The Soviet Union perfected the art of pathologizing its dissidents. Since the USSR was a "Worker's Paradise" it was rather obvious that anyone who objected to the arrangement must be psychologically impaired. Dissidents were routinely sent to Psychiatric hospitals and injected with all manner of powerful Psychiatric medications in an effort to correct their Psychiatric disorders. Once the basic premise was accepted, the misuse of Psychiatry was inevitable. It appears that the American Psychological Association is following in the glorious footsteps of Soviet Psychiatry: [HT: Jonah Goldberg]
Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges A Report by the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change I hadn't realized that there was an intimate interface between Psychology and Global Climate Change, but once the premise is accepted, the abuses to follow become inevitable. According to the APA report (which relies on the IPCC report that has been debunked as junk science by a fair number of eminent Climate Researchers), the Global Climate is changing and human activity is the primary driver of climate change. I will not again review how badly the science has been politicized and how baldly the data has been manipulated in order to force predetermined conclusions; I would merely point out that so far none of the computer models have been able to predict the past, let alone the future; that even the proponents of measures to address climate change, such as cap and trade, admit that the best they can hope for is to mitigate temperature rise by less than one degree Fahrenheit by 2100; and that there is little evidence that human activity is a more powerful driver of climate than solar output. [Wolf's post summarizes some of the ways in which the data has been distorted and notes that global warming, excuse me climate change, research has been conducted contrary to the spirit and methodology of science: This really is a travesty. But what I find most breathtaking is people calling themselves "scientists" while refusing to release their methodology and, now, complicit in hiding even the raw data. Such people should be stripped of their tenure and accreditation. Perhaps then some of the problems of politicized science that are now so bedeviling us would disappear.] The Psychologists of the APA, who insist that they are scientists, accept the premise and construct a 230 page report detailing ways in which the people are failing in their understanding of the risks of "Climate Change", the necessity of the dissenters learning to accept the wisdom of those who know better than they do, and ways in which the public can be induced to accept the necessity of stringent measures to fight the menace.
(pp 20)This report considers psychology’s contribution to understanding and responding to climate change by focusing on psychological dimensions of climate change. We do this by reviewing what psychological research can tell us about perceptions and conceptions of global climate change, human activities that drive climate change, the psycho-social impacts of climate change, barriers to responding to climate change, and human responses to climate change via adaptation and mitigation. After a review of the literature, we recommend ways that the APA can: 1) Encourage psychologists to become involved in understanding human and psychological dimensions of global climate change; 2) Create effective outreach programs that assist the public in understanding of climate change, mitigating its human causes, and adapting to climate change impacts, and facilitate international, cross-disciplinary, trans-disciplinary collaborations that address a climate change; and 3) Address the organization’s environmental impacts that contribute to global climate change. [Emphasis mine-SW] The report reads like a pseudo-scientific discussion. It imagines climate change to be a closed, ie complete, science, rather than a series of hypotheses for which evidence remains in short supply. The report accepts that the world of 50-100 years from now will be irretrievably altered in negative ways because of our actions today and works to find ways to help people recognize the dangers. It is at this point that two things occur:
(pp 41) The perceived ability or inability to take corrective action is an important determinant of emotional reactions. Potential catastrophes from climate change (of the kind graphically depicted in the film “The Day after Tomorrow”) have the ability to raise visceral reactions to the risk (Leiserowitz, 2004). Climate change that is construed as rapid is more likely to be dreaded. Perceived behavioral control and its absence can both work against behavior change. That is, it fosters the (probably unwarranted) belief that one would move from the hazard zone, and thus need not fear the hazard. At the same time, when people believe that they have no control over climate change, it facilitates such mechanisms as denial (e.g., Gifford, Iglesias, & Casler, 2008). First, "The Day after Tomorrow" was risible nonsense. It had absolutely no relationship to any science one could imagine. It did not work as Physics or as Climatology. By approvingly citing it as a way to raise "visceral reactions to the risk" it discredits the report as no more (and perhaps less) credible than movies claiming there are aliens in Area 51. Second, it establishes that those of us who do not accept the received wisdom of Anthropogenic Climate Change (and whatever happened to Global Warming?) are exercising a primitive defense mechanism, denial. Brief episodes of denial are not diagnostic, but sustained denial suggests an impairment of reality testing. The APA has now established a baseline assumption that those who are in denial of Anthropogenic Climate Change are suffering from a psychological disorder that is reflected in their use of denial. The report has an entire section devoted to explaining "Which Psychological Barriers Limit Climate Change Action?" (pps 123-132) Nowhere does the report include a recognition that the science of climatology is still in its infancy, that the global cooling for the last 10 years had not been predicted by any of the computer models, and that there may well be many more immediate problems that have a higher claim on our concern. No, to the APA, Anthropogenic Climate Change is a privileged "fact" which has become unquestionable. It is the blindness to their own unconscious motivations and desires that leads organizations like the APA to accept nonsense as fact. It is a damaging and dispiriting development. The APA should be devoting its energies to helping us understand human emotions and interactions. Climate would seem to be a peripheral concern at best, yet by accepting the millenialist argument that the planet is at stake (a stretch even by the standards of the IPCC), the APA offers a Psychological rationale to support emergency measures to save mankind and the biosphere. The APA has not yet determined that Climate Change scepticism is a distinct psychological disorder, but the ground work has been done. It is beyond foolish for an organization devoted to understanding the Psychology of human beings to allow itself to fall into such a state.
Interestingly, we may well gain enough data in the next 20 years to be able to make predictions about climate change. At that point, technology will almost certainly have progressed to the point where energy use is exponentially more efficient and, if human derived CO2 is found to be a major driver of climate change, efforts to combat the problem can be more thoughtful, more effective, and more sparing of our economic well being. If, as is at least equally likely, the human contribution to climate change is found to be negligible, the APA will be able to take the opportunity to examine how they have allowed themselves to succumb to dystopian fantasies and lose their reality testing.
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