NPR ran a timely story tonight about how people with different value systems will interpret the same information differently [1]. Social scientists are applying these observations to understand reactions to vaccination and climate change data.
The story offered explanations but few ideas. For instance, there was this cautionary tale:
So, should climate scientists hire, say, Newt Gingrich as their spokesman? Kahan says no. “The goal can’t be to create a kind of psychological house of mirrors so that people end up seeing exactly what you want,” he argues. “The goal has to be to create an environment that allows them to be open-minded.” And Kahan says you can’t do that just by publishing more scientific data.
While I am not a fan of creating such an “information ministry” in science just to appeal to different value groups, I was left wondering what, exactly, we can do. Since the mission of science is to pursue more research, the last sentence seems at odds with the instinct of the scientist. Certainly, the present state of public acceptance of the science suggests more science doesn’t mean more people on your side.
I came to my own conclusion, in the end, and it’s pretty much what I have been saying in the last groups of posts on this. Education is the key. The only way to make more people capable of processing data outside their value system is to provide them with the mental toolkit to make decisions informed by values and data, and not just values.
The other conclusion is that you won’t sell one solution as the “best” solution when it comes to problems like climate change. For instance, as reported in the story,
In another experiment, people read a United Nations study about the dangers of global warming. Then the researchers told the participants that the solution to global warming is to regulate industrial pollution. Many in the individualistic group then rejected the climate science. But when more nuclear power was offered as the solution, says Braman, “they said, you know, it turns out global warming is a serious problem.”
Clearly, a rich portfolio of approaches is the key. Economic solutions, including the creation of carbon markets and new energy sectors, are part of it. Regulation of total industrial output of CO2 and methane are another part. Efficiency and conservation are further parts. The above cover personal, corporate, and intranational solutions; international agreements is a further avenue to attack the problem.
In a rich portfolio, everybody wins. Free-market types get new industries and new competition, as well as a new way to generate profit while capping your own emissions. Regulation types get what they want. Those who claim you can’t solve global climate change without global solutions get what they want from international agreements, while those who decry international interference in national sovereignty have their “out” through personal choice (conservation and efficiency) and local control (corporate and governmental).
If we can’t sell the science anymore, maybe we can sell the economic benefits of simply acting more responsibly.
[1] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124008307
