I’m not so scared about climate change, just mad about it. I don’t have kids and will for sooner than later and I don’t live somewhere prone to disasters, so I’ve got nothing much to fear. I’m mad because I’ve got family and friends with kids who’ll have to deal with the repercussions though. Less so if they stick closer to the Great Lakes. They serve as a temperature moderator and have plenty of fresh water - no hurricanes or desertification, warning climate is predicted to just convert more forest to grassland, and generally speaking is home to a lot fewer conservative nutjobs than, say, the flyover corn belt. Except for Indiana, but even then the North of it is better than the South.
It’s always that absolute dumbest people who claim climate change is fake, that alone should suggest it’s real.
I find that to effectively convince a climate change denier, you gotta tap into their emotions. Because let’s face it, how could anyone not see and feel it’s getting warmer? A lot of the time, climate change deniers are simply having unconscious bias and they deny it is happening because they are trying to cope that an existential threat is real. I’m sure many of you know of people who sweep problems under the rug and pretend they doesn’t exist and hoping the problem will sort itself out. That’s what many climate change deniers are: they operate on emotions and unconscious bias because denying that a problem exist is a coping mechanism.
So, what I do is I mention and plant the idea in their heads that they know climate change is real because it is undeniable it’s getting warmer, but they are simply being too proud to admit it. A lot of them would also be religious, so mention to them about the Bible teaching about “pride before fall”. But say it in a way that it’s perfectly fine to not know about a topic and defer to those who are more knowledgeable. You have got to know where the person is coming from to effectively argue.
Lastly, don’t call climate change deniers stupid, it will only entrench them further. You have to explain to them like they are five why climate change is real, while also telling them that they know it’s real but simply too proud to admit it and it’s fine to defer to those more knowledgeable. A patient wouldn’t argue with doctors about the diagnosis and prescription (I know some patients do but most of the time most don’t).
That kind of applies to most beliefs. People aren’t rational, we are motivated reasoning machines. The key is to get to understand emotions causing people to believe wild stuff. People are far less combative when you are curious and empathetic about personal experiences that led them to their opinions, not fact-checking them. This way you can have a normal conversation with basically anyone on the political spectrum.
You don’t argue with a Russian bot smh
People who are climate change denialists in 2026 are way too far gone.
If anyone needs convincing at this point I’d say it’s those who think they know of / believe in climate change but vastly underestimate the severity of the problem. Like they’ve never heard of feedback loops or peeped the sea surface temperature anomaly graph.
The truth is closer to the Newsroom clip than “it’s going to be hotter and there will be more extreme weather events, but humanity will definitely carry on because I find that thought more comfortable than the alternative”.
If we haven’t reached the point of no return, political inertia will carry us there as things stand.
Our minister of mobility (who is reducing public transport funding in favour of funding local airports) said on an interview she does not worry about climate change at all. Instead we should invest in companies working on climate change technology, as they’ll fix the whole problem.
I’m no scientist, but I sure as shit remember that November was a lot colder than 20 Celsius.
You can’t really make that judgement based on one year or even a few in one location.
I can also tell you that this was the coldest summer in recent memory for me, felt like one of the coldest summers in my life honestly. I remember it would be near or even above 30C during daytime for weeks in the summer.
Doesn’t mean the planet was any cooler though, people in the other end of europe were pretty much melting at the same time. And most summers recently have been scorching hot here, I’m talking about 2-3 straight weeks of 30C.
Brah, go outside. It’s gets warmer every year.
Are you suggesting the Katie Mack tweet was fake ? Because, while it is at least a decade old or more, she really did tweet something like that several times; my memory isn’t good enough to say whether that particular tweet is faked but she very certainly used to push back on climate deniers years ago (I abandoned twitter quite some time ago, so it’s min 5 years, prob 10+ since I’ve seen it).
Any average person who has been alive for 30 years or more will tell you climate change is real, no need for an actual scientist.
I know so many towns named after a creek that doesn’t exist anymore
Oh, my friend…
You wildly overestimate the capabilities of the “average” person. I don’t even want to sound facetious or smug when I say that. Not even including the willful ignoring of the obvious thanks to ideology, politics, or other internally constructed mental barriers that deliberately exclude inconvenient informtion.
I mean seriously its kinda depressing taking a real look outside and seeing how bad things are
You’re overestimating some of us oldsters here. I work with people who are mostly in their 60s and 70s, and they can almost in the same sentence claim that 1) summers are hotter and winters are warmer than they used to be, and that 2) climate change is a hoax.
I recently had a talk with someone who first brushed all the political shenanigans off with “climate has always changed; that’s totally normal” and then three thoughts further tells me it’s happening faster than we could adjust to. So what now … is it natural or is it faster than normal? Because I don’t have an issue with the temperature rising a few degree over 10000 years. I do have an issue with them rising over 100 years.
I guess in that person’s defence you could hold a consistent position whilst staying both those things. They don’t appear to deny that the climate is changing and does change, they just dispute whether it’s normal for it to do that and they don’t seem describe the frequency or period of that “natural” change so they could be describing something they’ve seen happen over and over in their lifetime hence why they think it’s normal or describing something they’ve merely aware happens and this believe to be normal. They then state that it’s happening faster than we can adjust to, which depending on the rest of the conversation isn’t necessarily contradictory because, that the climate would change of its own accord for non-anthropogenic reasons can be taken as true at the same time that it might be doing so at a different pace for unknown reasons. It can be faster than normal whilst still being normal that it is doing so at all so to speak.
Although really, if they openly accept both those premises as true then it really doesn’t matter because the fact is, as they observe, the climate is changing rapidly and it’s problematic. Unless they have some better solution in mind maybe we should try and act on the levers we have actual control over.
Yeah but some days are colder, so climate change isn’t real. Ever think of that?
Every year when I point out to my parents that it’s unseasonably warm, they always try to rationalize it in some way, like “oh it was always like this.” Like oh my god no it wasn’t. You’re not that senile yet. But their programming is rooted so deep that they can’t see the tangible reality in front of them.
I feel like this is the case for many conservatives.
Any average person who has been alive for 30 years or more
If they’re the type to make observations and listen, their pattern centers are freaking out. However, many are on a 9-to-5/wage slave, nose grinding life so they’re coping only when it arises, neglecting future patterns. But if they listened to experts, they could be chill.
But no, there are ostriches.
I know plenty of olds that refuse to believe that people are causing it.
The deniers are sub-average
30 years or more
Where did you get that statistic? If anything it’s the 30- group who actually believe in climate science. My parents are 60 and don’t believe the climate is warming, despite new rules rolling out in my lifetime about extreme heat advisories. My high school started having ‘heat’ days where we had to study online at home like a snow day, 10 years ago, my school also didnt have AC
I’m 40+. I remember actual winters. With snow. Lots more snow than we’ve gotten in the last 20 years.
Exactly! 46 here I remember when we had seasons, not fucking 80 degrees in November. I remember needing a jacket to go trick or treating during Halloween. It 75 degrees today where I live for high. This shit is real, and just go look at your rivers and lakes if you want to see the real effects of climate change as well.
I grew up in Ohio in the '70s. The first snowfall was usually in late September. The ground was completely covered in snow in October and you didn’t see grass again until some time in April. The snow wasn’t completely gone until May and the giant mounds of plowed snow usually lasted into June. More than six months of serious Winter every year, nothing like that happening today.
I’m just saying young people believe in climate science and apparently thats a hot take.
30+
just feels like a irrelevant detail and wants a fight. I remember white Christmases and brown ones. No need to minimize to my experiences because I haven’t lived 40+ winters, but know damn well 110⁰ summer days. I’m just bummed that because of greedy fucks my generation will be cooked to death before our best by date, fingers crossed we start world war 3 and nuked before that.
I’m just saying young people believe in climate science
If you actually want to understand why you got push back then that’s not actually what you said, or implied. Your wording was a rebuttal of the statement that average older people have personally observed the pattern of climate changing. Young people believing in climate science at a higher rate than older people can also be true and is not contradictory.
The point you seem to have missed is the older people should not need to “believe” - they have literally experienced the change and should be able to observe the pattern and draw a logical conclusion.
The problem you are raising is real, but it’s a totally different one - the impact of propaganda and rationalising something that isn’t true. When you talk to your parents get them to talk about when they were kids, ask them what winters were like, the example in thread about Halloween is a great one - get them talking about trick or treating as a kid, was it cold etc then you can gently point out that it wasn’t like that for you (if that example doesn’t work pick another).
The point though is your parents are wilfully ignoring the evidence of their own senses most likely because Fox news and their conservative friends told them to, and that social pressure is greater than logic.
I have stopped trying with the ‘true believers’ or in this case, non-believers. They are a lost cause. Some that live on the volcano will refuse to believe it can erupt even as the lava flows over their house.
But there are those that haven’t really fallen either side of the fence that are worth paying attention too.
If only conservatives actually trusted knowledge from people who bothered to learn it. Pundits are way easier to take at their word because whatever they say is short, definitive, embiggens their feelings, and confirms their biases.
Humans, generally speaking, tend to give more credit to facts that already aligned with their pre-conceived beliefs than facts that are not.
This isn’t exclusive to conservatives and liberals fall into this trap as well.
The problem is that Fox News and conservative media have figured out how to take advantage of it to further their agenda.
In fact, the RNC and Fox News has done an absolutely fantastic job of convincing their base that educated people shouldn’t be trusted because they are liberal.
It’s true, but also, possibly less important than the “first in, last out” epistemology that most people run on. We tend to hold whatever opinion we hear first, unless someone produces a very strong argument against it, and the longer you hold that idea before anyone challenges it, the less likely you are to change it regardless of the evidence.
Loud mouth pundits tend to be most people’s first-pass at any idea, so whether it’s true or not, they get to decide what you’re going to think for the rest of your life
does FILO differ from LIFO in any specific way?
Not appreciably.
They both describe the basic function of a stack machine
well, yeah, but in my finance career we only talked about LIFO and FIFO. FILO seems like a synonym for LIFO i guess is my question
Yeah they’re synonyms, that’s what I mean by the stack machine comparison.
FIFO by contrast would be more like a train going through a tunnel
This is something I’ve learned especially at work - charisma almost always wins over competence, unless you’re speaking to other experts in the field. I’ve seen people spew absolute meaningless bullshit to audiences of hundreds in a field they should know at least a bit about, these are not exactly laymen. They will eat that shit up if the person speaking is charismatic and confident, and they’ll clap like it’s the most enlightening thing they’ve ever heard.
charisma almost always wins over competence
The election of 2016 proved that point in a horrific and sobering way.
Someone got mad at me once because I described trump as charismatic. But like if that’s not what it is then what do you describe that strange stranglehold he has over the minds of his adoring base?
To me that’s what charisma means. I don’t personally find him inspiring or captivating in any way. I don’t see how people could find him charismatic, but for whatever reason they do.
So charismatic is an accurate description not of his personal qualities but of his relationship to his base.
They just think everyone on the internet is as dumb as they are.
Katie: “I’m gonna study the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by global warming, SPACE!”
Good idea! It’s much easier to cool things in space!
Why are you looking at me like that?
Yeah, spaceships are really cool and they’re in space!
Coincidence? Me thinks not
space is the source of the warming, so katie is basically consorting with the enemy…
Or gearing up to combat the problem at the source!
Katie:
Why don’t we just take the planet, and move it somewhere else‽
You’re not gonna believe this…
i have an economics degree studying how evil space is for its lack of
capitalismclimate changeso? how much?
hold out your arms as wide as you can. about that evil
Back in my days it was called global warming and crime was lower, because we didn’t know crime was higher. The good old days.
Gary got his degree from Newsmax where he later went on and got a PhD from Fox News… both very prestigious propaganda accredited brainwashing sources.
He’s working hard on his SKY doctorate.
Gary’s dad tenured at TrumpU.
And his mom at PragerU
