Talking To Climate Skeptics
Reflecting on ‘How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate’ (2015)
Andrew J. Hoffman, in How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate, uses existing social science research to examine “why people accept or reject the science of climate change” in the United States. Our goal should be “real-world change,” and this implies that academics are ethically obligated to participate in public discourse.
Humans “have grown to such numbers and our technology to such power that we can alter the global climate.” Those who recognize that this is true have to grapple with “a series of related cultural challenges,” including global cooperation “far beyond anything that our species has ever before accomplished.”
“The challenge,” he says, “is as much about the communication of science as it is about the science itself.” And furthermore: “We cannot recognize the environmental problems created by our way of life, nor can we develop solutions to address them, without first facing and changing the beliefs and values that have led to them.”
What’s the Scientific Consensus?
Humans are driving changes in the global climate. That is the scientific consensus. It was already the consensus when this book was published in 2015, and it continues to be today…
