Climate silence: Why we need to all start talking about climate change
Americans rarely talk about climate change with family and friends.
Tragically, research shows that this climate silence reinforces the dangerously wrong belief that climate change isn’t an existential threat requiring urgent action.
But a major new study led by Yale researchers finds that just discussing the issue with friends and family leads them to learn more facts about the climate crisis, which in turn leads to greater understanding and concern about the issue.
The study, titled “Discussing global warming leads to greater acceptance of climate science” was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Climatologist Michael Mann said that this study “casts doubt on claims in some quarters that the climate change issue has become too ideologically-driven for facts to matter.”
“[It] confirms what might seem common sense,” Mann wrote in an email to ThinkProgress. “The more people actually understand about the science of climate change, the more they are likely to accept the scientific consensus — that climate change is real, human-caused, and a threat to human civilization.” [Continue reading…]