The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP 27, is currently underway. Preliminary reports already suggest depth pessimism among attendees that the world will avert a catastrophe and limit the rise in global temperatures to a manageable threshold. The United States itself is doing much less than necessary to avert a climate crisis. Half of Congress—the Republican half—is still not convinced that burning fossil fuels warms the planet. If this political impediment to effective climate action is to be overcome, it must be understood and addressed.
As a psychologist, I think I have identified one important factor that encourages climate change denial. As a therapist, I think I know what to do about it.
Motives for climate science denial are easy to identify. The fossil fuel industry has a lot to lose in this debate, and it has funded disinformation campaigns to convince the public that the science is not settledso we have no solid knowledge about global warming and therefore no basis for action.
But motives are not enough—how do disinformation campaigns succeed if the science is so clear? If we delve into the psychology underlying climate change denial, part of the answer becomes apparent: the form of cognitive distortion we call black-and-white thinking. Concepts and issues that are complex and contain a spectrum of possibilities are simplified and polarized into stark binaries—pairs of opposites. Shades of gray are missing; everything appears to be either black or white, true or false, right or wrong.
Hit the Snooze Button if You Want to Save the Planet
Climate science deniers make this thinking error over and over again in their objections to climate research. If we could correct this error, it would accomplish a lot.
Black-and-white thinking is heavily characterized by asymmetrical ways of making sense of the world. For example, perfectionists categorize their work as either perfect or unsatisfactory; good and very good outcomes are lumped together with poor ones in the unsatisfactory category.
It’s like a pass/fail grading system in which 100 percent earns a passing grade, and everything else gets an F. With this grading system, it’s not surprising that opponents of climate action have found a way to give global warming research an F.
Cognitive interventions for dismantling black-and-white thinking have one big thing going for them: Once people realize what they’re doing, they usually stop, because they know most realities exist as spectrums, not binaries. Cognitive therapists help clients see the complexities that exist underneath the simplified dichotomies they have formed. Learning how our thinking goes wrong and learning how to set it right are two aspects of one process.
Something like this needs to happen on a macro, political level for our country to take strong action against global warming. Climate change deniers need to understand how they are misunderstanding the science so they can grasp it accurately and use it as a basis for action.
The familiar idea of a 10-point scale is a handy tool for unpacking binaries into spectrums. In my book Finding Goldilocks, this tool is applied to both mental health problems and political issues.
For example, here is a spectrum for treating perfectionism:
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Climate change deniers apply unrealistic, perfectionistic standards to research. They view the spectrum of possible scientific agreement as either 100 percent consensus, or inconclusive controversy. If it’s not one, it’s the other.
A 2021 review of climate change research concluded that 99.9 percent of studies have found that human activities are warming the planet. That’s not good enough for the deniers. If they can find one contrarian scientist somewhere, like the late Freeman Dysonthey quote him or her, categorize the state of the field as inconclusive, shrug their shoulders, and say that no one really knows whether burning fossil fuels warms the planet.
In their evaluations of climate research, climate skeptics divide the spectrum of possibilities into two categories: perfect understanding and no understanding at all. As a result, they misinterpret minor departures from scientists’ predictions as evidence that their entire models are invalid. Because former President Trump confused short-term fluctuations in the weather with long-term trends in the climate, he misinterpreted every winter cold snap as a refutation of global warming. Deniers too misunderstand minor differences between analyses to mean that “the scientists disagree with each other” about the fundamental question of whether fossil fuels warm the planet. They do not.
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