September 2019: How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate (Hoffman)

Post date: Oct 07, 2019 8:37:17 PM

Our September meeting was held on Wednesday, the 11th of September. We had

originally been scheduled for the following day, however, we changed dates

in order to avoid conflict with a Democratic candidates debate. Most

people preferred the new night, and we had ten members in attendance.

Perhaps as a result of the debate the following day, our discussion shifted

over to politics and to our hopes and worries about the 2020 presidential

campaign. However, we did a pretty good job of talking about the book as

well. Fortunately, our September selection set the stage for our inevitable

political tangents nicely. It was this year’s Smith Reads book: Andrew J

Hoffman’s How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate.

Hoffman begins his book with an insightful critique of academia and its

fixation on specialization and on promotion through peer review. This focus

may be effective in generating vast quantities of specialized knowledge;

however, it often makes it difficult for this knowledge to be disseminated

and explained to the general public. In the case of climate change

research, this disconnect between the scientific community and the average

citizen may have troubling consequences indeed. Hoffman has a background

in environmental engineering. However, his current work focuses on

understanding environmental issues with the resources of sociology,

psychology and the other social sciences. In this book, he tries to

identify the reasons why people accept or reject the science of climate

change. His goal is to develop insights that might help to move the public

discourse forward.

In the first chapter of the book, Hoffman discusses how the climate change

debate became a cultural debate, and how our beliefs are shaped by the

various cognitive filters that we all use to understand the world.

Attitudes towards climate change tend to be strongly influenced by political

affiliation and thus map onto the divides that we are all aware of in

American political life. We may not have much chance of changing the minds

of the most dismissive climate change deniers. However, Hoffman believes we

can convince some of the more cautious, disengaged and doubtful members of

our society to take climate change more seriously. To show how, Hoffman

explains how we make sense of complex scientific information, discusses

which organized movements are denying climate change, explains how cultural

change happens, and reviews examples of large scale social changes that have

occurred in the past. He ends with some specific strategies for the current

moment, such as advising climate change activists to describe the danger of

climate change, and the benefits of addressing it, with “frames,” such as

“national security, health and economic competitiveness,” that appeal to the

individuals they are trying to persuade.

After reviewing some facts that illustrate how pressing the issue of

climate change is, Hoffman concludes by noting that the mere statement of

these facts is not going to be enough to spur society into action. “When

engaging the debate,” he writes, “we must think not only of the science of

climate change, but also about the sociopolitical processes and tactics

necessary to get people to hear it.”

Though the book is quite short, some of our members found they had to force

themselves to finish it. Most of us felt that it covered ground that we had

been over before. Hoffman’s analysis of the American cultural divide echoed

a lot of what we read about in Hillbilly Elegy and Strangers in Their Own

Land. Hoffman’s goal of applying the social sciences to the climate change

debate seemed admirable indeed, but many of his observations and insights

struck us as obvious and not particularly innovative. Still, each of us

identified some part of the book that we found useful and/or

thought-provoking. I think we all understood why Smith choose this as the

book that all incoming first-year students would be asked to read and

discuss. It is probably helpful to start one’s undergraduate education

with an exploration of the importance of open-mindedness and empathy and

with a reminder of the essential role of effective communication in efforts

to change the world for the better. Perhaps our group has become a little

too cynical to embrace the book fully. However, it did spark a fascinating

evening of political discussion, one which highlighted our anxiety and

anger, but which was also not devoid of hope.

Fortunately, our next book is taking us far away from the troubles of our

current political crisis. Instead of lamenting the conflict between the

Democrats and the Republicans, we turn back to an ancient, but perhaps

equally intractable, conflict: the struggle between the gods of Olympus and

the Titans.