Cross-posted from Sustainable Futures
I am a marketing and research professional who has studied how the human mind works and how people process their experience. Language is an important element of the human experience. Mental models are our representations of how things work in the real world. Because the long-term causes and consequences of global warming are difficult to process emotionally, it can be hard to create a dialogue about the issue without creating distortions and inaccuracies.
I am a marketing and research professional who has studied how the human mind works and how people process their experience. Language is an important element of the human experience. Mental models are our representations of how things work in the real world. Because the long-term causes and consequences of global warming are difficult to process emotionally, it can be hard to create a dialogue about the issue without creating distortions and inaccuracies.
No one understands this better than the folks who brought you the Clean Skies Act in 2003. Even though the Act claimed to reduce pollution, it actually allowed more pollution and significantly reduced the government’s ability to enforce existing laws.
So who are these clever people? Well, by now, I hope you know, it was none other former President George Bush, aided by the most famous global warming denier on Capitol Hill, James Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma. Back to that story in a minute.
In the 2001 – 2003 time frame, the US culture psyche wasn’t feeling too well. 9/11 was a terrible tragedy, a shock to our sense of security. And remember, 9/11 came on the heels of the dot.com crash and the fears of Y2K system collapse. (Even though the fears of Y2K never materialized, it raised doubts about the stability of our technology-dependent society.) It is safe to say we were in the midst of a self-esteem crisis, where core assumptions were being challenged.
Since the 1970s, interest in environmental protection had been rising. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had issued a series of influential reports about the causes and consequences of global warming.In 2002, a leading Republican pollster, Frank Luntz came to the conclusion that:
"The scientific debate (about human causes of global warming) is closing. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly."
OK, back to the story. Well, the same fine folks that brought us the Clean Skies Act (and weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but I digress) set out to change the debate about global warming by reframing the language. New word or concepts can actually cause us to alter our mental models, in other words, to change our way of thinking and seeing.
Here was their strategy (remember, this was 7 years ago):
“There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. Continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."
How? By changing the words used to describe the situation and mounting an all-out attack on science. The Republican party and supporting network of conservative think tanks replaced with phrase global warming" in favor of "climate change”, a kinder, gentler and more benign term. The phrase "global warming" appeared frequently in President Bush's speeches in 2001, but decreased to almost nothing during 2002, after the memo was produced.
Even the term global warming, a term originating from scientists before the extent of the crisis was fully known, serves to diminish the severity of the threat. Climate change means climate instability (wet areas getting wetter, dry areas getting drier, more severe storms, etc.); global warming is really global heating. Let’s call it what it is: the climate crisis.
So remember the next time you refer to it as climate change, you are actually supporting a right-wing political term designed to alter people’s mental models to create doubt.
According to Luntz, "A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth."
Cross-posted from Sustainable Futures