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Skeptical Debunker

Belief In Climate Change Hinges On Worldview : NPR - 0 views

  • "People tend to conform their factual beliefs to ones that are consistent with their cultural outlook, their world view," Braman says. The Cultural Cognition Project has conducted several experiments to back that up. Participants in these experiments are asked to describe their cultural beliefs. Some embrace new technology, authority and free enterprise. They are labeled the "individualistic" group. Others are suspicious of authority or of commerce and industry. Braman calls them "communitarians." In one experiment, Braman queried these subjects about something unfamiliar to them: nanotechnology — new research into tiny, molecule-sized objects that could lead to novel products. "These two groups start to polarize as soon as you start to describe some of the potential benefits and harms," Braman says. The individualists tended to like nanotechnology. The communitarians generally viewed it as dangerous. Both groups made their decisions based on the same information. "It doesn't matter whether you show them negative or positive information, they reject the information that is contrary to what they would like to believe, and they glom onto the positive information," Braman says.
  • "Basically the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values," says Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University and a member of The Cultural Cognition Project. Kahan says people test new information against their preexisting view of how the world should work. "If the implication, the outcome, can affirm your values, you think about it in a much more open-minded way," he says. And if the information doesn't, you tend to reject it. In another experiment, people read a United Nations study about the dangers of global warming. Then the researchers told the participants that the solution to global warming is to regulate industrial pollution. Many in the individualistic group then rejected the climate science. But when more nuclear power was offered as the solution, says Braman, "they said, you know, it turns out global warming is a serious problem."And for the communitarians, climate danger seemed less serious if the only solution was more nuclear power.
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  • Then there's the "messenger" effect. In an experiment dealing with the dangers versus benefits of a vaccine, the scientific information came from several people. They ranged from a rumpled and bearded expert to a crisply business-like one. The participants tended to believe the message that came from the person they considered to be more like them. In relation to the climate change debate, this suggests that some people may not listen to those whom they view as hard-core environmentalists. "If you have people who are skeptical of the data on climate change," Braman says, "you can bet that Al Gore is not going to convince them at this point." So, should climate scientists hire, say, Newt Gingrich as their spokesman? Kahan says no. "The goal can't be to create a kind of psychological house of mirrors so that people end up seeing exactly what you want," he argues. "The goal has to be to create an environment that allows them to be open-minded."And Kahan says you can't do that just by publishing more scientific data.
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    "It's a hoax," said coal company CEO Don Blankenship, "because clearly anyone that says that they know what the temperature of the Earth is going to be in 2020 or 2030 needs to be put in an asylum because they don't." On the other side of the debate was environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr. "Ninety-eight percent of the research climatologists in the world say that global warming is real, that its impacts are going to be catastrophic," he argued. "There are 2 percent who disagree with that. I have a choice of believing the 98 percent or the 2 percent." To social scientist and lawyer Don Braman, it's not surprising that two people can disagree so strongly over science. Braman is on the faculty at George Washington University and part of The Cultural Cognition Project, a group of scholars who study how cultural values shape public perceptions and policy
Maluvia Haseltine

Green Trust Renewable Energy & Self Sufficiency - 0 views

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    Fantastic Site! Lots of really informative articles with hard-to-find information and links
sdiwc conferences

CFP - ICDIPC2012 - Lithuania - IEEE - 0 views

You are invited to participate in The Second International Conference on Digital Information Processing and Communications that will be held in Lithuania, on July 10-12, 2012. The event will be hel...

Digital Information Communications Conferences

started by sdiwc conferences on 17 May 12 no follow-up yet
window-tinting

Watch promotional Videos on 3m window films in Illinois - 0 views

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    Looking for Videos about 3M Window Films in Chicago Illinois? You've found us! Visit our website today for more information or just give us a call at (708 )388-2800!
Joshua Sherk

Environment Working Group - 0 views

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    Information on organic foods (focusing on pesticide controls and what's best for your money)
Maluvia Haseltine

CleanTechnica - Technology Inspired By Nature - 0 views

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    The latest trends in clean tech. From renewable energy sources, to less toxic electronics and more efficient information technology,
Maluvia Haseltine

BuildItSolar: Solar energy projects for Do It Yourselfers to save money and reduce poll... - 1 views

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    Plans, tools and information to do renewable energy and conservation projects.
Skeptical Debunker

Tally of Antarctic Sealife Sheds Light on Changing Climate - 0 views

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    More than 6,000 different species living on the sea-floor have been identified so far and more than half of these are unique to the icy continent. A combination of long-term monitoring studies, newly gathered information on the marine life distribution and global ocean warming models, enable the scientists to identify Antarctica's marine "biodiversity hotspots". Researcher Griffiths describes how krill populations (the shrimp-like invertebrates eaten by penguins, whales and seals) are reducing as a result of a decrease in sea-ice cover. A much smaller crustacean (copepods) is dominating the area once occupied by them. This shifts the balance of the food web to favour predators, like jellyfish, that are not eaten by penguins and other Southern Ocean higher predators. Sea-ice reduction is also affecting penguins that breed on the ice.
Maluvia Haseltine

DSIRE: - Federal Incentives for Alternative Energy - 0 views

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    DSIRE is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility and federal incentives and policies that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. Established in 1995 and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, DSIRE is an ongoing project of the N.C. Solar Center and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.
Alex Parker

US Senate introduces bill to disclose nuclear information sharing - 1 views

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    US Senators have introduced legislation that directs the executive branch to disclose which companies it allows to share nuclear information with countries looking to build nuclear reactors. The bill was introduced by Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Todd Young with Democrats Tim Kaine and Edward Markey.
plantoraapp

Outdoor Plants: 7 Low-Maintenance plants for Outdoor Gardens - Plantora - 0 views

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    If you're looking for low maintenance for your outdoor garden, there are several plants that require very less care. Succulent, Cone flower, daffodils, Pothos, Russian Sage and many more. These are just few examples of low maintenance plants for your outdoor garden. When selecting plants, consider your climate, soil conditions, and the amount of sunlight receives. Use plant identification and plant care app Plantora for more information.
Edgar Anderson

Losing Weight Through Professional Help - 1 views

It is not easy being an obese because you always become the subject of ridicule. It is for this reason that I really exerted enough efforts going to the gym in order to lose weight. Yet, I did not ...

started by Edgar Anderson on 04 Oct 12 no follow-up yet
creative outdoors

Refine Carport in Adelaide - 0 views

I just converted my garage into a room where I place all my old stuffs that I no longer use and decided to have a carport instead. It was Creative Outdoors who has helped me build one. The carport ...

started by creative outdoors on 05 Oct 12 no follow-up yet
koskinen12

loans - 0 views

Please contact: makinenrebekka@gmail.com Hello, I turn to all individuals in need for their fact share that I don't get the loan money 5000€ to 2,500,000€ to all persons able to pay an interest rat...

cash loans fast

started by koskinen12 on 30 Aug 16 no follow-up yet
Buy Salvage Vehicles

The Best Car Auction Company - 6 views

I am really grateful to the kind of service the Salvage World provided when I purchased my BMW 7451. They helped me in obtaining the necessary papers to transfer the title of the car to my name. Th...

salvage cars auction vehicles

started by Buy Salvage Vehicles on 23 Feb 12 no follow-up yet
Alex Parker

21st century battlefield: 5 experts decode the OPM data breach - 1 views

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    The US Office of Personnel Management falls victim to massive data breach - but what can be learnt from this latest cyberattack? The US Office of Personnel Management has confirmed reports of a massive data breach hitting its systems, with the personal information of over 4 million government employees compromised.
Benno Hansen

'The hockey stick is broken' | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist - 1 views

  • Study of the past can be informative for scientists, but it is not explanatory of the present nor is it predictive of the future.
  • The infamous "Hockey Stick" graph was featured prominently in the IPCC TAR Summary for Policymakers.
  • Two Canadians, an economist and a petroleum geologist, took it upon themselves to verify this proxy reconstruction by getting the data and examining the methodology for themselves. They found errors in the description published in Nature of the data used -- errors that prevented them from duplicating the study. Mann et al., the hockey stick's creators, published a correction in Nature, noting where the description did not match what had actually been done.
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  • The fact is, there are dozens of other temperature reconstructions. They tend to show more variability than the original hockey stick (their sticks are not as straight), but they all support the general conclusions the IPCC TAR presented in 2001: late 20th century warming is anomalous in the last one or two thousand years, and the 1990s were likely warmer than any other time in that period.
  • dozens of other proxy reconstructions, some by the same team or involving some of its members, some by completely different people, some using tree rings, some using corals, some using stalagmites, some using borehole measurements -- all supporting the same general conclusion. That general conclusion is what's important to me, not whether or not one Bristlecone pine was or was not included correctly in a single eight-year-old study.
Jean Peterson

Artificial Grass Perth are Good Alternative to Natural Grass - 2 views

I once used natural grass on my lawn in Perth. However, due to the nature of my work, I had no time to take care of my lawn until it all withered up. But, still I wanted to have a green look in my ...

synthetic artificial grass lawn

started by Jean Peterson on 12 Jan 11 no follow-up yet
GreenPlanetGrass.com.au artificial lawn Perth

What Switching to Fake Grass Can Do - 1 views

Natural grass surfaces require so much maintenance in terms of cost, time, and effort. Since Green Planet Grass has understood the importance of these factors, the company has offered fake grass pr...

artificial grass

started by GreenPlanetGrass.com.au artificial lawn Perth on 04 Oct 11 no follow-up yet
GreenPlanetGrass.com.au artificial lawn Perth

Using Synthetic Turf in Perth for Football Sports - 3 views

Players who have now preferred to use synthetic turf in Perth for football fields have seen the many advantages. Because the field is a high-traffic area, the synthetic grass has been installed to ...

artificial grass

started by GreenPlanetGrass.com.au artificial lawn Perth on 15 Sep 11 no follow-up yet
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