Links for Friday, August 25
On shaming the super-rich and other irreverent topics.
A variety this week: some climate accentuation of what’s appeared here recently, some consideration of climate response and messaging strategies, and a brief look at the pathological types we’ve elevated to running the joint in our names.
Links
Seven links this week and a musical treat:
• Anger is most powerful emotion by far for spurring climate action, study finds (The Guardian)
Anger is by far the most powerful emotional predictor of whether somebody plans to take part in a climate protest, research suggests.
The study, which asked 2,000 Norwegian adults how they felt about the climate crisis, found the link to activism was seven times stronger for anger than it was for hope.
The climate communications world has been split, and not evenly, between the few who try to cause fear of horrific climate results (yours truly among them), and the far more numerous who are afraid to use fear. The latter group fears that fear will frighten too much; that people will hide their heads and do nothing at all.
It may also be possible that, when one appeals to fear, the response is critical from both the right — for “climate alarmism” — and the fossil-fuel-pacifying “left” who run the joint. Another cause for caution, this time personal.
File under “Anger leads to action, which is why they don’t like it.”