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March 09, 2012
Scrambling to explain away who the skeptics are: Comment on McCright & Dunlap
That well-informed conservative white males are the most reliable climate skeptics is bothersome to Warmists so the academic writers below have just completed a study of the phenomenon. They confirm the finding.
So WHY do people in an especially good position to find out the truth of the matter reject global warming? It's obviously because of bad motivations, of course. It could not be because warming stopped 15 years ago, for instance.
So what we see here is essentially a scientific paper making an "ad hominem" argument, an argument of a sort that has no intellectual respectability at all. And even if we take their "ad hominem" argument seriously, it is based on a critique of conservatism that is deeply flawed.
As I have pointed out on a number of occasions (e.g. here and here), in their simple-minded way, Left-leaning psychologists don't even know what conservatism is. They think it is just opposition to change. But I have yet to meet a conservative who didn't have a whole list of things that he would like to change in the world about him. Leftist psychologists obviously don't talk to actual conservatives.
So Leftist claims about conservative motivations fall at the first hurdle. They literally don't know what they are talking about. They are so confused that some of them even list Stalin, Khrushchev and Castro as conservatives! With a definition of conservatism like that you could prove that the moon is made of green cheese! So anything Leftist psychologists say about conservative motivations is completely worthless
Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States
By Aaron M. McCright & Riley E. Dunlap
Abstract
We examine whether conservative white males are more likely than are other adults in the U.S. general public to endorse climate change denial. We draw theoretical and analytical guidance from the identity- protective cognition thesis explaining the white male effect and from recent political psychology scholarship documenting the heightened system-justification tendencies of political conservatives.
We utilize public opinion data from ten Gallup surveys from 2001 to 2010, focusing specifically on five indicators of climate change denial. We find that conservative white males are significantly more likely than are other Americans to endorse denialist views on all five items, and that these differences are even greater for those conservative white males who self-report understanding global warming very well.
Furthermore, the results of our multivariate logistic regression models reveal that the conservative white male effect remains significant when controlling for the direct effects of political ideology, race, and gender as well as the effects of nine control variables. We thus conclude that the unique views of conservative white males contribute significantly to the high level of climate change denial in the United States.
SOURCE
Warmism as a neurosis
It is amusing that Warmists commonly assert psychological deficits among skeptics without any proof but when we look at actual evidence (as below) the association is the other way around. The study was too small and unrepresentative to allow reliable conclusions, however
Concern about climate change usually centres on rising sea levels, melting ice caps and drought. But an Australian study has found people with obsessive compulsive disorders (OCDs) can harbour very different worries - from fear of termites gobbling up their homes to concerns about thirsty cats.
The study, by University of Sydney researchers, is believed to be the first in the world to document how exposure to information and media reports about climate change can influence people with OCDs.
"We suggest that mental health professionals need to be aware of, and assess for the presence of such concerns," the study, led by Dr Mairwen Jones, recommends.
Dr Jones, and her co-researchers at University of Sydney's Anxiety Disorders Clinic, studied 50 people with OCDs and found 14 (28 per cent) had concerns directly related to climate change. The most common were about wasting water, electricity and gas, often leading to constant checking light switches, taps and stoves.
Other concerns were more out of the ordinary. "Two of the 14 participants were concerned that increased air temperatures would result in rapid evaporation of the water in their pet bowls," the study found. This led them to constantly check their pets had enough water.
"One participant had idiosyncratic concerns that global warming was contributing to a number of different problems including the floors cracking and the house subsequently falling down," authors wrote.
Other concerns included "pipes leaking, roof problems and white ants eating wooden structures in the house such as front and back doors and cupboard doors".
The study highlighted how the media can influence opinion on potentially emotive issues. It refers to a 1994 study that found some children developed obsessive thoughts about AIDS when media reports about the virus and its spread became common.
It said some reports about climate change could be "potentially alarming".
The study was published in the March edition of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.
SOURCE
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