2013-05-18T06:44:33-04:00 Jason Thistlethwaite http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=jason-thistlethwaite Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Jason Thistlethwaite Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2324632 2012-12-21T12:26:38-05:00 2013-02-20T05:12:02-05:00

Jason Thistlethwaite http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-thistlethwaite/ recent U.S. poll has confirmed that people who are skeptical towards the scientific consensus behind climate change have shifted their opinion. In 2009, only 47 percent of people who classified themselves as having no trust in the science supporting climate change believed that the earth was warming. Today, 61 per cent of these science skeptics say they believe in climate change.

So what explains this change? Perhaps the science supporting the link between greenhouse emissions and global warming is finally too comprehensive to disprove. This could be the case. But public opinion has only now started to shift, and the scientific consensus on climate change has existed for decades. Another explanation could be that people are no longer worried about the economy and can afford to start paying to fight climate change through taxes or other policy means. This explanation has some merit, but by no means has the economy undergone some identifiable shift towards certain growth.

It seems the answer has more to do with our personal experiences with the effects of climate change. According to one interviewer for the poll: "We use to have mild temperatures in the fall going into winter months. Now, we have summer temperatures going into winter." Jon Krosnick, a social psychologist with Standard University confirms that "events are helping these people see what scientists thought they had been seeing all along."

This shift in public opinion is no surprise for researchers who argue that our perception towards climate change is shaped by its impact on our "sense of place." We tend to assume that the physical environment around us is static, and has no real impact on our daily lives. We listen to the daily weather report, but that's really about it. Climate change compels us to recognize that the environment is dynamic and can affect us in ways we did not anticipate. The experience of extreme weather damage, such as a basement flood after a significant downpour, is one apparent example. But it is the more subtle impacts of climate change on the way Canadians relate to the environment that I find most troubling.

I'm worried that the experience of a white Christmas is slowly disappearing for most Canadians. According to Environment Canada, the probability of a white Christmas has decreased by 15 per cent for most of the country since the 1960s. A white Christmas is a part of being Canadian according to David Phillips, Environment Canada's senior climatologist. "We want it on that day to put us in the mood. It's almost like (having) turkey and toys. It's just part of the feeling at Christmas time."

Sure, a white Christmas may not matter for some, but how about hockey? A McGill University researcher recently confirmed that pond hockey is threatened by climate change. As winters become warmer, access to backyard and community ponds that normally host nightly games of shinny will become limited. Of course we can always play games indoors, but the costs of doing so are likely to increase. Warmer winter temperatures will increase arena cooling costs, and in turn, public skating and league registration fees.

A white Christmas and pond hockey define our experience with the environment around us, and a Canadian "sense of place." Climate change is starting to threaten these experiences. Perhaps it's time we start to think about ways to preserve these pastimes. Doing so will help maintain the Canadian experience, and fight the dangerous impacts of climate change at the same time.


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Jason Thistlethwaite http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-thistlethwaite/ Doom and gloom predictions about future climate change do little to help solve the problem. International organizations, environmental groups and government delegates heading to Doha next week for the latest round of United Nations negotiations on climate change should heed this message.

It seems like we're already off to a poor start. The World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank all released reports this week forecasting a grim future if we fail to take action on climate change. The World Bank report is particularly dire. Dr. Jim Yong Jim, the President of the World Bank, tries to "shock us into action" by warning of scenarios such as "the inundation of coastal cities; increasing risks for food production potentially leading to higher malnutrition rates; many dry regions becoming dryer, wet regions wetter; unprecedented heat waves in many regions . . ." and so on.

But we now know that this type of strategy does little to shock anyone to do anything. In fact, some psychologists argue that such dire predictions may increase skepticism about the science behind climate change. These predictions also fit into the "climate change denier" narrative that research on future climate change is exaggerated and "alarmist". The success of this denier narrative is one of the major reasons why public opinion tends to be divided on whether to adopt the necessary mitigation and adaptation policies needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

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The failure of "doom and gloom" climate scenarios to inform public opinion has encouraged a great deal of research on new and potentially more effective communications strategies. Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, who leads research at the Yale Project on Climate Change Communications, argues that any effort to communicate climate change science must assume that most people perceive "climate change is a danger to geographically and temporally distant people, places and non-human nature". In other words, climate change is not a priority because it is unlikely to affect you or your family anytime soon.

A number of innovative communications strategies have emerged in response to this research that explain how the climate is changing at the local level in the present day. Linking extreme weather to climate change represents one particularly effective approach. The science proving a link between climate change and extreme weather provides a useful resource for such a narrative.

David Ropeik, a risk perception expert at Harvard University, argues that extreme weather shows how climate change "can happen to me, not just somebody else, or polar bears." Business closures, empty store shelves and insurance claims linked with extreme weather are all early examples of the disruptions that the long-term forecasts predict will become more frequent as the climate changes.

Al Gore, who first championed the "doom and gloom" narrative in his scary "Inconvenient Truth" slideshow, seems to be listening. He has started a new campaign that focuses on a "climate reality" defined by "dirty weather". U.S. public opinion polls on climate change suggest this strategy may work. According to a September 2012 poll, recent extreme weather helps explain why a growing majority now believes climate change is happening, and is a threat to their families and communities. Peter Kent, Canada's Minister of the Environment, explained this week that extreme weather is even causing concern about climate change within the Conservative government's cabinet.

Linking climate change to a business and financial risk is another strategy currently employed by groups trying to describe the local and immediate impacts of climate change. The U.S. Coalition for Responsible Economies (Ceres), the Climate Change Adaptation Project: Canada, and the UK Carbon Disclosure Project have all produced reports that point to historic disaster and insurance losses linked with extreme weather as a significant "climate disruption" that threatens economic growth.

These groups hope to expand the constituency concerned about climate change to non-traditional allies, such as business actors who are well placed to influence government officials. But, this strategy also works for voters who can more easily relate to the costs generated by change climate risks such as a flooded basement caused by a heavy rain event.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses a climate change "scorecard" to communicate how the climate is already starting to change. Instead of trying to model the future, the NOAA looks at over 37 different real-time climate indicators to describe how the climate is changing today. Changes in these indicators are measured based on historical experience and then communicated in a monthly "State of the Climate" report.

All of these strategies describe how climate change is happening today and in your community. I hope those delegates heading to Doha embrace these arguments to justify that actions supporting mitigation and adaptation are not just for the future, but are needed now.

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