Reframing Debates

Well, there is snow somewhere. Michigan's Mackinac Bridge last week, webcam photo.

Do you notice that climate-change conversations between the deniers and the non- go nowhere? The denier says "junk science" or "it's real, but humans didn't have anything to do with it" or "climate patterns have ALWAYS changed." And then we True Believers give our facts, which convinced us to begin with. We don't convince them, and they sure don't sway us.

Here are a few ideas to reframe the debate and take it in other directions. Point out that anyone who does the least research on climate change WILL end up accepting it as fact (I think using the word "belief" validates this topic as one hinging upon belief or non-belief. We have to first remove it from the belief arena.) No one who accepts climate change as fact will be swayed by reading deniers. Anyone who looks things up for a few days or weeks will find their view shifting. Denial hinges upon lack of knowledge. Tell the person you're discussing things with to google "scientific consensus on climate change" and then get back to you. Wikipedia's entry is a good start. If you're having an online discussion, often just cutting-and-pasting their list of scientific organizations who confirm the validity of climate-change science will take the wind fully out of the denier's sails. (Although in a recent discussion I was told, "next we'll try debating religion." THAT is why deniers can so easily argue belief vs. fact. It's their starting and ending point.)

But maybe what really needs pointed out is the absurdity of anyone pitting opinion vs. facts and study and expertise and experience. You might point out that a normal everyday citizen doing that, mismatching their own opinion against decades of scientific study and facts, is oddly arrogant and certainly out-of-line with how they handle other situations in which they need expert advice. When the denier goes to the doctor, suffering, say, chest pains, do they ask the receptionist or anyone in the waiting room what THEY think, if the doc says it's a heart attack? Would they accept the custodian's opinion if the custodian seemed to feel just awfully doggoned certain about it? Or worse, if the custodian sneered? If the car is broken down and towed to the shop, whose opinion ends up counting, and why? The mechanic's, with their experience, their expertise? How about the plumber, if the pipes burst?

In other words, we're a culture of specialists and experts and we use them all the time, confident that, although there might be bad ones, that we might change experts or get second opinions, in general we've accepted that in most areas others who have studied and practiced know more than we do, and this is true of climatologists. Point out how misguided it is for your CPA or clerk or musician friend to suppose that they really know more about climate than the scientist after one day's study, let alone decades. Ask if they really believe that studying something for years has made scientists know less than the average citizen, not more. And if they don't believe that, ask if anyone could walk into THEIR job and instantly do what they do, better. That IS what deniers claim about climate change and climatologists. That you or I could walk in to their job and right away do better; that right-wing pundits somehow, without study or discipline or practice, actually scientifically KNOW more. (And we're not trying to instantly convince anyone. We're planting legitimate seeds of reality-based doubt here, knowing it doesn't work in a flash.)

Lastly, I think we'd do better if we obviously and strenuously practice what we preach. I'm wondering if we're not "believed" enough because we are stating an emergency situation but not reacting in emergency mode. Let people SEE you cutting back on your fossil-fuel use. Look up what each activity uses, the dryer, the plane flight, the thermostat set at 62 vs. 72. What happened to the carbon-footprint craze, anyway? Why didn't it change us?

If someone comes in and asks why your house is cold, tell them, then explain that the SPACE may be colder than their house, but YOU are not, not with your warm socks and sweater. Sometimes I don't blame those who don't buy what we're selling. We'd do better with our message if our lives matches our words and warnings and ice-melting reports. We're deniers, too, if we "believe" and don't react and respond as the situation, in the way we describe it, warrants.

Written by Sierra Club volunteer Rebecca Hammond