Climate Change Predictions Influenced By Social learning

[Sofia + 35]

New research suggests social learning patterns can inspire people to engage more climate-friendly behaviors, like buying and using an electric or hybrid vehicle.

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2019/06/06/Climate-change-predictions-are-influenced-by-social-learning/9831559850535/ 

[James Regan + 1,776]

Can also be used to influence any agenda one may have, does it takes team of mathematical geniuses to discover that social media can influence anything even terrorism or buying a  a hamburger from McDs.

Whats interesting is the advert that appeared immediately below the first piece of text, subliminal messaging?

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

My degree is in Sociology, and minored in Behavioral Psychology.  I defy anyone to convince me that "key features of social and climate systems" can be put into a mathematical model that will actually accurately predict human behavior and climate behavior.

Go for it.  Knock yourself out.

For reference on the laughable results of predicting climate armageddon, see this:

Glacier National Park Quietly Removes Its ‘Gone by 2020’ Signs

 

Ok, back to this thread...

13 minutes ago, Sofia said:

New research suggests social learning patterns can inspire people to engage more climate-friendly behaviors, like buying and using an electric or hybrid vehicle.

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2019/06/06/Climate-change-predictions-are-influenced-by-social-learning/9831559850535/ 

Climate change is caused by humans. And if climate change is to be slowed or stopped, it will require human action. Climate systems and human systems are intimately linked, and yet, little is known about the interactions between these systems.

To better understand how social phenomena impacts climate change, and vice versa, researchers in Canada developed a mathematical model that approximates key features of social and climate systems.

Their model showed that people adopt climate mitigation strategies through social learning. Over a long enough period of time, social learning patterns can inspire significant changes in human behavior -- purchasing an electric or hybrid car, for example.

Unfortunately, social norms have the opposite effect. Social norms reinforce the behavioral patterns of the majority -- currently, inaction. Even once mitigation becomes the norm, the new model showed social norms will do little to hasten the transition to a carbon-zero economy.

Researchers also used their model to identify ways to encourage climate-friendly behavior.

"Our socio-climate model indicates that an increase in social media and other campaigns to raise awareness, such as climate marches and international reports, should ideally be followed by governmental and other incentives to reduce carbon emissions," Thomas Bury, researcher at the University of Waterloo, said in a news release.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

34 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

"Our socio-climate model indicates that an increase in social media and other campaigns to raise awareness, such as climate marches and international reports, should ideally be followed by governmental and other incentives to reduce carbon emissions," Thomas Bury, researcher at the University of Waterloo, said in a news release.

First, this presumes that "reducing carbon emissions" is a good thing. There is no hard evidence of that.  It also presumes that a complex concept as "carbon emissions" means the same thing to different people.  There is no hard evidence of that, either. 

The University of Waterloo is located in Southwestern Ontario, the Province that, for the past 16 years or so, has been directed by its Premier, Kathleen Wynne - and she did that in an increasingly arrogant and dictatorial way, until she and her party were turfed by the voters. The Wynne government solution, and now the Trudeau government solution, is to install a stiff "carbon tax," which has so far demonstrated no impact at all on anything except to make poor people poorer, and increase revenues for that government.  

Meanwhile, none of this activity, neither the"climate marches" nor the carbon taxes  (as structured and defined by the government) has accomplished anything at all as respects the stated objective.  What it has done is impose burdens by fiat from the Limousine Liberals, upon the poor and poorer.  I view that as un-Christian. It also makes for lousy public policy.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

3 hours ago, Sofia said:

more climate-friendly behaviors, like buying and using an electric or hybrid vehicle.

They call this eco-friendly behavior? Buying an EV? Talk about a difference in perception. I thought behaviour is a bit more complex than making a purchase that a lot of people in many parts of the world cannot afford without some financial discomfort.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

9 minutes ago, Marina Schwarz said:

They call this eco-friendly behavior? Buying an EV? Talk about a difference in perception. I thought behaviour is a bit more complex than making a purchase that a lot of people in many parts of the world cannot afford without some financial discomfort.

I can assure you that America, one of the richest countries of the planet, has a vast majority that cannot buy an EV "without some financial discomfort."  Those machines are pricey!

And that income level is a long way from the Congo, at two dollars a day (if you are lucky enough to have a job).  Don't see those guys buying EVs any time soon.  That hand-me-down Toyota pick-up now 20 years old is more like it. 

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

I can assure you that America, one of the richest countries of the planet, has a vast majority that cannot buy an EV "without some financial discomfort."  Those machines are pricey!

Yeah, I suspected as much but I wanted to be polite and not say "most people". Even in China most don't drive EVs. There has to be a serious enough reason for that. I won't even mention California, the biggest EV market in the U.S.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Social learning is an interesting concept. It seems that it has been warped by the elites to mean Politically Correct Propaganda. My background includes an M.A. in Counseling and 20 years as a psych RN. 

[WCS + 13]

Today if you wanted to buy a Tesla that could get 400 plus miles to the charge you would be paying 30K dollars more when compared to the cost of  a small gas powered car getting similar mileage. Now there are approximately 1.2 billion cars and trucks on the road today . Now think about it , over  30 trillion extra dollars to convert to all electric vehicles and do this every 8 years once the batteries go dead. You could fabricate a lot of carbon capture units ,that are available today ,for that kind of money yet no politician does anything other than set up road blocks for the oil and gas industry and carbon tax it’s citizens. Globally only 16% of the man made CO2 comes from vehicles , don’t you think politicians should be focusing on the 48% CO2 that is attributed to heating and electrical generation. The problem is solar and wind power is expensive and not always reliable plus you would have to be naive to think that all those wind mills don’t have some effect on air currents and weather patterns. What gets me is that the province of Quebec has excess hydro electric power that they would like to sell to some US coastal states but the environmentalists don’t want any transmission lines disturbing the land . I guess windmills and solar for all .British Columbia has implemented  a carbon tax for the last 10 years now and they have only reduced the CO2 by  a whopping 5 %. The Canadian government has now forced upon all its people a carbon tax, and  they claim households will get back the money they paid in carbon taxes and this strategy is suppose to change consumer behaviour ????.Leading you to buy an electric vehicle?  It’s a tax, plain and simple. The government needs the money because they are deep in debt.  I don’t see the government driving a slew of electric cars and trucks or building the infrastructure to support electric vehicles ,so how serious are they about climate change? CO2 reduction probably won’t change the climate so the next target will be methane reduction then NOX reduction then people reduction.

Edited June 8, 2019 by WCS
Addition

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

I quit reading after, 'Climate change is caused by humans.'

if the article is based on a hypothesis stated as a fact, the entire article suspect.

I've got better things to do with my time, like laundry.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

9 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I quit reading after, 'Climate change is caused by humans.'

if the article is based on a hypothesis stated as a fact, the entire article suspect.

I've got better things to do with my time, like laundry.

Try this one instead from the New York Post, which attempts to more calmly bridge the gap between both extreme camps.  Excerpt from the middle of the article.

Calling climate change ‘catastrophic’ makes it harder to find real answers

... The panel notes that for most sectors, “the impact of climate change will be small relative to the impacts of other drivers,” such as changes in population, age, income, technology, relative prices, lifestyle, regulation and governance.

Just pause and reflect on that. The UN’s own climate change panel tells us that looming demographic changes (like more people getting older) and other challenges are going to have a much bigger impact on us than climate change.

We have been here many times before. In the early 1970s, the Club of Rome think tank predicted humanity’s collapse: We would run out of food, oil and all other resources, while runaway pollution would kill us. The prescription was dire (and just the same as today): Cut consumption, have few or no kids and stop economic growth.  ...

 

@Marina Schwarz  @Rodent

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

I can imagine alarmists having a fit of "Wait, you mean we have OTHER problems as well?" It's not a joke, alas...