Climate change – like many issues of science – is complex and difficult for the lay public to understand.
This makes discussion of it relatively easy to make confusing. Again McCright and Dunlap as well as
Freudenburg [2007] have clearly demonstrated this. Here I like the work of psychologist Jon Crosnick at Stanford
University, whose work is useful in that it makes clear why segments of the population are easily influenced
one way or another. His work shows that the public have little ability to independently determine what scientific
arguments and empirical evidence are sound or not. Hence the public takes clues and form their policy position
based on their particular reference groups. Hence if you are an individual more aligned with environmentalism
you are more likely to take your cues/positions and attitudes from environmental organizations. Likewise if you
are more conservative in your political views you are more likely to take your cues from conservative individuals
and organizations. Hence the position of these reference group organizations matter tremendously in shaping
public attention and attitude toward these important issues. In a democracy, the ability of these groups to sow
misinformation and confusion is difficult to counter. This leads to a secondary issue on the misappropriation of
civil society legitimacy that I will not discuss here.
The Conundrum! While public support for climate change policies in the U.S. has been slow in
developing, especially due to the very clever efforts of organized groups against such action, how do we explain
the lack of progress made in reducing CO 2 in other countries outside the U.S. that have not experienced the degree
of public controversies over climate change? Clearly having the U.S. government not becoming a party to Kyoto
and playing a relatively minor role in current negotiations to construct a new treaty to replace Kyoto is not very
helpful in creating global consensus regarding the politics of climate change. Still, why have other governments
who have signed the treaty and publics who have been widely supportive of curbing greenhouse gases made
little significant progress since in reducing their own emissions? In fact, a recent news article suggested that due
to the rapid rise of oil prices, Italy is thinking about returning to burning coal [from oil] for power generation.
If this policy is pursued it would be a step backwards. Is the fact that the U.S. government has NOT taken on a
leadership role in this topic been a key problem? Or are there some other factors that need to be investigated to
explain the lack of significant progress in CO 2 reductions even in pro-Kyoto countries? If so, what are they?
If the attitudes of the public, pro or con, seem to have little impact on actual CO 2 reductions, should
our national strategy be less about developing public and political consensus on the issue of climate change and
focus more directly on supporting economic, institutional, and technological change in the production and use of
energy? Will green technologies/ ecological modernization provide the solutions we need? If so, what policies,
institutions, norms, etc. need to be created to push for green technologies alternative energy sources and for
greenhouse gases conservation? What strategies should be pursued? At the same time we need to think about the
unanticipated consequences of green technologies? The social and environmental consequences from alternative
energy production options need to be thoroughly researched given the current impact on world food supply and
prices from the conversion to biofuels. [see Time, April 7, 2008: The Clean Energy Myth]. How do we avoid such
“perfect storms” in attempting to pursue positive action?
The Political Economy of the 2% Problem: Stanford climate scientist, Stephen Schneider, likes to talk about
the 2% problem. The two percent problem is that industries claim that they should not be required to shoulder
the burden of climate change mitigation because they represent only 2% of the problem. Or why pick on us?
Schneider responds by saying that 30 other industries argue the same. Taken in isolation there is little will to
respond. Taken collectively, the logic becomes undeniable. Still, while the logic may be clear, the responses
are not based on this logic but on politics. In his 2005 article in Social Forces, Privilege Access, Privilege
Accounts, sociologist Bill Freudenberg discusses the issue of the industrial production of harmful externalities