If MIT students don't understand global warming, how will the rest of us?
What the Public Doesn't Get About Climate Change
By Bryan Walsh, TIME
As I report on climate change, I come across a lot of scary facts, like the possibility that thawing permafrost in Siberia could release gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere or the risk that Greenland could pass a tipping point and begin to melt rapidly. But one of the most frightening studies I've read recently had nothing to do with icebergs or mega-droughts. In a paper that came out Oct. 23 in Science, John Sterman — a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Sloan School of Management — wrote about asking 212 MIT grad students to give a rough idea of how much governments need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by to eventually stop the increase in the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. These students had training in science, technology, mathematics and economics at one of the best schools in the world — they are probably a lot smarter than you or me. Yet 84% of Sterman's subjects got the question wrong, greatly underestimating the degree to which greenhouse gas emissions need to fall. When the MIT kids can't figure out climate change, what are the odds that the broader public will?
The shocking study reflects the tremendous gap that exists regarding global warming. On the one hand are the scientists, who with few exceptions think climate change is very serious and needs to be dealt with immediately and ambitiously. On the other side is the public, which increasingly believes that climate change is real and worries about it, but which rarely ranks it as a high priority. A 2007 survey by the U.N. Development Programme found that 54% of Americans advocate taking a "wait and see" approach to climate-change action — holding off on the deep and rapid cuts in global warming that would immediately impact their lives. (And it's not just SUV-driving Americans who take this position — similar majorities were found in Russia, China and India.) As a result, we have our current dilemma: a steady drumbeat of scientific evidence of global warming's severity and comparatively little in the way of meaningful political action. "This gap exists," says Sterman. "The real question is why."
(Continued here.)
By Bryan Walsh, TIME
As I report on climate change, I come across a lot of scary facts, like the possibility that thawing permafrost in Siberia could release gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere or the risk that Greenland could pass a tipping point and begin to melt rapidly. But one of the most frightening studies I've read recently had nothing to do with icebergs or mega-droughts. In a paper that came out Oct. 23 in Science, John Sterman — a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Sloan School of Management — wrote about asking 212 MIT grad students to give a rough idea of how much governments need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by to eventually stop the increase in the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. These students had training in science, technology, mathematics and economics at one of the best schools in the world — they are probably a lot smarter than you or me. Yet 84% of Sterman's subjects got the question wrong, greatly underestimating the degree to which greenhouse gas emissions need to fall. When the MIT kids can't figure out climate change, what are the odds that the broader public will?
The shocking study reflects the tremendous gap that exists regarding global warming. On the one hand are the scientists, who with few exceptions think climate change is very serious and needs to be dealt with immediately and ambitiously. On the other side is the public, which increasingly believes that climate change is real and worries about it, but which rarely ranks it as a high priority. A 2007 survey by the U.N. Development Programme found that 54% of Americans advocate taking a "wait and see" approach to climate-change action — holding off on the deep and rapid cuts in global warming that would immediately impact their lives. (And it's not just SUV-driving Americans who take this position — similar majorities were found in Russia, China and India.) As a result, we have our current dilemma: a steady drumbeat of scientific evidence of global warming's severity and comparatively little in the way of meaningful political action. "This gap exists," says Sterman. "The real question is why."
(Continued here.)
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