Climate-change advocacy turns to psychological warfare

There’s a push to include psychology as a way of combating what some people are calling man-made climate change, but one climatologist believes it will flop.

 

According to Carolyn Gregoire, senior health and science writer for the Huffington Post, climate change is not just a political, social or economic issue. Gregoire says it is also a deeply psychological one, and behavioral scientists are using psychology to better understand the “complex relationship between people and nature.” The idea, she says, is that “by understanding emotional barriers to action, we may be able to devise better guidelines for communication, advocacy and policy.”

 

Dr. Pat Michaels, a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists who now directs the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, questions the legitimacy of the claims made in Gregoire’s article.

 

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