The Role of Values in Driving Climate Disputes

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
NYT

Reacting to yesterday’s piece on how better definitions of terms could help clarify climate disputes, Oran Switzer of Phoenix, Ariz., posted a comment reminding folks how values, more than data, largely shape positions on the level of risk posed by greenhouse gases. This is a theme stressed by Dan Kahan and other researchers studying cultural cognition.

Check your views on climate science and policy, then ask yourself if you a communitarian or an individualist, liberal or libertarian? (NPR link) Switzer’s contribution is worth highlighting here as a “Your Dot” post:

There is not one climate dispute. There are two, and the solutions are not the same. First, we need to separate the two. The science debate does not work in politics. If you study the conservative approach to climate change policy long enough, the implication that they are trying to participate in a scientific conversation starts to fade away and you realize the underlying logic they are using actually starts from the conclusion that regulation and government intervention are bad and proceeds to the premise that there is no real problem with climate change, at which point, they pick around for snippets to support their premise. This allows them to make big, bold, statements about their identity and character and values rather than wallowing around in overly-precise, overly-pedantic language and data.

(Continued here.)