How Psychology and Social media skew the public climate science/policy discussion

“UMD researchers look at the effects of mass opinion on public thoughts”
The study showed beliefs on global warming are confirmed within social circles, whether or not they are scientifically confirmed

http://ift.tt/1diaANu

Quote:

A communication phenomenon called the “echo chamber” could sway federal policymakers’ attitudes toward climate change — and not always in a positive way — according to a study led by university researchers published last month in Nature magazine. The study, which began in 2010, received survey responses from 64 members of the U.S. climate policy network, including members of Congress and leaders of nongovernmental organizations. The survey polled respondents on their attitudes toward climate science and policy, as well as their sources of expert information. “Among the science community, there is a consensus that human activities are contributing to global warming. But we were interested to know why in the policy network, half of voters believed climate change was not human-induced,” said Lorien Jasny, a co-author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center in Annapolis. Similar to sound amplifying in an enclosed space, a communication echo chamber forms when word spreads in a social circle until people hear about the same information from multiple sources and then have the impression that they should believe what they heard, regardless of whether the information is true. The survey demonstrated that an echo chamber effect had played a significant role in climate policy communications, researchers found. “Individuals who get their information from the same sources with the same perspective may be under the impression that theirs is the dominant perspective, regardless of what the science says,” Dana Fisher, a sociology professor at this university and a co-author of the study, said in a news release. The echo chamber demonstrates how outlier views in the science community can spread in the political arena.

This is a problem on both sides of the policy discussion as advocates for policy actions to address climate change can easily get focused on outlier extreme results and advocates for no policy actions to address climate change latch onto outlier studies that tend to minimize impacts. When it comes to sound policy discussions, however, we need to have such discussions using the same “best science” available senarios to clearly weigh the costs and benefits of policy action or inaction.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1AQG1cI