Wooing Independents in the Climate Change Fight

Like most issues, the issue of man-made global warming is divisive. Some people believe in it wholeheartedly and think it's an urgent political issue. Others probably never will. But what about everyone else—the people who aren't sure?

It's hard to gauge exactly who these people are or what they believe, but a good barometer is political independents, because they tend to be more malleable in what they think and more easily swayed by public discourse. (Belief in climate change also skews significantly according to party affiliation.) Over the years, independents' beliefs about global warming have shifted considerably — and their support is critical to winning the fight against climate change.

A few years ago, An Inconvenient Truth was a huge success; Al Gore was a Nobel Prize-winning environmental star; and global warming evidence was highly publicized. Accordingly, nearly 80 percent of independents believed the world was warming, and 54 percent thought it was due to human activity, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

But that was then. Today, the rhetoric is dominated by denialists like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, and Gore has gone from being the leader of a movement to a punching bag for the right. In the last week alone, the IPCC scandal and so-called Snowpocalypse have ruled the news. The result: Last year, just 53 percent of those same independents said they thought the world was warming, and 33 percent said it was due to human activity.

This is problematic for two reasons. One is that the number of independents is on the rise (see here and here), so it's increasingly critical to win their support. The other is that the threat of global warming itself has not changed. Every respectable scientific organization—the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the American Meteorological Society; the American Chemical Society; the World Meteorological Association; the list goes on—believe now as they did when Al Gore accepted the Nobel that global warming is man-made and a major threat. Animals are still going extinct. Habitats are still being irredeemably changed.

In other words, the reality hasn't changed — just the dialogue.

So what can the environmental movement do to shift the debate and win back independents? For one thing, it needs to do a better job getting its voice heard in the public arena, via campaigning and events like the recent 350.org outings. It needs a new leader, a Gore 2.0 who is respected and outside the Hollywood Machine to make the case publicly and aggressively. And it needs backers who don't shrink from a fight.

The time has come to win back independents. But it won't happen unless believers get their hands dirty.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons