New paper finds climate skeptics have pro-environmental values similar to man-made climate change believers

A paper published today in Global Environmental Change finds that "a central organising idea for climate change sceptics" is that climate change is governed by natural cycles, such as ocean oscillations and solar activity, and that "‘sceptics can have pro-environmental values similar to climate change believers."

According to the authors, "In contrast to other studies that postulate scepticism and denial as individuals’ fear management strategies in the face of climate change threat, we found that the natural cycles view is founded on a reassuring deeper conviction about how nature works, and is linked to other pro-environmental values not commonly found in sceptical groups. It is a paradox of natural cycles thinking that it rejects the anthropocentrism that is at the heart of science-based environmentalism. By contrast, it places humans as deeply integrated with nature, rather than operating outside it and attempting with uncertain science to control something that is ultimately uncontrollable." 

Quite true, most skeptics I know are pro-enviroment for things that actually matter, such as water quality, toxic pollutants, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, atmospheric particulates, etc., but opposed to wasting the majority of environmental efforts on trying to control the weather with the harmless, essential, & trace gas CO2.

“Natural cycles” in lay understandings of climate change

• Linda H. Connor^a, , , 
• Nick Higginbotham^b

• ^a Department of Anthropology, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
• ^b Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Faculty of Health, The University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

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Highlights

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‘Natural cycles’ is a central organising idea for climate change sceptics.

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It links nature and humans through time, explaining environmental change and weather.

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It is a longstanding view not a fear management strategy for reducing moral anxiety.

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It situates humans as integrated with nature, not controlling nature with science.

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‘Natural cycles’ sceptics can have pro-environmental values similar to climate change believers.

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Abstract

This article analyses lay understandings of climate change elicited through a longitudinal population-based survey of climate change, place and community among 1162 residents in the Hunter Valley, Southeast Australia. We explore how older residents in contrasting rural and coastal geographic areas perceive climate change information in terms of culturally relevant meanings and values, lived experiences and emotional responses to seasonal cycles, temperature fluctuations and altered landscapes. Thematic analysis of comments given by 467 interviewees to an open-ended question identified a significant subset for whom the concepts of “nature” and “science” express competing views about changing climatic conditions. For them, the idea of “natural cycles” is a significant cultural construct that links nature and humans through time in a way that structures stable and resilient understandings of environmental change, drawing on established cosmological frameworks for contemplating the future in relation to the past. In contrast to other studies that postulate scepticism and denial as individuals’ fear management strategies in the face of climate change threat, we found that the natural cycles view is founded on a reassuring deeper conviction about how nature works, and is linked to other pro-environmental values not commonly found in sceptical groups. It is a paradox of natural cycles thinking that it rejects the anthropocentrism that is at the heart of science-based environmentalism. By contrast, it places humans as deeply integrated with nature, rather than operating outside it and attempting with uncertain science to control something that is ultimately uncontrollable.