
The study’s authors correctly point out that climate hysterics themselves may bear some of the blame for skepticism. For instance, the climate change community’s practice of making predictions which are observably false leads to skepticism.
The researchers note that skeptics are aware of “predictions not becoming reality [and give] explanations such as ‘seeing climate change alarmists’ predictions being completely false.’” Naturally, this lends credence to skepticism.
The authors believe that such doubts have arisen because skeptics have a “basic misunderstanding” of model-based climate predictions. Is that “misunderstanding” due to the fact that such climate models were never meant to be a predictive tool?
Sky News’ Andrew Bolt made the point that the study was an attempt to classify climate change skepticism as a mental condition. He addressed the study in a very tongue-in-cheek way:
But I do wonder, I have to confess, why people with high analytical abilities, people who are great at analyzing things, are more skeptical of global warming preachers. I’m just sorry that Sharman didn’t actually analyze that bit because I reckon the answer would be fascinating.
And Bolt is correct. While the study doesn’t come right out and say that skeptics of a “climate emergency” have some sort of mental condition, the very existence of the study and its dubious conclusions are meant to plant the seed that, perhaps, people who would drag their feet on destroying the world’s economy and power systems to combat this so-called climate crisis might simply suffer from delusional thinking of some sort.
So, despite the study’s own finding that people with “high analytical abilities were even more likely to be sceptical about” climate change, the study’s authors would have us believe such people are a threat to the Earth.
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James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects with a primary focus on the ongoing anthropogenic climate-change hoax and cultural issues. He can be reached at [email protected]
Featured image: People hold signs during the March for Science in Melbourne, Australia on April 22, 2017. (Photo: Takver/flickr/ccc)
