WSET.com - ABC13Climate Change Psychology by Sean Sublette

To be sure, climate change is a thorny issue in the public sphere. I have often wondered why some people believe what they do about the subject. Carbon dioxide and water vapor are the two most dominant greenhouse gases (infrared-active gases is a better term, but it does not grab the attention of the general public) in our atmosphere, and without them, the planet would be much cooler. There are no doubts about it.

Discussing the increasing concentration of these gases in the atmosphere, however, begins to open up a whole new set of problems.

An article in the August 2010 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society tackles this concept. Instead of running numbers and numerical climate models, it takes a look at the psychology of this science. The article looks at how arguments are framed, how humans create mental models of problems, and how they form solutions to these problems.

It also looks at the process of building a scientific consensus (remember, consensus does not imply unanimous agreement), and how the public perceives how a consensus is reached.

There is very little math in the article. But the opening paragraph illustrates how easy it can be to misjudge an easy question, let alone a massively complex one like climate change. The article begins:

"Consider the following question: If a bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total and the bat costs $1 more than the ball, how much does the ball cost? If you are like many people, your immediate answer would be 10¢. You would be wrong. Think a little and you will see why. This is a simple question and the answer is easy, but people still often get it wrong."

The answer is actually 5¢.

The entire article can be found at the following link:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2010BAMS2957.1