Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand 1st Edition by Haydn Washington (PDF)

Description

Humans have always used denial. When we are afraid, guilty, confused, or when something interferes with our self-image, we tend to deny it. Yet denial is a delusion. When it impacts on the health of oneself, or society, or the world it becomes a pathology. Climate change denial is such a case. Paradoxically, as the climate science has become more certain, denial about the issue has increased. The paradox lies in the denial. There is a denial industry funded by the fossil fuel companies that literally denies the science, and seeks to confuse the public. There is denial within governments, where spin-doctors use ‘weasel words’ to pretend they are taking action. However there is also denial within most of us, the citizenry. We let denial prosper and we resist the science. Climate Change Denial explains the social science behind denial. It contains a detailed examination of the principal climate change denial arguments, from attacks on the integrity of scientists, to impossible expectations of proof and certainty to the cherry picking of data. Climate change can be solved – but only when we cease to deny that it exists. This book shows how we can break through denial, accept reality, and thus solve the climate crisis. It will engage scientists, university students, climate change activists as well as the general public seeking to roll back denial and act.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review ‘Ignorance of science is one blockade to effective action on the human predicament. But corporate-financed disinformation campaigns, such as that claiming that climate disruption is a hoax, are equally important. This excellent short book will help solve both those problems.’- Paul R. Ehrlich, co-author of Humanity on a Tightrope’Climate Change Denial reveals the crossroads we face as a society: do we let denial and confusion continue to derail solutions, leaving us vulnerable to runaway climate change, or do we accept reality and forge a truly sustainable path for future generations?’- James Hoggan, author of Climate Cover-Up and president of DeSmogBlog’This is a major contribution to the growing body of well-reasoned analyses of climate change denial. It’s a must read for anyone interested in understanding the tactics used by the ‘denial industry’ to attack scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change.’ -Riley E. Dunlap, Regents Professor of Sociology, Oklahoma State University’Climate Change denial is the biggest single obstacle to achieving a sustainable future. This book provides all the evidence and arguments you need to counter the campaign of misinformation. Read it, study it and spread its message widely.’ -Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor, School of Science, Griffith University and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation’The climate denial industry has worked effectively for years, hidden in the shadows, doing their dirty work of misleading the public, misrepresenting the science of climate change, and helping to condemn the world to now unavoidable and rapidly escalating climate disruption. No more: Washington and Cook shine a bright light on the charlatans, organizations, and funders behind the climate denial industry and on their tricks and tactics. While climate deniers are unlikely to disappear entirely, this clear and compelling book will make it easier for the general public to see through their tricks, and more likely that the world will move faster to take action on the most urgent environmental problem we have ever faced.’ -Dr. Peter Gleick, hydroclimatologist, Member US National Academy of Sciences, MacArthur Fellow, President, Pacific Institute’A refusal to accept valid scientific findings is a growing problem, and not only regarding global warming, although especially serious there. Washington and Cook offer the best available guide to recognizing and combating such denial. Their book is compact, lucidly written, and based on recent research in climate science, psychology and sociology. Anyone concerned with reality-based policy in any area can profit from reading this excellent work.’ -Spencer Weart, author of The Discovery of Global Warming’This book is a must have for anyone trying to understand the climate change issue. Washington and Cook use impressive skill to peel back the lies and deceit associated with a well oiled machine, used for selling tobacco and now selling manufactured doubt about climate change.’- Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director of Global Change Institute, University of Queensland About the Author Dr Haydn Washington is an environmental scientist of 35 years experience. Originally a plant ecologist, he worked in CSIRO on heavy metal pollution for 7 years and did his M.Sc in that field. He later did his PhD ‘The Wilderness Knot’ in social ecology, looking at the tangled meanings (and denial) around wilderness. He has worked extensively on environmental and sustainability issues. This is his fourth book on environmental issues, and he has been researching climate change since his 1991 book ‘Ecosolutions’. John Cook studied physics at the University of Queensland, Australia. After graduating, he majored in solar physics in his post-grad honours year. His interest in climate science began when he was given a speech by prominent ‘skeptic’ U.S. senator, James Inhofe. Researching the various skeptic arguments presented by Senator Inhofe revealed many fundamental scientific flaws. This led Cook to begin cataloguing the full range of skeptic arguments and documenting what the peer-review science said about each topic. This work formed the basis of the skepticalscience.com website which aims to communicate the peer-reviewed science to a broader audience.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is an excellent book on the primary problem of climate change – denial, which is our human inclination to avoid anything that is inconvenient or uncomfortable (even if the book is 7 years old). There is no doubt that energy is the engine that runs modern society, but we got addicted to coal, then oil and now gas in the youth of humanity and now we don’t know how to escape its grip on our lives. There are alternatives that can help smooth a transition away from CO2 production that is warming our earth and acidifying our oceans. If we put resources into developing wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and the like, we can find substitutes. Maybe we could develop fuel cells that use hydrogen gas made from water using solar power. The product would be benign water (water from water), perhaps at small protected stations that operate under controlled conditions that protect against the pressure and explosion danger of liquefied hydrogen gas to generate electricity. Does anyone really think that the energy business is looking out for the health of our world? Maybe they are just stuffing their pockets with our money on the way to cooking the earth? Does anyone think the tobacco industry was looking out for our health by telling us that smoking and second hand smoke was not addicting and dangerous, or were they poisoning our lungs and bodies to make a buck? Who has the bigger incentive and resources to lie, mega industries with their hired gun mouth pieces, made up non peer reviewed journals, lobbying money to influence politicians and the media, or a lowly scientists whose main goal in life is to publish papers for the good of humanity. As pointed out in the book, science is adversarial, and if a scientist could prove the climatologists wrong in a peer reviewed manner, they would not hesitate to do so to obtain the glory of proving humanity’s biggest problem solved. But it hasn’t happened, and in fact the consensus of scientists has continued to build through the years. Anyway, this is a book that should be read by everyone, but won’t because we don’t want to understand what we are doing to ourselves. It will just happen but no one will be happy to say I told you so. The future generations will scream at us for the tragedy we created for them. The animals and plants that disappear will go quietly, as is there way. This book is ‘lite’ on the science of climate change, but strong on the reasons why we choose to deny the reality of what is happening to us, which is probably the harder problem to overcome. It was urgent 7 years ago when this book was written, and now it is critical, and in a few years it will be too late (implicatory denial = we might as well give up). Every year we deny and avoid adds to the misery that befalls life on earth down the road. Other books I have found informative on our predicament are “Retreat from a Rising Sea”, “Farewell to Ice”, The Sixth Extinction”, “The Ends of the World” and more. I was firmly in the camp of ‘implicatory denial’, but this book gave me a sliver of hope with its possible approaches to changing our motivations and possible technological solutions. I am old, so it’s not so much a problem for me, but I have kids and when they have kids, I hope that they have a livable earth. This book shows a possible path to that goal.

⭐This book should have been required reading in 2012 and even more so in 2019. How sad that groups of people, who hold the public trust, can not grasp the extreme threat that we all globally face and the untold burden future generations will carry due to not acting on climate change. Some of these policy makers knew in the 1980’s that our fossil fuel burning was destroying the stability of the climate. Many of us did know, but were unable to mobilize the millions of people needed to make the changes needed to mitigate the worse of climate change. I hope the younger generations will be able to survive the extreme hubris and greed of the people who knew global climate warming was really happening and did nothing to stop it and continued to make it the horror it will be to our biosphere.

⭐This book I would highly recommend. Each foot note, study, and quote are referenced at the end of each chapter. The first part of the book has a good summery of climate science with the rest dealing with climate denial. It did a good job summing up types of denial, but its weakness (small) is it did not delve more into cognitive dissonance . I’m still in the dark about how {Relatively}intelligent people cannot just spend a few hours looking in journals like Nature & Science or look at the scientific organizations like AMS or National Academy Science and not come to the realization of the problems{In any field of science not just climate science}. Yes they wish it not to be true therefore they will not look i.e. denial. Anyway overall a very good read and informative about denial. A good follow-up on denial is

⭐a very good book on cognitive dissonance.

⭐But as with many books today, this one would have benefited from tighter editing–but my criticism may be too severe because that is what I do for a living: edit! Still I hate sloppy sentences, lost antecedents, and wandering content. But no one wants to pay for the extra read these days. Content is well done, and the team that produced this work is credible and on the cutting edge of climate change perception investigation.

⭐Everyone should read this book. Its teaches you about the various Climate Change drivers and also how to talk to deniers. Arm yourselves.

⭐Even small changes can improve the planet. This was a very interesting book. We have an obligation to be informed.

⭐This is worth a read, clear and well researched

⭐John Cook runs the web site “Skeptical Science” (SkS) where he “gets skeptical about global warming skepticism.” The site has quickly become one of the most valuable sources of accurate information to debunk the false, and often intentionally deceptive, arguments put forth by the climate denialist industry. In “Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand,” Cook has teamed up with environmental scientist Haydn Washington to further examine – and rebut – climate change denial.The authors begin with the nature of denial and a short course in climate science. They then jump into what they call the five types of climate change denial arguments: conspiracy theories, fake experts, impossible expectations, misrepresentations and logical fallacies, and cherry-picking. They also review the history of denial and why it is that we let denial prosper. Finally, they end with two chapters on how to roll back denial.The book, like the SkS web site ([…]), is a valuable resource for understanding and combating climate change denial.[…]

⭐un poco troppo semplicistico, ma sicuramente di agile e facile lettura. idoneo per la spiaggia, … all’ombra però, e con una bevanda frescaEin schönes Buch, um den Klimaskeptikern mit wissenschafltichen Argumenten zu begegnen. Relativ leicht verstäbdlich geschrieben, aber im Prinzip steht genau das Gleiche, wie auf der homepage. Wer lieber Bücher liest, für den ist das Buch absolut empfehlenswert, ansonsten tut es auch die Internetseite.A brilliant book. Get it! all the arguments from the sceptics are excellently summarized and convincingly demolished. At the same time the case and evidence for climate change are exceedingly well summarized.

⭐Great book DJ Dumb should read it

⭐A very interesting book about why some groups of interests have denied the climate change so far and what they could gain from it, although there is a scientific consensus about global warming.

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