Another Reason to Close Schools of Communication

John Fleck at Inkstain, points to a piece by Lauren Morello at E&E about how farmers view the issue of climate change in the US, and to no one's surprise, they deny it is happening

A February survey of 4,778 farmers across the nation's Corn Belt found that while roughly two-thirds believe the climate is changing, just 8 percent believe human activities are the primary cause.

The farmers are more worried that the government will put them out of business than the weather, but, of course, climate change is doing the job through its cats paw weather

Perhaps unsurprisingly, polls also show few growers are willing to accept measures designed to combat climate change.

Deep-seated worries about regulation

"Talking about mitigation is likely a non-starter with 60 percent of farmers," said J. Gordon Arbuckle Jr., an Iowa State sociology professor who conducted the Corn Belt poll. "That is one thing I've been talking about with my extension colleagues. And that's a key finding out of this study."

It's a conclusion that sounds right to Wilson.

"Most of the farmers will admit that climate change is happening," he said of the growers he advises in western Kentucky, on the Corn Belt's eastern fringe. "What they don't want to hear is that it's global warming induced by man's activities. In their mind, if we say, 'Yes, we think climate change is real. Yes, we think global warming is happening,' then someone is going to say, 'You are a big cause of it. You use fertilizers and chemicals and big tractors, and we're going to regulate you.'"

 As is usual with such stuff written by graduates of Schools of Communication, the answer is to frame the issue correctly.  Allow Eli a hearty snort as he watches the carnage of this Planck problem.  Planck, of course was the one who pointed out that new theories are not accepted by old scientists, but become established as they die off.

And that means that simply throwing more information at farmers isn't the answer for scientists and others who want to start a productive conversation about climate change and agriculture, experts said.

Paul Vincelli, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Kentucky's agricultural extension, learned that lesson the hard way. As part of the school's working group on climate change and agriculture, he prepared a dense handout packed with scientific facts and figures that "provoked a little blowback" from farmers, he said.

These days, he's trying a different line when he speaks about climate change with county extension agents and farmers: "I tell them this is not something you've caused -- we've all caused it."

Like many agriculture experts working on climate change issues, Vincelli believes farmers are much more receptive to aid intended to help them adapt to environmental shifts, whether it's developing new drought-tolerant strains of corn or wheat or adopting more efficient irrigation practices.

"Mitigation is not yet really something our society wants to talk about, and that's reflected in our farmers," he said.

Much of this puts Eli in mind of a new book, Better Off Without Em:  A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession, by Chuck Thompson, which bluntly puts it that the US (or at least the part without Kansas to Florida, would be a lot better off without the South.  The opening says it all

Hang out in my living room on any national election night and at some point in the evening, usually around 7 p.m. Pacific time, you're almost certain to hear me scream something like: "Why in the hell does the United States—and by extension the entire free world, capitalist dominion, and all of Christendom—allow its government to be held hostage by a coalition of bought-and-paid-for political swamp scum from the most uneducated, morbidly obese, racist, indigent, xenophobic, socially stunted, and generally ass-backwards part of the country?"

Oh yeah, they don't know much science either.  This is not to say that there are not brethren in the other states, but that they are not controlling elsewhere and mostly they get ignored or laughed at, after all Chris Monckton is a Brit.   Thompson provides lots of data to buttress his polemic, but the truth is it ain't gonna happen and even if it did it ain't gonna be happy.

Unfortunately this means that things will have to get a lot worse further down the road and much harder to solve because early action is the most effective, but remember the churnalists know that it is the framing, not the reality that counts, and it's the fault of the scientists not the churnalists.

As Eli mentioned not so long ago it's not that scientists are or are not lousy communicators (say that and the Rabett will lock you in a room with Richard Alley for example), but that journalists are lousy communicators. It's their fucking (emphasis added) job and they are screwing it up to a fare-thee-well. It ain't just climate either.

That drew some blood from the Kloor side of the family.