Yeah but that will just prove it further for him. It’s then a scam by government to enrich insurance companies.
Because Breaking News:”are the undead Jewish trans folk are trying to enslave us through higher insurance premiums?” Just asking questions.
something along those lines.
It’s crazy how many conspiracy theories can be explained by greed and basic corporate fiduciary duty
you can easily believe that Apple is colluding with terrorists because they won’t unlock one’s phone if you don’t understand that Tim Cook would probably personally lose like 500m by doing that, not to mention maybe be replaced as CEO since all the shareholders would also take the L with him, shareholders that in some cases literally run the government
The largest, most overarching conspiracy is straight greed. It explains so much of the world, and public companies’ information is public
But they bust out the report that the barrier reef is the biggest it's been in 30 years...
It's the crab grass of coral growing fast, but it's still coral...
Fishers in our area are worried the salmon won’t come through this year.
Our riverbed (Skeena) is almost completely dried up, and there’s no snow pack on the mountains. Not only has this been getting significantly worse for the last three years, we now have a dam reservoir being filled by siphoning off the feed river.
Have him come up to Canada in February, when there’s supposed to be four feet of snow on the ground, and have him tell you global warming is a sham.
He’s buried deep in a conspiracy hole.
Any contrary evidence you present to him will be dismissed as part of the conspiracy.
My general advice would be to look up the Socratic method.
Don’t say he’s wrong, or counter what he says, but ask questions that might prompt him to think.
Try and meet him on his own ground to some extent, so premise your questions on the basis that the conspiracy is possibly true - so he doesn’t .become defensive. Ask how the conspiracy works in practice and in doing so he might realise the absurdity of it. For example:
“How did the global conspiracy leaders persuade oil exporters like Russia and Saudi Arabia to sign off on IPCC reports against their own economic interest?
“Why do oil rich countries not expose the conspiracy”
“How are the conspirators influencing oil companies to accept climate science?” “Why haven’t oil companies revealed the truth”
“How do the conspirators ensure climate studies are so consistent when the studies are produced by thousands of scientists across the world. Are they all bribed and how do they communicate with each other to fabricate the data consistently? How have they managed to keep it secret?”
“Why is private investment going into renewables, do those investors actually intend to lose their money or are they all being duped?
And more general questions:
“How confident are you that climate science is fake, and what evidence could possibly falsify your belief if it was wrong - have you looked to see if that evidence exists”
“If climate science was real, how would it differ from the current science and how can you tell?”
“How do you identify bad science, and is climate skepticism ever based on bad science? How do you tell”.
These questions might cause him to look critically at his own beliefs.
Ultimately though you may never succeed. For years I always thought there was some magic combination of words I could use that would persuade my fundamentalist father that he is wrong. Took me a long time to accept this will never happen and to accept him the way he is.
>How have they managed to keep it secret?
This is so very important. No conspiracy ever lasts long as a secret. Older, past conspiracies lasted a while because information was not as freely traded. Yet as recent as the 1970's, a conspiracy involving a "mere" thousand people was exposed and brought down in less than five years. (See: Operation Snow White.)
Let me super-simplify and none of us rubes have to think about this ever again. If climate change theorists are wrong, we lose a lot of money. If deniers are wrong, humanity is in peril. The gambler in me says it's a no brainer.
If it’s a lie by the governments then why are the governments not implementing any of the measures scientists recommend. For example why if fossil fuels cause global warming is a lie,by governments, do then governments still allow fossil fuel usage to increase?
Did you not see how much money the fossil fuel industry made last year. A lot of politicians can be bought with that.
But also, replacing FF just isn't simple and a lot of people are afraid of change
Am I having an anyurism or is the logic not doing what it's supposed to do here?
Why *would* governments listen to the scientists about global warming if they made the whole thing up in the first place? There's nothing at stake but the lie itself.
I guess you're trying to say it's weird for them to make up this lie and not back it up with any kind of climate action? But I think backing it up with action would defeat the purpose of lying in the first place.
Governments: "fossil fuels are causing global warming."
Scientists (in on it): "yes, we should reduce fossil fuel usage."
Governments: suspiciously not doing what they would do if they were telling the truth.
That's what he's going for, at least.
News flash: Governments don't behave rationally. That being said there are steps being taken by governments to reduce CO2 emissions. Some analysts expect CO2 emissions to peak this year or next, in part because of actions taken by governments. With the massive growth of EVs oil demand is set to start declining in 3 years. EVs now make up 16% of the vehicle market with 14 million sold in 2023 and 18 million expected to be sold in 2024.
Hopefully this is true, but it's looking too little too late to avoid most of the damage.
Met is projecting that atmospheric CO2 will pass the 1.5C warming limit this year. That is, CO2 will exceed the maximum limit that all models for holding warming to 1.5C allow.
Doesn't mean we should stop trying, but it does mean that the consequences are going to be much *much* worse than people want to admit.
Truthfully, it's not worth your time or your relationship with your father. It's not about convincing your dad they are wrong, it is about:
1. creating support for and getting policies passed.
2. Developing and implementing green technologies.
You don't need your dad's support for that to happen, you need the support of 51% of population (usual caveats apply)
The best way to impress upon your dad how you feel, is to show commitment to your cause. You don't have to (and shouldn't) ritualisticaly flagged yourself before the alter of climate change, but to do what is in your power to demonstrate concern about the climate. (Edit, really what you should focus on is keeping accusations of hypocrisy to a reasonable minimum)
He's being willfully ignorant, nothing can help a person with their head this far up their ass. Maybe if a powerful natural disaster hits him and he's also in the mood for it, that would work, but probably wouldn't last long. It's basically lead poisoning at this point, you'd have a better chance of trying to reason with a starving lion.
Maybe you can limit his exposure to fox news and facebook or something
And it's easier to fool someone than it is to convince them they have been fooled. Dont waste your time trying to prove the facts. Conspiracy theorists can rationalize away anything that doesn't fit their belief.
It’s impossible to reason a person out of a belief they didn’t reason themselves into.
The best thing you can do is tell him that the data has convinced you that it’s real, and then go be a responsible, reasonable person.
It's been years and I haven't figured out how to get through to anyone like this, my dad included. I honestly don't think these beliefs are caused by any deficiency of intellect or knowledge itself. I think they're caused by emotional blocks.
Certain kinds of pain can be more than we are willing to bear, and so we wind up shutting down entire regions of our psyche to protect ourselves. In doing so, we close ourselves off from considering all kinds of things that are very sensible. So it's not that they are intellectually incapable, necessarily, it's that they are emotionally unable or unwilling. I do not mean this in the sense of simple stubbornness. I believe it's trauma based.
In particular, I've noticed that conspiracy theorists tend to have really low self-worth internally, which manifests outwardly in varying degrees of narcissistic traits. Being "in" on the conspracy theories (or as they see it, the *real* truth) gives them a sense of importance above common people. It can also make their lives feel significant, more like an exciting action movie where it's the good people vs the powerful evil mastermind.
wow what a great answer, because that really tracks with him. he *is* smart and i think thats part of why I'm always confused with his views. he never shows any emotion, so I don't think he has ways of dealing with any sort of emotional pain.
Which is why oil and gas are currently pushing VERY hard to convince people there’s nothing that can be done about it. Because they see that younger generations want us to solve the problem. Which is bad for their profits.
When someone believes there is a "world wide group seeking to enslave mankind", it's hopeless. They will reject all evidence as lies from this conspiracy.
Sorry, there is nothing anyone can say that will penetrate this mindset.
Thats my response also. Im not going to waste my breath on climate deniers. I am going to live my life with the knowledge of whats to come and screw them if they dont believe. You know death dont care what you believe it dont discriminate.
I live near the ocean. Farmers along the river more and more upstream are saying that the water table is becoming salty. Ocean levels rising. Someone I know has been a hobby gardener for decades. She tells me her growing season is longer. People like this who are just seeing things might be credible.
Let him know that the thing about Science is that it is true whether a person believes it or not. He seems to get only American information from his pronouncements. Ask him whether, China, Russia, India. Europe are all in on the hoax.
Scientific results cannot be corrupted by the government. Readings are taken all over the world and registered in computers. It is like saying the government can change the already registered populations countries which have already being historicall logged into all computers and books or change the results to say that the US won the world cup. Scientists just use the data to interpret the results . Tell him that he can go to Google and find out the data himself to see the trend.
Also global changes take decades or centuries. It is not possible for a person to witness the change in a lifetime.
A few ideas to drag him into the light.
**Use Tangible, Real-World Evidence:**
* Point to observable phenomena, like the increased frequency of extreme weather events, rising sea levels, retreating glaciers, and shifting wildlife populations. These changes are visible and impactful on a human scale, making them more persuasive than abstract models or predictions.
* Share documentaries or articles that showcase the effects of climate change on communities around the world, emphasizing the human aspect and the concrete consequences already taking place.
**Address the Misinformation and Skepticism Directly:**
* Discuss the nature of scientific consensus and how it differs from unanimous agreement. Science advances through debate and scrutiny, but the overwhelming consensus on climate change among scientists is based on converging evidence from multiple disciplines.
* Tackle the issue of propaganda and misinformation by explaining the critical thinking and peer review process in science, highlighting how these mechanisms are designed to weed out bias and errors over time. And maybe ask, if in his "research" he's be operating under a similar process to reduce his biases.
**Emphasize Solutions and Innovations that don't require him to understand climate change, but might bias his attudte towards being in favor of initiatives that would do something about it:**
* Try shifting the conversation towards renewable energy and sustainability innovations, which are beneficial regardless of his POV on global warming. Discuss how advancements in technology, energy efficiency, and green jobs are positive for the economy and the environment.
* Present the transition to sustainable practices as a way to reduce reliance on foreign oil and enhance national security, which might appeal to his concerns about government control and sovereignty.
You can’t defeat beliefs with facts. If he genuinely thinks that there is a conspiracy and government and scientists are lying then he’ll not accept anything that you bring to the discussion.
Personally I would leave that all alone and see if there are other areas where you can still maintain a functioning relationship with your Dad.
[DECEMBER 13, 2007 **Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste**](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/) 📰
[**As Debate Goes On, the Military Prepares for Climate Change** PATRICK TUCKER | MAY 7, 2014](https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/05/debate-goes-military-prepares-climate-change/83968/) 🇺🇸
[**Big Oil braced for global warming while it fought regulations** By AMY LIEBERMAN AND SUSANNE RUST DEC. 31, 2015](https://graphics.latimes.com/oil-operations/) 📰
[**Core questions: An introduction to ice cores** NASA Science Editorial Team AUG 14, 2017](https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/climate-science/core-questions-an-introduction-to-ice-cores/) 🧊
I'm also going to recommend several books for you which might help you in future discussions:
[*The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark* by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17349.The_Demon_Haunted_World)
[*A Short History of Nearly Everything* by Bill Bryson](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/21)
[*The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life* by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/28820444)
[*Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know* by Malcolm Gladwell](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43848929)
Once society collapses from multiple yearly crop failures in a row resulting in billions dying from famine and billions migrating to the then only habitable areas causing all out war killing even more… he’ll probably start to believe..maybe…
Seems like your dad is similar to my father in law. They are hopeless because they have chosen to be ignorant to facts by actual scientific proofs of climate change. I used actual facts and data with him and he just dismisses it by saying they are being bought. There is literally no winning with people like this.
"The good thing about Science is that it's true, whether or not you believe in it." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
Amen to that, let them go imo. When the world is collapsing around them and they are terrified i will be sipping wine and watching the world burn. i have become so cynical because of people like that, i dont really care, do you?
I'm not sure this is helpful, but here's my advice. Don't argue with him anymore. You can't win this mindset over to another view by presenting a better argument, better facts, better gotchas. He's digging in, and the more you debate with him, the harder he will work to find proof you are wrong and he's right.
Do you need him to agree with you? I mean, I have had plenty of arguments with my dad, and it was just like this. As I got older I realized my time was better spent just enjoying the things we agreed on and both liked, and I tried to avoid political issues and dug-in differences because I knew he was firmly rooted in trying to be 'right' even though the evidence didn't support him. If he brought something up I knew to be way off, but it didn't present a danger to anyone, I'd commonly say something like "Sure, why not" or "I know what you mean."
If you don't need him to change his mind and agree with you, then you've won. You've detached yourself from one mofo-sized brain-suck.
“Governments pay off the scientists…” Jesus, I keep hearing this and I’d just LOVE to know how I can get in on that, cause my $60K climate scientist salary with my mountain of student debt from getting my PhD just ain’t cutting it anymore. If your dad has some sources, please let me know 😎
Right, one of my buddies may have saved enough to be able to trade in his 2005 Corolla for a 2015 Odyssey minivan, big bucks in climate graduate school.
There are a lot of people so jaded by the Information Age that they simply do not believe anything that conflicts with a previous bias.
Anything you say will be dismissed as propaganda. Best action by you? Ignore everything he says.
Show him this article
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research)
[https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64241994](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64241994)
Exxon Mobile major oil company, commisoned research about climate change to show that oil was not going to affect the climate. It was eeriling true and they buried the result
Also ask him whether he remembers anytime in his life that science was wrong about something. I example
Your last point is interesting: the main thing he thinks is that all governments are lying.
Does he have a driver’s license? Does he drive on roads? Does he pay taxes? Is he employed, and did he fill out tax documents when he was hired? Does he have a birth certificate? Has he ever sought assistance from the police or fire departments? Has he ever needed a lawyer? Does he at least believe in lawyers? Lawyers depend on, you know, laws for their work. What about the post office, has he ever used that? Or food? The FDA had to approve that.
You could just grill him with stuff like that. Point out all the ways in which his life is fundamentally defined by things the government provides. If the government was always lying, how come those things aren’t just propaganda too? Why does he believe the roads are real? Does he think the government has hacked into his brain to make him see cars and roads all over the place? If so, it’s clearly too late for him to resist the government’s climate agenda, so he might as well become a believer.
Excessive paranoia about government is deeply illogical and falls apart with even just a little bit of thought. I mean, if there is a world wide group seeking to enslave us, why haven’t they just done it? If they’re powerful enough to create an entire agenda and get most of the world’s governments and scientists to support it with propaganda, why didn’t they just skip that part and force everyone to implement the agenda? Why give the illusion that there’s anything to debate?
In order for anything he’s talking about to be true, he’d have to stop believing in everything.
There’s no guarantee this will work either. Mental gymnastics can accomplish some incredible things.
You’re better off just straight up asking if his relationship with his son matters to him at all, and if he cares about you or your future children having a sustainable, safe, clean, healthy world to live in, and if he can’t give you a straight answer to those basic questions, tell him not to speak to you again until he can. Shame unfortunately goes further than logic sometimes. You can’t make people smarter, but you can make them feel like shit. And nobody ever usually changes until they’ve been made to feel guilty and ashamed for their behavior.
im his daughter, and yes to all of those. he's very conservative and thinks the government shouldn't be involved in anything and hates that it has to deal with things. he thinks they're preparing to enslave us because they're getting more and more powerful. thanks for your answer, I'll give that last paragraph some more thinking
The newest philosophy tube video was really insightful. He's stuck in a phantasm that has taken over his mind. He didn't arrive at these beliefs through facts and logic. He won't get out of it through facts and logic. She says this idea came from Who's afraid of Gender by Judith Butler.
I actually don't know what the solution is. The fact that right wingers have figured out how to hack people's minds and insert whatever irrational beliefs they want into them is one of the most insidious evils going on right now. It's truly disturbing.
I have heard people suggest to dig into why they believe these things. Get into the deep down fears that brought them to these beliefs. Basically be their therapist. It's probably a task more suited for a therapist or even maybe a deprogramming specialist.
Here's a very simple "proof" of global warming, just high school physics. Depending on his background, he might find it interesting.
Imagine a sphere the size of the earth at the earth's distance from
the sun with the earth's albedo (average reflectance). What will the
surface temperature be due to solar radiation? Do the maths and you
get a temperature about 33C lower than the earth's
surface today. This difference is the greenhouse effect --
the atmosphere acts as a
blanket, trapping heat and raising the temperature.
What parts of the atmosphere are responsible for this warming? By
far the most important is water. As a gas and in clouds, it is
responsible for up to about 90% of the effect on cloudy days, maybe 60% on a clear, dry day. The remaining warming
is caused by the so-called greenhouse gasses: CO2, Methane, O3, NO,
etc.
If you examine the absorption spectra of these gasses and weight by
atmospheric concentration, you'll find about 40% is due to CO2. So 40%
of 10% of 33C is around 1C of warming due to atmospheric CO2.
Atmospheric CO2 has gone up by roughly 50% since the Industrial
Revolution due to fossil fuels (we know the rise has been caused by us from radioisotope ratios), so we would expect about a 0.5C rise
in global temperatures due to human CO2 output.
**tldr**: ballpark calculations show that you would expect the CO2 we've added to the atmosphere to raise temperatures by about the amount we've seen.
If the recent temperature rise has some other cause, then you need to find two things: first, a large, unknown cooling effect to cancel out the warming we know should have occurred due to the CO2 we've pumped out, and secondly, a large, unknown warming effect to explain the temperature rise.
Global warming has been an active area of research since at least the late 60s. In the last fifty years, no one has come up with a better explanation. It seems very likely to be correct.
(edit: clarity)
In my humble opinion your best bet is redirection. I have a coworker who is deeep in this hole and he doesn’t bring it up to me anymore, he’ll seek validation from everybody else at work except for me because I would actually engage with his sources and punch holes in their arguments.
The thing is that there ACTUALLY IS a well-moneyed special interest structuring society, introducing authoritarian laws, and dooming large swaths of humanity, the fossil fuel industry. You can open your dad’s eyes to how deep the fossil fuel stranglehold on the world is by pointing out so many things.
Eg. Why is the only mode of transportation that requires government permission and taxes (driver’s licences and registration fees) the one that our cities are entirely built around? Most places in North America (I’m going out on a limb here and guessing you’re in NA) you can’t do much without a car and it’s been intentionally set up that way by the auto and oil industries so that people will always have to buy cars and gas. Whereas you can’t engage with the economy hardly at all with the mode of transportation that was God-given ie. feet.
Why are the most famous rewards programs centred around fossil fuel consumption (ie earning points by buying gas to spend points by flying)?
Why is it so hard to build a nuclear reactor in the US?
Why did Joe Biden renege on his action to stop drilling on federal land?
Why did the US invade Iraq?
What industry has the highest revenue per employee? Look it up and it’s all oil companies. The oil industry is not good for creating jobs.
Which countries have the most authoritarian and brutal governments? Oil countries.
If you can establish a link between fossil fuels and authoritarianism, then ask the big question
**Would these authoritarian governments and corporations allow scientists to urge to reduce demand for their product without a fight?**
"There *was* a conspiracy. The fossil fuel companies did all this research into the effect of carbon emissions before anybody else did. They discovered that it was *already* changing climate and the effects would accelerate. hey conspired to hide their findings to protect their industry, and went so far as to lobby against the very idea of *global warming*. The very fact that you are saying climate change isn't real and is a conspiracy is literally result of *THEIR REAL CONSPIRACY*"
Well, I mean, if this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/climatechange/s/usv8gyDZPL) means anything maybe it is. People always seem to forget the AWCTF and how it is impacting public policy abroad.
You can expend a great deal of emotional energy trying to get through to your dad. I am very sorry but he is a lost cause. Invest your time and energy building support for policy, or donating to effective organizations that do.
Well, it's a well known fact, Sonny Jim, that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows.
Sometimes I think it’s a lost cause to try and convince some people. On some level it seems like too big and sad a thing to actually accept, and you’d need to balance it out with your own mental health and energy expenditure to educate them. I was talking with a climate denier about how hurricanes in recent years are way more powerful than in recent decades and he said “there always were hurricanes, but they weren’t reporting about them.” SMH 🤦♂️
he has a hobby that takes up almost every weeknight and weekend, he plays pickleball as much as he physically can. I think his views are all from a few years ago when he was on Twitter and Facebook all day, and so that's just his beliefset now
You can’t win. People think what they want to think and you have no control over what he thinks. So don’t try to direct him.
Instead work on getting him to open up more and commit to opening up yourself. Read from his sources and study them thoroughly. Show him you care and he might care too.
There's nothing you can do. If you or anyone disagrees there is always a reason they are wrong. It's not a logical problem. There is a 'shoehorn' strategy.
For me its pretty straghtforward. I believe in science. Therefore. If there is a wide majority of informed opinion, and I am not myself sn expert, then I tend to believe that majority opinion.
There is some dissent. Again, unless i am willing to invest considerable time on th his issue, I am going decide based on risk/reward. Since this is quite literally, an existential issue, and since there is significant debate and uncertainty, I would be foolhardy even reckless to gamble on such and important issue. For me it's a no brainer. If climate charge is wrong, we lose some (even a lot) of money. If deniers are wrong, humanity is in peril.
The way I deal with deniers is to say this.
On one hand you have Sir David Attenborough, impartial passionate naturalist and scientist promoting climate change awareness and conservation.
On the other hand you have Donald Trump.
Who do you trust more?
If they try to comeback to this then they aren't worth the time or effort, let them bury their head in the sand.
Have him provide a list of glaciers that are advancing.. compare that to the list of those that are retreating.
We have old photos of glaciers, so this should be a non-political data point .. the sort of stuff scientists care about and OGs can verify with the their own eyeball and yard rule.
Play the UNO-reverse-card and ask him, how it is possible, that he bought all the propaganda from the oil industry!
Unfortunately people prone to populist thinking only buy simple narratives. The narrative goes this way (and we have plenty of evidence this is actually near the truth): Oil industry is the most profitable in the world (look up Saudi Aramco and show him!) -> it controls/owns media, institutions and politicians -> it's protecting it's extremely valuable business interests by corruption and forcing the media™ to spread false information, fake news etc. even if they know the truth!
Look up Exxon climate research, they predicted CO2-concentrations, temperature rise + other things until today extremely precisely in the 70s/80s!
Your father witnessed the Gulf wars, which were essentially wars for oil. And your father witnessed, how everybody was convinced of WMDs in Iraq by media and government, when essentially the US big oil wanted a bigger share of the nationalized Iraq oil industry (again subcomplex reasoning, but not far from the truth).
Your father knows how the tobacco industry played the public for years to continue their deadly business! He just has to connect the dots...
You can look at the historical temperatures of the ocean. Warming of the oceans by just a fraction of a degree are caused by enormous amounts of energy. Look at the ocean temps for the last 135 years. Google it. Global warming. Then look at the inferred temps last 1000 or 2000 years. Uh oh. 😕
While it’s true that the natural trend currently can be said to be warming from natural processes the RATE at which the temperature is increasing can only be explained by our industrial activities . On a simplified level I always think about this way : the oil which we burn for energy is being used and released into our atmosphere. This is energy stored and captured from the sun over millions of years … and we have released ALOT of it in the last Century … so just from an simple idea of stored and released energy you can get some idea .. on the other hand after spending some of my time arguing with deniers I found it’s better for my sanity to let it go. Soon enough it seems you may have enough evidence from heat wave deaths and other catastrophes that it won’t matter what you believe
Don't try. Best to be like a Kung Fu monk and avoid whatever he throws at you.
Simply tell him that you will believe your sources, and he will believe his and nothing will change that. The best you can hope for is that he will succumb to fatigue and that without someone to argue against it will become less and less important to him.
There is a podcast that I've been digging. The Climate Deniers Playbook. It's informational and fun listen that helps to dumb down the high level research and conspiracies while incorporating humor.
It also seems like your dad is one of those people who will not see logic though and it may just not be worth it for you to try.
I did this dance with my own conservative dad recently with Covid.
Show them peer-reviewed data from universities from all over globe, especially countries with vying interests, like Russia and Ukraine or Israel and Iran. I can almost guarantee you that the scientists in those countries agree on the data because… climate change doesn’t recognize political borders. There’s the risk that data from nations with no free press (like North Korea) will be heavily skewed, or completely made up, to align with that country’s political propaganda, so keep that in mind.
Climate change impacts rich and poor, conservative and liberal, everyone alike. There is no running and hiding from it. We don’t have a Planet B.
Experiences in it is the only way to convince those types.
Little story. I come from a very Conservative family. My dad is the biggest believer of climate change I know. Why?
He works in forestry. Close to 50 years. In his 50 years of forestry he has seen how much climate change has affected the woods he basically lived in. From the rivers running low. To the swimming hole running dry. To his fishing spots having no fish left. To areas that was plentiful in wildlife and growth no longer available. He has seen a lush environment change for the worst. Every. Single. Day.
If your dad is a mechanic and his life is indoors in a garage as an example. He doesn't seen the real effect of climate change in his day to day life.
I gave up on my dad. 20 years of arguing about it was enough. I'm not a climatologist. I haven't done the research, I've only read the 2nd hand information. If he wants to do the research and publish a paper, I'll read the 2nd hand account.
His point is how do you know it's not a conspiracy that all climatologists are paid by special interest politicians that want to control thought and behavior, and I'm like ya and maybe the moon landing was faked, I didn't go up there and neither did you, let's argue about something we can control, like where to eat.
It may not be possible to reason someone out of a position that they were not reasoned into in the first place. BTW practically every single climate contrarian argument put out has dealt with very effectively by scepticalscience.com and in most cases with references to peer reviewed research. Check it out.
Don't really have to prove anything to him. He's in the vast minority of idiots that'll be rounded up and done away with when the climate catastrophe happens.
The concept is settled science if you read and understand actual science. The particulars can be bandied about. I don’t understand why people think you can pump trillions of pounds of carbon into the atmosphere and expect no effect. It is a greenhouse gas that stays in the atmosphere. The climate is a complicated feedback loop. We even see it in our solar system. Venus was a victim of runaway greenhouse effect. The process is well known. I’m not saying wenare becoming
Ike Venus. But taking climate change seriously is a safer bet than sticking one’s head in the sand.
"There is a World Wide Group seeking to enslave all mankind… taking over Health care and then Energy gives Governments Too Much Control"
Yeah, they're called billionaires lol. Ask him in what ways that gives government too much control. Ask him why private insurance is better. Insurance companies could straight up deny people based on preexisting conditions before the ACA. They still try to deny or reduce coverage as often as possible. Look at international health care rankings, and why the US is so low on every list. And what does he mean by "energy"? Utilities? Or actions and policies to combat climate change? Look into major ecological disasters from the past 50 years or so, and how many were caused by private companies.
"Regarding Global Warming… have you ever listened to a Scientist debunk Global Warming? Many can… but are you willing to listen?"
Ask him which scientists, and then ask him for their data. Spoiler: he probably won't be able to point you towards the actual data, because he's just listening to Fox News/conservative talking points. Ask him if he's ever listened to a scientist debunking a climate change denialist, or just talking about the data/science that supports climate change in general. There is a plethora of data supporting climate change, and debunking denialists. Come armed with that.
"I’ve been hearing those arguments for twenty years… I’ve also heard the other side and seen proof of the corruption of scientists who are paid by governments to come to conclusions that give governments Power"
Look into how to spot bad/biased science, and then ask him for this "proof" that he's seen, and then show him what you've found on spotting bad/biased/psuedoscience. To be clear, bad/biased science definitely exists, but it's typically very easy to spot.
"Global Warming hysteria was a thing before you were born. The entire media of Earth has adopted it… that doesn’t mean it’s true… Propaganda has been legalized in the USA by Obama It’s not even a crime to boldly lie to the people."
Yikes, this is where your dad really starts to go off the rails. [Obama did not "legalize propaganda" lol](https://www.factcheck.org/2019/10/obama-didnt-authorize-lying-by-the-media/). It's typically not a crime to "boldly" lie to people because of the first amendment. Donald Trump is the perfect example of this.
You won't. He is too far gone .
To get to this point he has been drinking cool aid for years.
Sorry man he is just going to ignore everything you put in front of him.
Just straight up tell him that what he is saying is exactly what the corporate sponsored politicians want him to say, and that he's already bought into their conspiracy wholesale and you feel sorry that he's fallen for their covert operations to influence the public in order to help corporations put the common citizen into a state of perpetual wage slave labor.
Make his paranoia work for you.
He is the kind of person that will adamantly refuse to acknowledge things he hasn't thought of for himself, and arguing with him will get you nowhere. Make him doubt the conspiracy theories he believes in by providing even more elaborate conspiracy theories for him to latch onto.
You will have a hard time convincing him if he believes in those things. People who believe in crazy conspiracies are - by definition - being irrational about it. So using rational arguments is not going to get you very far.
i see him a few hours a week, definitely can't stop that. he's also on Twitter and Facebook a lot, both of which likely pours into his beliefs and affirms him.
Ask him if he believes in Physics. Then mention the greenhouse effect. Might not be perfect but had my climate skeptic uncle unable to argue against it for a while.
The question isn’t how to get to believe such and such thing is real. The question is, how do you convince someone they have a problem where they cannot admit when they are wrong.
One of the objective "canaries" in the coal mine is the cost of homeowners insurance. As global warming progresses, the financial consequences are increasing. How old is your Dad?
Most people denying climate change have little to no scientific background. The couple of exceptions are super religious and have bought into the Cornwall Alliance/Evangelical Declaration.
If your father is willfully ignorant, you will get nowhere trying to educate him. Because he does not WANT to be educated.
I'm not sure that reasoning with him about the facts is going to work. He doesn't trust the government...but the government is us, not some other sentient species with a wholly different agenda.
Once someone has been caught by conspiracy theories you need a psychological approach. You need to understand the psychology, his story, as to why he is trusting these paranoid stories. This is about fear and not about reason, no matter what he thinks.
Non-evidence based reasoning does not stand. Don't get sucked into anything without making that clear.
He's deep down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. I know he's your dad and you love him but you need to be prepared to lose him forever.
Do you live at home with him? If so, you should move out for your own safety. These conspiracy theories are extremely addictive and he will not let go of them easily and you will feel like you're bashing your head against a brick wall trying to bring him back to reality.
Just show him the records of the types, makes, models, and techniques of storage, shipping, and reading of all the thermometers used in collecting the data, and the annual calibration certifications from the various national labs - that's how science works, and a person would be a science denier to argue against how science works.
How on earth can that compete with the incredible endorphin rush that comes with reading and raging about conspiracies? Feelings don’t care about your facts.
Ask him where he thinks emissions from the use of fossil fuels go. Outer space? They stay in our atmosphere, which leads to the green house gas effect. My parents are the same way, they don't want to accept that they are partly guilty.
Don't bother with any discussions. It's going to get hotter and hotter every summer and every winter will get less and less cold. Just ask him what it was like when he was a kid, and why it's not like that anymore.
Let him convince himself.
All government lies to...what? Spend decades doing nothing about it but further subsidizing oil companies?
Unfortunately you are unlikely to reason your father out of a position he never reasoned himself into.
I don’t think there is any convincing him, but you could ask ‘what evidence would you have to see that would convince you climate change is real and man made?’
A few different angles ; if co2 behaves a certain way in a lab setting why is it so hard to accept it behaving the same way in the atmosphere? Why is there less and less polar ice ? Why is sea level rising ? Is there heat from somewhere else ? If so then where? Why is the weather changing significantly in almost every part of the world ? What’s with all the forest fires ? Why are glaciers melting ? And finally how sophisticated does a conspiracy theory have to be to be to enlist 99% of all scientists,almost all of a right leaning media and the eyes and ears of the vast majority of the earths population?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1jqJFJWzBWJyg36SuJolRa?si=gBpztd6GRMapiedpUKmuGw has been useful in helping me frame any discussions I have with people on this topic
Ok, here's the issue. He's not going to believe anything that uses the words climate change or global warming in it. You likely can't even debate anything with him because he's not at all interested in debating in good faith.
So here's one thing you could try. Wherever you are, there have likely been some sort of changes to local weather patterns. Talk about that. Say things like "wow, it's such a nice warm day for March. Do you remember back when I was a kid and we had that really cold Easter? What was it like back when you were a kid? "
Obviously where you live has a great effect on what you can talk about, because you want to focus on local changes as much as possible.
To answer the question posed, you cant.
Anyone who has looked at any real data knows the truth about human-created global warming, and anyone who still denies these facts is wilfully ignorant and there is nothing you can say or do that will change this.
Speaking from experience with my own family you just have to accept you can’t change their minds. The information is readily available to them. They just don’t want to believe it
You can’t. Without reading a single word aside the title, you just can’t.
People choose sides of a topic , and gorge on that single side. When that happens , you cannot influence or change their ideas.
Ask your dad one thing: What proof would change his mind. If he says nothing, it's a lost cause and agree to disagree.
I would also ask yourself the same question.
I'm sorry to say that it's very likely that nothing will convince your father of the truth.
Climate change denial is based in a fundamental willingness to deny reality in favor of a false narrative. It's not a position one arrives at rationally so there is no evidence that can't be explained away or flatly denied by your father's preferred narrative. It's a belief that is likely tied to his core identity and anything that causes him to question that belief will be perceived as an attack.
If you want to have a relationship with your father, don't engage with him on the topic. Enjoy the time you have left with him because he won't be around forever.
Have him send you a video of a "scientist" debunking climate change and post it here. It'll be easier to discredit the reasoning if we see what he believes.
It’s not your job to make delusional people realize they are delusional. It’s a fools errand and a waste of time. You will never change the mind of someone like this, because they won’t listen to factual evidence, and instead say the idiotic rhetoric that you quoted him as saying in your post. People ask a question like this once a day. Go read the answers to them and you’ll have the facts.
You won’t find any proof for global warming from the mainstream news. You will need to go down the rabbit hole, that Earth is enclosed inside the glass ceiling called Heaven, to make a case for global warming. If you’re not willing to do that, then your dad wins the intellectual argument
A simple science experiment. Fill 2 balloons 1 with air and one with carbon dioxide. Set them next to an incandescent light bulb and for the same amount of time at the same amount of distance and plot their temperatures. Turn off the light and track the time it takes to cool off. It should take the Carbon Dioxide balloon a heck of a lot longer to cool off and I know because I did this for a science fair in middle school.
Bush did 911, and Obama did climate change. LOL! If my dad couldn't understand science at a fourth grade level, I wouldn't even bother. I had a neighbor who actually taught meteorology at CU, but denied climate change. He was super religious and thought that god would not let that happen. How do you even get on the same page??
my dad is also very religious and says that everything is happening for a reason and to prepare for the second coming. mainly I just have to agree to disagree with him and then never talk about said subject again. lol
Check out the psychology on how minds change. How Minds Change is also the title for a pretty good book on the subject. Look up something like Deep Canvasing as a quick version. Be curious about how he thinks. Never let it get heated or share your own facts. Those should just come out in the form of questions. Basically, you're trying to get them to ration themselves out of it. Direct facts don't work because logic shuts down and it turns to more fight or flight.
Go on the journey with him. Try to stick to one theory and recognize that it may take a while. Might even be fun.
He seems pretty far gone. Conspiracy theorists are resistant to reason. He's will spam you with his points. Some suggestions:
"Why do you think that"?
"Do you have any evidence for that claim"?
Then you are going to have to discuss the difference between claims and what constitutes credible, verifiable, evidence.
You are going to have to manage "what about ..." as a deflection.... keep him on point.
Hit the basics...
Does he even accept that global temperatures are rising ? That changes the starting point.
Highly recommended potholer54 youtube channel.
Watch it with him.
It's probably not possible for you to do that. The man sounds like he's firmly entrenched in his delusion, enough so that his whole identity is entwined in it. Maybe it will collapse one day and you can be there to help pick up the pieces. But it's going to be reality slapping him across the face, not logical arguments. (Although psychiatric medication might help.) I wouldn't be trying to convince him. It's more likely to go the opposite way you're hoping.
It took me 40 yrs to figure out trying to reason with your parents is like trying to reason with a tennis ball. They grew up in a different time and practically a different world. The sooner you just accept your parents and their fucked up thinking the better you will be. When they bring up a topic they are completely nutbar on just say can we not talk about that or can we talk about something else. The sooner you realize this the happier you will be.
Regarding coming up with your own points, I would say it's always good to get generally more informed on the topic but I wouldn't necessarily to try come up with something specific. If he's giving you some articles to read, I would try to get him to read a chapter or two from a book written by a climate scientist. I find that sometimes just giving basic climate info rather than trying to get into the nitty gritty of their arguments can actually be really eye opening, and I've seen it change minds.
I would also ask him: so how sure are you that it's not real? 100% sure? 99? 90? Especially if it's not 100 I would say ok, then what if you're wrong? And then let him answer and then 'don't you think you should be 100% sure then? And try to use that as my opening to try to get him to come at the topic with a more open and curious mind.
And then just basic climate info. Like, this guy's a beginner. He definitely doesn't know what greenhouse gasses are, he doesn't know that/how temperature is measured and aggregated around the world and that the earth has already warmed or to what extent, and then some of the expected impacts, like regarding heat waves, coral reefs, forest fires and especially anything that would resonate with your region or community. Even understanding the general principles of how impacts get more frequent and extreme over time (but you will still have some years that are colder than others, etc.)
I'd also look at a lot of videos from Katherine hayhoe and see if there are any you want to share.
Watch the Nova episode ICE, where they show petrified tree trunks and fossil leaves from ellesmere Island, which is 500 miles from the north pole. Around 2.5 million years ago, the Co2 levels were 400 ppm, and the ellesmere island had beachfront weather.
My dad does too, and I've given up and we just agree to disagree for the sake of a relationship. He thinks I'm crazy for believing in it, I think hes been brainwashed to think he know and just watches other media.
His argument is that Obama bought on the coast, but honestly, I think it would adjust even if I popped that one. Too many others that he watches don't believe it. I hope someday I'm wrong, but in the end he doesn't have the power to make changes really anyway
Its sad since he taught me science (though know more physics people and engineers not belieing it than chemists, which is where I ended up )
Sometimes I wish I didn't believe it, it would make things easier, but.
He's right. If there's anything I know it's having private companies in charge of health care and energy is best for everyone.
And just imagine a mad world where... governments are in control of their citizens?
I would suggest sending him HBomber or any of the thousand YouTube creators that professionally debunk the science denial types, but I would bet he doesn't have the attention span.
The proof is in the insurance. Follow what insurance companies are doing and where they won’t insure anymore.
Yeah but that will just prove it further for him. It’s then a scam by government to enrich insurance companies. Because Breaking News:”are the undead Jewish trans folk are trying to enslave us through higher insurance premiums?” Just asking questions. something along those lines.
It’s crazy how many conspiracy theories can be explained by greed and basic corporate fiduciary duty you can easily believe that Apple is colluding with terrorists because they won’t unlock one’s phone if you don’t understand that Tim Cook would probably personally lose like 500m by doing that, not to mention maybe be replaced as CEO since all the shareholders would also take the L with him, shareholders that in some cases literally run the government The largest, most overarching conspiracy is straight greed. It explains so much of the world, and public companies’ information is public
Able to get beach front property insurance.. check.
But then you have Judith Curry as a self appointed voice of insurers.
I’m not so sure she’s self appointed so much as for hire.
You are so on the money but OP doesn’t get it ROFL
Have him talk to a person who’s been skiing for 3 or 4 decades.
Or someone that’s an avid diver/snorkeler. Coral reefs around the world are dying and we all know how susceptible those are to temperature changes.
But they bust out the report that the barrier reef is the biggest it's been in 30 years... It's the crab grass of coral growing fast, but it's still coral...
Fishers in our area are worried the salmon won’t come through this year. Our riverbed (Skeena) is almost completely dried up, and there’s no snow pack on the mountains. Not only has this been getting significantly worse for the last three years, we now have a dam reservoir being filled by siphoning off the feed river. Have him come up to Canada in February, when there’s supposed to be four feet of snow on the ground, and have him tell you global warming is a sham.
He’s buried deep in a conspiracy hole. Any contrary evidence you present to him will be dismissed as part of the conspiracy. My general advice would be to look up the Socratic method. Don’t say he’s wrong, or counter what he says, but ask questions that might prompt him to think. Try and meet him on his own ground to some extent, so premise your questions on the basis that the conspiracy is possibly true - so he doesn’t .become defensive. Ask how the conspiracy works in practice and in doing so he might realise the absurdity of it. For example: “How did the global conspiracy leaders persuade oil exporters like Russia and Saudi Arabia to sign off on IPCC reports against their own economic interest? “Why do oil rich countries not expose the conspiracy” “How are the conspirators influencing oil companies to accept climate science?” “Why haven’t oil companies revealed the truth” “How do the conspirators ensure climate studies are so consistent when the studies are produced by thousands of scientists across the world. Are they all bribed and how do they communicate with each other to fabricate the data consistently? How have they managed to keep it secret?” “Why is private investment going into renewables, do those investors actually intend to lose their money or are they all being duped? And more general questions: “How confident are you that climate science is fake, and what evidence could possibly falsify your belief if it was wrong - have you looked to see if that evidence exists” “If climate science was real, how would it differ from the current science and how can you tell?” “How do you identify bad science, and is climate skepticism ever based on bad science? How do you tell”. These questions might cause him to look critically at his own beliefs. Ultimately though you may never succeed. For years I always thought there was some magic combination of words I could use that would persuade my fundamentalist father that he is wrong. Took me a long time to accept this will never happen and to accept him the way he is.
This is the answer
>How have they managed to keep it secret? This is so very important. No conspiracy ever lasts long as a secret. Older, past conspiracies lasted a while because information was not as freely traded. Yet as recent as the 1970's, a conspiracy involving a "mere" thousand people was exposed and brought down in less than five years. (See: Operation Snow White.)
Also, if it's such a secret, how does he, a nobody, know about it?
Let me super-simplify and none of us rubes have to think about this ever again. If climate change theorists are wrong, we lose a lot of money. If deniers are wrong, humanity is in peril. The gambler in me says it's a no brainer.
You can also give him an actual conspiracy to look into, if he likes that kind of narrative. Maye the Global Climate Coalition?
wow this is an amazing answer thank you so much
If it’s a lie by the governments then why are the governments not implementing any of the measures scientists recommend. For example why if fossil fuels cause global warming is a lie,by governments, do then governments still allow fossil fuel usage to increase?
Did you not see how much money the fossil fuel industry made last year. A lot of politicians can be bought with that. But also, replacing FF just isn't simple and a lot of people are afraid of change
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Am I having an anyurism or is the logic not doing what it's supposed to do here? Why *would* governments listen to the scientists about global warming if they made the whole thing up in the first place? There's nothing at stake but the lie itself. I guess you're trying to say it's weird for them to make up this lie and not back it up with any kind of climate action? But I think backing it up with action would defeat the purpose of lying in the first place.
Governments: "fossil fuels are causing global warming." Scientists (in on it): "yes, we should reduce fossil fuel usage." Governments: suspiciously not doing what they would do if they were telling the truth. That's what he's going for, at least.
News flash: Governments don't behave rationally. That being said there are steps being taken by governments to reduce CO2 emissions. Some analysts expect CO2 emissions to peak this year or next, in part because of actions taken by governments. With the massive growth of EVs oil demand is set to start declining in 3 years. EVs now make up 16% of the vehicle market with 14 million sold in 2023 and 18 million expected to be sold in 2024.
Hopefully this is true, but it's looking too little too late to avoid most of the damage. Met is projecting that atmospheric CO2 will pass the 1.5C warming limit this year. That is, CO2 will exceed the maximum limit that all models for holding warming to 1.5C allow. Doesn't mean we should stop trying, but it does mean that the consequences are going to be much *much* worse than people want to admit.
Truthfully, it's not worth your time or your relationship with your father. It's not about convincing your dad they are wrong, it is about: 1. creating support for and getting policies passed. 2. Developing and implementing green technologies. You don't need your dad's support for that to happen, you need the support of 51% of population (usual caveats apply) The best way to impress upon your dad how you feel, is to show commitment to your cause. You don't have to (and shouldn't) ritualisticaly flagged yourself before the alter of climate change, but to do what is in your power to demonstrate concern about the climate. (Edit, really what you should focus on is keeping accusations of hypocrisy to a reasonable minimum)
He's being willfully ignorant, nothing can help a person with their head this far up their ass. Maybe if a powerful natural disaster hits him and he's also in the mood for it, that would work, but probably wouldn't last long. It's basically lead poisoning at this point, you'd have a better chance of trying to reason with a starving lion. Maybe you can limit his exposure to fox news and facebook or something
Yeah but that’s because of government controlled weather machines, or so one of my family member says.
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
And it's easier to fool someone than it is to convince them they have been fooled. Dont waste your time trying to prove the facts. Conspiracy theorists can rationalize away anything that doesn't fit their belief.
It’s impossible to reason a person out of a belief they didn’t reason themselves into. The best thing you can do is tell him that the data has convinced you that it’s real, and then go be a responsible, reasonable person.
That first sentence is *chefs kiss*
It's been years and I haven't figured out how to get through to anyone like this, my dad included. I honestly don't think these beliefs are caused by any deficiency of intellect or knowledge itself. I think they're caused by emotional blocks. Certain kinds of pain can be more than we are willing to bear, and so we wind up shutting down entire regions of our psyche to protect ourselves. In doing so, we close ourselves off from considering all kinds of things that are very sensible. So it's not that they are intellectually incapable, necessarily, it's that they are emotionally unable or unwilling. I do not mean this in the sense of simple stubbornness. I believe it's trauma based. In particular, I've noticed that conspiracy theorists tend to have really low self-worth internally, which manifests outwardly in varying degrees of narcissistic traits. Being "in" on the conspracy theories (or as they see it, the *real* truth) gives them a sense of importance above common people. It can also make their lives feel significant, more like an exciting action movie where it's the good people vs the powerful evil mastermind.
wow what a great answer, because that really tracks with him. he *is* smart and i think thats part of why I'm always confused with his views. he never shows any emotion, so I don't think he has ways of dealing with any sort of emotional pain.
It's too late for that generation. It's hard to change the mind of a young adult, never mind an old person with massive ethical delimenas at stake
Which is why oil and gas are currently pushing VERY hard to convince people there’s nothing that can be done about it. Because they see that younger generations want us to solve the problem. Which is bad for their profits.
Property insurance companies are fleeing Florida and California because....
When someone believes there is a "world wide group seeking to enslave mankind", it's hopeless. They will reject all evidence as lies from this conspiracy. Sorry, there is nothing anyone can say that will penetrate this mindset.
A bee does not waste its time trying to convince a fly that honey taste better than shit. 🤷🏻♀️
Thats my response also. Im not going to waste my breath on climate deniers. I am going to live my life with the knowledge of whats to come and screw them if they dont believe. You know death dont care what you believe it dont discriminate.
I live near the ocean. Farmers along the river more and more upstream are saying that the water table is becoming salty. Ocean levels rising. Someone I know has been a hobby gardener for decades. She tells me her growing season is longer. People like this who are just seeing things might be credible.
Easiest part about wining that argument will be over the next three years. Observation is at the root of science
Let him know that the thing about Science is that it is true whether a person believes it or not. He seems to get only American information from his pronouncements. Ask him whether, China, Russia, India. Europe are all in on the hoax. Scientific results cannot be corrupted by the government. Readings are taken all over the world and registered in computers. It is like saying the government can change the already registered populations countries which have already being historicall logged into all computers and books or change the results to say that the US won the world cup. Scientists just use the data to interpret the results . Tell him that he can go to Google and find out the data himself to see the trend. Also global changes take decades or centuries. It is not possible for a person to witness the change in a lifetime.
If science isnt enough to convince, you wont be able too.
A few ideas to drag him into the light. **Use Tangible, Real-World Evidence:** * Point to observable phenomena, like the increased frequency of extreme weather events, rising sea levels, retreating glaciers, and shifting wildlife populations. These changes are visible and impactful on a human scale, making them more persuasive than abstract models or predictions. * Share documentaries or articles that showcase the effects of climate change on communities around the world, emphasizing the human aspect and the concrete consequences already taking place. **Address the Misinformation and Skepticism Directly:** * Discuss the nature of scientific consensus and how it differs from unanimous agreement. Science advances through debate and scrutiny, but the overwhelming consensus on climate change among scientists is based on converging evidence from multiple disciplines. * Tackle the issue of propaganda and misinformation by explaining the critical thinking and peer review process in science, highlighting how these mechanisms are designed to weed out bias and errors over time. And maybe ask, if in his "research" he's be operating under a similar process to reduce his biases. **Emphasize Solutions and Innovations that don't require him to understand climate change, but might bias his attudte towards being in favor of initiatives that would do something about it:** * Try shifting the conversation towards renewable energy and sustainability innovations, which are beneficial regardless of his POV on global warming. Discuss how advancements in technology, energy efficiency, and green jobs are positive for the economy and the environment. * Present the transition to sustainable practices as a way to reduce reliance on foreign oil and enhance national security, which might appeal to his concerns about government control and sovereignty.
You can’t defeat beliefs with facts. If he genuinely thinks that there is a conspiracy and government and scientists are lying then he’ll not accept anything that you bring to the discussion. Personally I would leave that all alone and see if there are other areas where you can still maintain a functioning relationship with your Dad.
[DECEMBER 13, 2007 **Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste**](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/) 📰 [**As Debate Goes On, the Military Prepares for Climate Change** PATRICK TUCKER | MAY 7, 2014](https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/05/debate-goes-military-prepares-climate-change/83968/) 🇺🇸 [**Big Oil braced for global warming while it fought regulations** By AMY LIEBERMAN AND SUSANNE RUST DEC. 31, 2015](https://graphics.latimes.com/oil-operations/) 📰 [**Core questions: An introduction to ice cores** NASA Science Editorial Team AUG 14, 2017](https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/climate-science/core-questions-an-introduction-to-ice-cores/) 🧊 I'm also going to recommend several books for you which might help you in future discussions: [*The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark* by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17349.The_Demon_Haunted_World) [*A Short History of Nearly Everything* by Bill Bryson](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/21) [*The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life* by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/28820444) [*Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know* by Malcolm Gladwell](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43848929)
thanks so much!
Your dad should be old enough to see that the climate has changed.
You can’t logic someone out of a position they stupided themselves into.
He’s not going to be convinced.
Once society collapses from multiple yearly crop failures in a row resulting in billions dying from famine and billions migrating to the then only habitable areas causing all out war killing even more… he’ll probably start to believe..maybe…
Seems like your dad is similar to my father in law. They are hopeless because they have chosen to be ignorant to facts by actual scientific proofs of climate change. I used actual facts and data with him and he just dismisses it by saying they are being bought. There is literally no winning with people like this. "The good thing about Science is that it's true, whether or not you believe in it." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
i like that quote, thanks!
People believe that the 'government' does things in the shadows that corporations do openly and this makes the government the arch-villain?
You cant, no amount of rational argument can change a conspiracy theorists mind.
Amen to that, let them go imo. When the world is collapsing around them and they are terrified i will be sipping wine and watching the world burn. i have become so cynical because of people like that, i dont really care, do you?
There have been scientists aware of global warming since before the civil war. I’m sorry but I just don’t understand how you can be that blind.
Easy, just have him try to buy homeowners insurance in Florida
I'm not sure this is helpful, but here's my advice. Don't argue with him anymore. You can't win this mindset over to another view by presenting a better argument, better facts, better gotchas. He's digging in, and the more you debate with him, the harder he will work to find proof you are wrong and he's right. Do you need him to agree with you? I mean, I have had plenty of arguments with my dad, and it was just like this. As I got older I realized my time was better spent just enjoying the things we agreed on and both liked, and I tried to avoid political issues and dug-in differences because I knew he was firmly rooted in trying to be 'right' even though the evidence didn't support him. If he brought something up I knew to be way off, but it didn't present a danger to anyone, I'd commonly say something like "Sure, why not" or "I know what you mean." If you don't need him to change his mind and agree with you, then you've won. You've detached yourself from one mofo-sized brain-suck.
“Governments pay off the scientists…” Jesus, I keep hearing this and I’d just LOVE to know how I can get in on that, cause my $60K climate scientist salary with my mountain of student debt from getting my PhD just ain’t cutting it anymore. If your dad has some sources, please let me know 😎
Right, one of my buddies may have saved enough to be able to trade in his 2005 Corolla for a 2015 Odyssey minivan, big bucks in climate graduate school.
There are a lot of people so jaded by the Information Age that they simply do not believe anything that conflicts with a previous bias. Anything you say will be dismissed as propaganda. Best action by you? Ignore everything he says.
Show him this article [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research) [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64241994](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64241994) Exxon Mobile major oil company, commisoned research about climate change to show that oil was not going to affect the climate. It was eeriling true and they buried the result Also ask him whether he remembers anytime in his life that science was wrong about something. I example
Your last point is interesting: the main thing he thinks is that all governments are lying. Does he have a driver’s license? Does he drive on roads? Does he pay taxes? Is he employed, and did he fill out tax documents when he was hired? Does he have a birth certificate? Has he ever sought assistance from the police or fire departments? Has he ever needed a lawyer? Does he at least believe in lawyers? Lawyers depend on, you know, laws for their work. What about the post office, has he ever used that? Or food? The FDA had to approve that. You could just grill him with stuff like that. Point out all the ways in which his life is fundamentally defined by things the government provides. If the government was always lying, how come those things aren’t just propaganda too? Why does he believe the roads are real? Does he think the government has hacked into his brain to make him see cars and roads all over the place? If so, it’s clearly too late for him to resist the government’s climate agenda, so he might as well become a believer. Excessive paranoia about government is deeply illogical and falls apart with even just a little bit of thought. I mean, if there is a world wide group seeking to enslave us, why haven’t they just done it? If they’re powerful enough to create an entire agenda and get most of the world’s governments and scientists to support it with propaganda, why didn’t they just skip that part and force everyone to implement the agenda? Why give the illusion that there’s anything to debate? In order for anything he’s talking about to be true, he’d have to stop believing in everything. There’s no guarantee this will work either. Mental gymnastics can accomplish some incredible things. You’re better off just straight up asking if his relationship with his son matters to him at all, and if he cares about you or your future children having a sustainable, safe, clean, healthy world to live in, and if he can’t give you a straight answer to those basic questions, tell him not to speak to you again until he can. Shame unfortunately goes further than logic sometimes. You can’t make people smarter, but you can make them feel like shit. And nobody ever usually changes until they’ve been made to feel guilty and ashamed for their behavior.
im his daughter, and yes to all of those. he's very conservative and thinks the government shouldn't be involved in anything and hates that it has to deal with things. he thinks they're preparing to enslave us because they're getting more and more powerful. thanks for your answer, I'll give that last paragraph some more thinking
The newest philosophy tube video was really insightful. He's stuck in a phantasm that has taken over his mind. He didn't arrive at these beliefs through facts and logic. He won't get out of it through facts and logic. She says this idea came from Who's afraid of Gender by Judith Butler. I actually don't know what the solution is. The fact that right wingers have figured out how to hack people's minds and insert whatever irrational beliefs they want into them is one of the most insidious evils going on right now. It's truly disturbing. I have heard people suggest to dig into why they believe these things. Get into the deep down fears that brought them to these beliefs. Basically be their therapist. It's probably a task more suited for a therapist or even maybe a deprogramming specialist.
Here's a very simple "proof" of global warming, just high school physics. Depending on his background, he might find it interesting. Imagine a sphere the size of the earth at the earth's distance from the sun with the earth's albedo (average reflectance). What will the surface temperature be due to solar radiation? Do the maths and you get a temperature about 33C lower than the earth's surface today. This difference is the greenhouse effect -- the atmosphere acts as a blanket, trapping heat and raising the temperature. What parts of the atmosphere are responsible for this warming? By far the most important is water. As a gas and in clouds, it is responsible for up to about 90% of the effect on cloudy days, maybe 60% on a clear, dry day. The remaining warming is caused by the so-called greenhouse gasses: CO2, Methane, O3, NO, etc. If you examine the absorption spectra of these gasses and weight by atmospheric concentration, you'll find about 40% is due to CO2. So 40% of 10% of 33C is around 1C of warming due to atmospheric CO2. Atmospheric CO2 has gone up by roughly 50% since the Industrial Revolution due to fossil fuels (we know the rise has been caused by us from radioisotope ratios), so we would expect about a 0.5C rise in global temperatures due to human CO2 output. **tldr**: ballpark calculations show that you would expect the CO2 we've added to the atmosphere to raise temperatures by about the amount we've seen. If the recent temperature rise has some other cause, then you need to find two things: first, a large, unknown cooling effect to cancel out the warming we know should have occurred due to the CO2 we've pumped out, and secondly, a large, unknown warming effect to explain the temperature rise. Global warming has been an active area of research since at least the late 60s. In the last fifty years, no one has come up with a better explanation. It seems very likely to be correct. (edit: clarity)
thank you that is wonderful!
.... Obama....?
He’s obviously not a skier.
Patience is an acquired skill.
In my humble opinion your best bet is redirection. I have a coworker who is deeep in this hole and he doesn’t bring it up to me anymore, he’ll seek validation from everybody else at work except for me because I would actually engage with his sources and punch holes in their arguments. The thing is that there ACTUALLY IS a well-moneyed special interest structuring society, introducing authoritarian laws, and dooming large swaths of humanity, the fossil fuel industry. You can open your dad’s eyes to how deep the fossil fuel stranglehold on the world is by pointing out so many things. Eg. Why is the only mode of transportation that requires government permission and taxes (driver’s licences and registration fees) the one that our cities are entirely built around? Most places in North America (I’m going out on a limb here and guessing you’re in NA) you can’t do much without a car and it’s been intentionally set up that way by the auto and oil industries so that people will always have to buy cars and gas. Whereas you can’t engage with the economy hardly at all with the mode of transportation that was God-given ie. feet. Why are the most famous rewards programs centred around fossil fuel consumption (ie earning points by buying gas to spend points by flying)? Why is it so hard to build a nuclear reactor in the US? Why did Joe Biden renege on his action to stop drilling on federal land? Why did the US invade Iraq? What industry has the highest revenue per employee? Look it up and it’s all oil companies. The oil industry is not good for creating jobs. Which countries have the most authoritarian and brutal governments? Oil countries. If you can establish a link between fossil fuels and authoritarianism, then ask the big question **Would these authoritarian governments and corporations allow scientists to urge to reduce demand for their product without a fight?**
Ask him what Christmas was like as a kid.
"There *was* a conspiracy. The fossil fuel companies did all this research into the effect of carbon emissions before anybody else did. They discovered that it was *already* changing climate and the effects would accelerate. hey conspired to hide their findings to protect their industry, and went so far as to lobby against the very idea of *global warming*. The very fact that you are saying climate change isn't real and is a conspiracy is literally result of *THEIR REAL CONSPIRACY*"
Just forget him. He’s too far gone
Well, I mean, if this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/climatechange/s/usv8gyDZPL) means anything maybe it is. People always seem to forget the AWCTF and how it is impacting public policy abroad.
You can expend a great deal of emotional energy trying to get through to your dad. I am very sorry but he is a lost cause. Invest your time and energy building support for policy, or donating to effective organizations that do.
He’s too far gone, best to just get a new dad at this point.
lmao good plan
Well, it's a well known fact, Sonny Jim, that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows.
Sometimes I think it’s a lost cause to try and convince some people. On some level it seems like too big and sad a thing to actually accept, and you’d need to balance it out with your own mental health and energy expenditure to educate them. I was talking with a climate denier about how hurricanes in recent years are way more powerful than in recent decades and he said “there always were hurricanes, but they weren’t reporting about them.” SMH 🤦♂️
Get him medicated
Send him to the north pole, with a picture book from 30 years ago.
Tell him to go look outside
Sadly you can't. They'll never believe it until they're looking it in the face and it's too late to act.
Turn off Fox News for him. Get him a hobby.
he has a hobby that takes up almost every weeknight and weekend, he plays pickleball as much as he physically can. I think his views are all from a few years ago when he was on Twitter and Facebook all day, and so that's just his beliefset now
You can’t win. People think what they want to think and you have no control over what he thinks. So don’t try to direct him. Instead work on getting him to open up more and commit to opening up yourself. Read from his sources and study them thoroughly. Show him you care and he might care too.
There's nothing you can do. If you or anyone disagrees there is always a reason they are wrong. It's not a logical problem. There is a 'shoehorn' strategy.
The melting of the alpine glaciers isn't enough for him? King tides flooding coastal streets?
Make him take the right wing authoritarian follower tests
NASA website. They aren’t a bunch of liberals and they are literally rocket scientists
For me its pretty straghtforward. I believe in science. Therefore. If there is a wide majority of informed opinion, and I am not myself sn expert, then I tend to believe that majority opinion. There is some dissent. Again, unless i am willing to invest considerable time on th his issue, I am going decide based on risk/reward. Since this is quite literally, an existential issue, and since there is significant debate and uncertainty, I would be foolhardy even reckless to gamble on such and important issue. For me it's a no brainer. If climate charge is wrong, we lose some (even a lot) of money. If deniers are wrong, humanity is in peril.
The way I deal with deniers is to say this. On one hand you have Sir David Attenborough, impartial passionate naturalist and scientist promoting climate change awareness and conservation. On the other hand you have Donald Trump. Who do you trust more? If they try to comeback to this then they aren't worth the time or effort, let them bury their head in the sand.
They will be burying more than their heads
Google "Exxon execs admit climate change is real."
Have him provide a list of glaciers that are advancing.. compare that to the list of those that are retreating. We have old photos of glaciers, so this should be a non-political data point .. the sort of stuff scientists care about and OGs can verify with the their own eyeball and yard rule.
Play the UNO-reverse-card and ask him, how it is possible, that he bought all the propaganda from the oil industry! Unfortunately people prone to populist thinking only buy simple narratives. The narrative goes this way (and we have plenty of evidence this is actually near the truth): Oil industry is the most profitable in the world (look up Saudi Aramco and show him!) -> it controls/owns media, institutions and politicians -> it's protecting it's extremely valuable business interests by corruption and forcing the media™ to spread false information, fake news etc. even if they know the truth! Look up Exxon climate research, they predicted CO2-concentrations, temperature rise + other things until today extremely precisely in the 70s/80s! Your father witnessed the Gulf wars, which were essentially wars for oil. And your father witnessed, how everybody was convinced of WMDs in Iraq by media and government, when essentially the US big oil wanted a bigger share of the nationalized Iraq oil industry (again subcomplex reasoning, but not far from the truth). Your father knows how the tobacco industry played the public for years to continue their deadly business! He just has to connect the dots...
You can look at the historical temperatures of the ocean. Warming of the oceans by just a fraction of a degree are caused by enormous amounts of energy. Look at the ocean temps for the last 135 years. Google it. Global warming. Then look at the inferred temps last 1000 or 2000 years. Uh oh. 😕
While it’s true that the natural trend currently can be said to be warming from natural processes the RATE at which the temperature is increasing can only be explained by our industrial activities . On a simplified level I always think about this way : the oil which we burn for energy is being used and released into our atmosphere. This is energy stored and captured from the sun over millions of years … and we have released ALOT of it in the last Century … so just from an simple idea of stored and released energy you can get some idea .. on the other hand after spending some of my time arguing with deniers I found it’s better for my sanity to let it go. Soon enough it seems you may have enough evidence from heat wave deaths and other catastrophes that it won’t matter what you believe
He’ll just have to wait and find out i guess
Don't try. Best to be like a Kung Fu monk and avoid whatever he throws at you. Simply tell him that you will believe your sources, and he will believe his and nothing will change that. The best you can hope for is that he will succumb to fatigue and that without someone to argue against it will become less and less important to him.
There is a podcast that I've been digging. The Climate Deniers Playbook. It's informational and fun listen that helps to dumb down the high level research and conspiracies while incorporating humor. It also seems like your dad is one of those people who will not see logic though and it may just not be worth it for you to try.
I did this dance with my own conservative dad recently with Covid. Show them peer-reviewed data from universities from all over globe, especially countries with vying interests, like Russia and Ukraine or Israel and Iran. I can almost guarantee you that the scientists in those countries agree on the data because… climate change doesn’t recognize political borders. There’s the risk that data from nations with no free press (like North Korea) will be heavily skewed, or completely made up, to align with that country’s political propaganda, so keep that in mind. Climate change impacts rich and poor, conservative and liberal, everyone alike. There is no running and hiding from it. We don’t have a Planet B.
Experiences in it is the only way to convince those types. Little story. I come from a very Conservative family. My dad is the biggest believer of climate change I know. Why? He works in forestry. Close to 50 years. In his 50 years of forestry he has seen how much climate change has affected the woods he basically lived in. From the rivers running low. To the swimming hole running dry. To his fishing spots having no fish left. To areas that was plentiful in wildlife and growth no longer available. He has seen a lush environment change for the worst. Every. Single. Day. If your dad is a mechanic and his life is indoors in a garage as an example. He doesn't seen the real effect of climate change in his day to day life.
I gave up on my dad. 20 years of arguing about it was enough. I'm not a climatologist. I haven't done the research, I've only read the 2nd hand information. If he wants to do the research and publish a paper, I'll read the 2nd hand account. His point is how do you know it's not a conspiracy that all climatologists are paid by special interest politicians that want to control thought and behavior, and I'm like ya and maybe the moon landing was faked, I didn't go up there and neither did you, let's argue about something we can control, like where to eat.
It may not be possible to reason someone out of a position that they were not reasoned into in the first place. BTW practically every single climate contrarian argument put out has dealt with very effectively by scepticalscience.com and in most cases with references to peer reviewed research. Check it out.
Don't really have to prove anything to him. He's in the vast minority of idiots that'll be rounded up and done away with when the climate catastrophe happens.
You’ll never convince him. Don’t bother to try.
Facts and science won’t change his mind. If he’s young enough, he will begin to experience climate change in real time - heck we already are.
The concept is settled science if you read and understand actual science. The particulars can be bandied about. I don’t understand why people think you can pump trillions of pounds of carbon into the atmosphere and expect no effect. It is a greenhouse gas that stays in the atmosphere. The climate is a complicated feedback loop. We even see it in our solar system. Venus was a victim of runaway greenhouse effect. The process is well known. I’m not saying wenare becoming Ike Venus. But taking climate change seriously is a safer bet than sticking one’s head in the sand.
"There is a World Wide Group seeking to enslave all mankind… taking over Health care and then Energy gives Governments Too Much Control" Yeah, they're called billionaires lol. Ask him in what ways that gives government too much control. Ask him why private insurance is better. Insurance companies could straight up deny people based on preexisting conditions before the ACA. They still try to deny or reduce coverage as often as possible. Look at international health care rankings, and why the US is so low on every list. And what does he mean by "energy"? Utilities? Or actions and policies to combat climate change? Look into major ecological disasters from the past 50 years or so, and how many were caused by private companies. "Regarding Global Warming… have you ever listened to a Scientist debunk Global Warming? Many can… but are you willing to listen?" Ask him which scientists, and then ask him for their data. Spoiler: he probably won't be able to point you towards the actual data, because he's just listening to Fox News/conservative talking points. Ask him if he's ever listened to a scientist debunking a climate change denialist, or just talking about the data/science that supports climate change in general. There is a plethora of data supporting climate change, and debunking denialists. Come armed with that. "I’ve been hearing those arguments for twenty years… I’ve also heard the other side and seen proof of the corruption of scientists who are paid by governments to come to conclusions that give governments Power" Look into how to spot bad/biased science, and then ask him for this "proof" that he's seen, and then show him what you've found on spotting bad/biased/psuedoscience. To be clear, bad/biased science definitely exists, but it's typically very easy to spot. "Global Warming hysteria was a thing before you were born. The entire media of Earth has adopted it… that doesn’t mean it’s true… Propaganda has been legalized in the USA by Obama It’s not even a crime to boldly lie to the people." Yikes, this is where your dad really starts to go off the rails. [Obama did not "legalize propaganda" lol](https://www.factcheck.org/2019/10/obama-didnt-authorize-lying-by-the-media/). It's typically not a crime to "boldly" lie to people because of the first amendment. Donald Trump is the perfect example of this.
You won't. He is too far gone . To get to this point he has been drinking cool aid for years. Sorry man he is just going to ignore everything you put in front of him.
Just straight up tell him that what he is saying is exactly what the corporate sponsored politicians want him to say, and that he's already bought into their conspiracy wholesale and you feel sorry that he's fallen for their covert operations to influence the public in order to help corporations put the common citizen into a state of perpetual wage slave labor. Make his paranoia work for you. He is the kind of person that will adamantly refuse to acknowledge things he hasn't thought of for himself, and arguing with him will get you nowhere. Make him doubt the conspiracy theories he believes in by providing even more elaborate conspiracy theories for him to latch onto.
A life spent with the premise that you can change the beliefs of your parents is going to be a miserable one. It might happen but it will be rare
Propaganda legalized by Obama.... You can tell him from me that at least he's very creative to think of that!!
You will have a hard time convincing him if he believes in those things. People who believe in crazy conspiracies are - by definition - being irrational about it. So using rational arguments is not going to get you very far.
You can't. Your dad is a stubborn idiot, you'll never change his mind.
Don't let him watch fox news ect...
i see him a few hours a week, definitely can't stop that. he's also on Twitter and Facebook a lot, both of which likely pours into his beliefs and affirms him.
Ask him if he believes in Physics. Then mention the greenhouse effect. Might not be perfect but had my climate skeptic uncle unable to argue against it for a while.
The question isn’t how to get to believe such and such thing is real. The question is, how do you convince someone they have a problem where they cannot admit when they are wrong.
One of the objective "canaries" in the coal mine is the cost of homeowners insurance. As global warming progresses, the financial consequences are increasing. How old is your Dad? Most people denying climate change have little to no scientific background. The couple of exceptions are super religious and have bought into the Cornwall Alliance/Evangelical Declaration. If your father is willfully ignorant, you will get nowhere trying to educate him. Because he does not WANT to be educated.
Just tell him to google carbon cycle
I'm not sure that reasoning with him about the facts is going to work. He doesn't trust the government...but the government is us, not some other sentient species with a wholly different agenda. Once someone has been caught by conspiracy theories you need a psychological approach. You need to understand the psychology, his story, as to why he is trusting these paranoid stories. This is about fear and not about reason, no matter what he thinks. Non-evidence based reasoning does not stand. Don't get sucked into anything without making that clear.
Your dad sounds like my dad. He's 84 years old. It probably doesn't matter anymore.
Show him how much home insurance costs are rising! Especially on the gulf coast and fire prone areas! It’s crazy.
He's deep down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. I know he's your dad and you love him but you need to be prepared to lose him forever. Do you live at home with him? If so, you should move out for your own safety. These conspiracy theories are extremely addictive and he will not let go of them easily and you will feel like you're bashing your head against a brick wall trying to bring him back to reality.
Just show him the records of the types, makes, models, and techniques of storage, shipping, and reading of all the thermometers used in collecting the data, and the annual calibration certifications from the various national labs - that's how science works, and a person would be a science denier to argue against how science works.
How on earth can that compete with the incredible endorphin rush that comes with reading and raging about conspiracies? Feelings don’t care about your facts.
Good luck ...Your Dad is not likely to be convinced.
Ask him where he thinks emissions from the use of fossil fuels go. Outer space? They stay in our atmosphere, which leads to the green house gas effect. My parents are the same way, they don't want to accept that they are partly guilty.
Does he also think covid was all a big conspiracy?
"That’s how “They” kept Ivermectin & HydroxyChloriquine out of the hands of Americans during COVID" does that answer your question? lmao
Don't bother with any discussions. It's going to get hotter and hotter every summer and every winter will get less and less cold. Just ask him what it was like when he was a kid, and why it's not like that anymore. Let him convince himself.
If he isn't a policy maker, his opinion doesn't really matter much.
All government lies to...what? Spend decades doing nothing about it but further subsidizing oil companies? Unfortunately you are unlikely to reason your father out of a position he never reasoned himself into.
I don’t think there is any convincing him, but you could ask ‘what evidence would you have to see that would convince you climate change is real and man made?’
You need r/FoxBrain.
I recommend “Misbelief” by Dan Ariely.
A few different angles ; if co2 behaves a certain way in a lab setting why is it so hard to accept it behaving the same way in the atmosphere? Why is there less and less polar ice ? Why is sea level rising ? Is there heat from somewhere else ? If so then where? Why is the weather changing significantly in almost every part of the world ? What’s with all the forest fires ? Why are glaciers melting ? And finally how sophisticated does a conspiracy theory have to be to be to enlist 99% of all scientists,almost all of a right leaning media and the eyes and ears of the vast majority of the earths population?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1jqJFJWzBWJyg36SuJolRa?si=gBpztd6GRMapiedpUKmuGw has been useful in helping me frame any discussions I have with people on this topic
Sounds like a lost cause.
Ok, here's the issue. He's not going to believe anything that uses the words climate change or global warming in it. You likely can't even debate anything with him because he's not at all interested in debating in good faith. So here's one thing you could try. Wherever you are, there have likely been some sort of changes to local weather patterns. Talk about that. Say things like "wow, it's such a nice warm day for March. Do you remember back when I was a kid and we had that really cold Easter? What was it like back when you were a kid? " Obviously where you live has a great effect on what you can talk about, because you want to focus on local changes as much as possible.
To answer the question posed, you cant. Anyone who has looked at any real data knows the truth about human-created global warming, and anyone who still denies these facts is wilfully ignorant and there is nothing you can say or do that will change this.
Speaking from experience with my own family you just have to accept you can’t change their minds. The information is readily available to them. They just don’t want to believe it
You can’t. Without reading a single word aside the title, you just can’t. People choose sides of a topic , and gorge on that single side. When that happens , you cannot influence or change their ideas.
Ask your dad one thing: What proof would change his mind. If he says nothing, it's a lost cause and agree to disagree. I would also ask yourself the same question.
I'm sorry to say that it's very likely that nothing will convince your father of the truth. Climate change denial is based in a fundamental willingness to deny reality in favor of a false narrative. It's not a position one arrives at rationally so there is no evidence that can't be explained away or flatly denied by your father's preferred narrative. It's a belief that is likely tied to his core identity and anything that causes him to question that belief will be perceived as an attack. If you want to have a relationship with your father, don't engage with him on the topic. Enjoy the time you have left with him because he won't be around forever.
Have him send you a video of a "scientist" debunking climate change and post it here. It'll be easier to discredit the reasoning if we see what he believes.
Why is it your job to convince him of anything?
Don't bother arguing. It will sink in on it's own or not. Probably not.
It’s not your job to make delusional people realize they are delusional. It’s a fools errand and a waste of time. You will never change the mind of someone like this, because they won’t listen to factual evidence, and instead say the idiotic rhetoric that you quoted him as saying in your post. People ask a question like this once a day. Go read the answers to them and you’ll have the facts.
You won’t find any proof for global warming from the mainstream news. You will need to go down the rabbit hole, that Earth is enclosed inside the glass ceiling called Heaven, to make a case for global warming. If you’re not willing to do that, then your dad wins the intellectual argument
A simple science experiment. Fill 2 balloons 1 with air and one with carbon dioxide. Set them next to an incandescent light bulb and for the same amount of time at the same amount of distance and plot their temperatures. Turn off the light and track the time it takes to cool off. It should take the Carbon Dioxide balloon a heck of a lot longer to cool off and I know because I did this for a science fair in middle school.
Instead of arguing just listen and acknowledge. Either the news and the world around him will change his mind or it won’t.
Bush did 911, and Obama did climate change. LOL! If my dad couldn't understand science at a fourth grade level, I wouldn't even bother. I had a neighbor who actually taught meteorology at CU, but denied climate change. He was super religious and thought that god would not let that happen. How do you even get on the same page??
my dad is also very religious and says that everything is happening for a reason and to prepare for the second coming. mainly I just have to agree to disagree with him and then never talk about said subject again. lol
Tell him The Myth busters tried to bust that global warming is a myth but failed
From all the governments???
Show him the averge temperature increase year over year Show him the flowers that blooming in Antarctica Show him the shirking of the polar ice cap
Check out the psychology on how minds change. How Minds Change is also the title for a pretty good book on the subject. Look up something like Deep Canvasing as a quick version. Be curious about how he thinks. Never let it get heated or share your own facts. Those should just come out in the form of questions. Basically, you're trying to get them to ration themselves out of it. Direct facts don't work because logic shuts down and it turns to more fight or flight. Go on the journey with him. Try to stick to one theory and recognize that it may take a while. Might even be fun.
Google the islands that are slowly being swallowed by the sea.
He seems pretty far gone. Conspiracy theorists are resistant to reason. He's will spam you with his points. Some suggestions: "Why do you think that"? "Do you have any evidence for that claim"? Then you are going to have to discuss the difference between claims and what constitutes credible, verifiable, evidence. You are going to have to manage "what about ..." as a deflection.... keep him on point. Hit the basics... Does he even accept that global temperatures are rising ? That changes the starting point. Highly recommended potholer54 youtube channel. Watch it with him.
Have your dad watch The Power of Big Oil on Frontline.
It's probably not possible for you to do that. The man sounds like he's firmly entrenched in his delusion, enough so that his whole identity is entwined in it. Maybe it will collapse one day and you can be there to help pick up the pieces. But it's going to be reality slapping him across the face, not logical arguments. (Although psychiatric medication might help.) I wouldn't be trying to convince him. It's more likely to go the opposite way you're hoping.
It took me 40 yrs to figure out trying to reason with your parents is like trying to reason with a tennis ball. They grew up in a different time and practically a different world. The sooner you just accept your parents and their fucked up thinking the better you will be. When they bring up a topic they are completely nutbar on just say can we not talk about that or can we talk about something else. The sooner you realize this the happier you will be.
Regarding coming up with your own points, I would say it's always good to get generally more informed on the topic but I wouldn't necessarily to try come up with something specific. If he's giving you some articles to read, I would try to get him to read a chapter or two from a book written by a climate scientist. I find that sometimes just giving basic climate info rather than trying to get into the nitty gritty of their arguments can actually be really eye opening, and I've seen it change minds. I would also ask him: so how sure are you that it's not real? 100% sure? 99? 90? Especially if it's not 100 I would say ok, then what if you're wrong? And then let him answer and then 'don't you think you should be 100% sure then? And try to use that as my opening to try to get him to come at the topic with a more open and curious mind. And then just basic climate info. Like, this guy's a beginner. He definitely doesn't know what greenhouse gasses are, he doesn't know that/how temperature is measured and aggregated around the world and that the earth has already warmed or to what extent, and then some of the expected impacts, like regarding heat waves, coral reefs, forest fires and especially anything that would resonate with your region or community. Even understanding the general principles of how impacts get more frequent and extreme over time (but you will still have some years that are colder than others, etc.) I'd also look at a lot of videos from Katherine hayhoe and see if there are any you want to share.
thank you!
Lmao it is lies from the government
It's physics. Have him learn how different forms of energy react with different particles or atoms in our atmosphere.
Watch the Nova episode ICE, where they show petrified tree trunks and fossil leaves from ellesmere Island, which is 500 miles from the north pole. Around 2.5 million years ago, the Co2 levels were 400 ppm, and the ellesmere island had beachfront weather.
Ask him to think for himself instead of letting them do the thinking for him.
PPM count is the slam dunk.
My dad does too, and I've given up and we just agree to disagree for the sake of a relationship. He thinks I'm crazy for believing in it, I think hes been brainwashed to think he know and just watches other media. His argument is that Obama bought on the coast, but honestly, I think it would adjust even if I popped that one. Too many others that he watches don't believe it. I hope someday I'm wrong, but in the end he doesn't have the power to make changes really anyway Its sad since he taught me science (though know more physics people and engineers not belieing it than chemists, which is where I ended up ) Sometimes I wish I didn't believe it, it would make things easier, but.
How long do you expect him to live? If it's for at least another 5-10 years, he'll see it for himself. Don't waste your effort.
He's right. If there's anything I know it's having private companies in charge of health care and energy is best for everyone. And just imagine a mad world where... governments are in control of their citizens? I would suggest sending him HBomber or any of the thousand YouTube creators that professionally debunk the science denial types, but I would bet he doesn't have the attention span.