Deconstructing a Genius Climate Change Argument

I've never made a video like this before I feel a little weird doing it but I think that it is important to understand some things particularly how we communicate how we change people's minds how people change our minds and make us question our beliefs I think that like true confidence in one's worldview must come from a place of knowing that you can challenge and question your own beliefs but I want to play for you a minute-long clip and don't watch it if you're not going to want the rest of the video because it's really deceptive in some really interesting ways and so I'm going to play for you that clip it's from Meet the Press which is the longest-running television show in America I mean the press is a well-respected show it is intended to be a show in which we learn about the world it isn't intended to be a non-biased show and it is a show where there's interviews and there's panel discussions and it in general is designed to help people understand the complexities of the world and in general I think does it well and so it is very interesting to me that this clip that you're about to watch comes from that show comes from place of very much designed to be appealing to a center crowd and it is also interesting to me that this was even a thing that happened of course it was questioned by the other panelists but we're just gonna watch it and then we're gonna talk about it from the standpoint of those who have doubts about this and I don't think we can have any doubts that there is climate change whether it's anthropogenic I don't know I'm not a scientist I look at this as a citizen and I see it so I understand it on the other hand we need to also recognize that we just had two of the coldest years the biggest drop in global temperatures that we've had since the 1980s the biggest in the last hundred years we don't talk about that because it's not part of the agenda the United States has been dropping in co2 emissions since we pulled out of Paris there are actually good things that are happening we are not using dirty coal anymore it's the Europeans who are using dirty coal there actually is some corporate leadership on this yes we need to deal with these problems yes we need to mitigate the things we see but we shouldn't be hysterical first let's talk about the American Enterprise Institute they are the biggest conservative think tank a think tank is the company that people pay money to or an organization that people pay money to oftentimes corporations and sometimes foundations sometimes individuals pay money so that they can basically affect policy and and also affect like the minds of the public and they also are designed to come up with messages that will resonate with with people and thus get their policy objectives accomplished they're funded by a lot of corporations they are a strongly anti-regulation organization they believe that regulations are bad for economies and economies are the way that everything good happens roughly I think that's safe to say I don't think that that's like harshly critical of them they have done some stuff in the past like in 2007 they sent letters to scientists this was a long time ago but saying like we will pay you $10,000 if you will put out a letter or a paper that disagrees with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change I think they got in some trouble for that one but generally now their perspective on climate change is it exists it's probably caused by humans but it's probably not as bad as everybody saying it is and so we shouldn't regulate too much and this is basically just like been what one step against the other of like how can we draw this out for as long as possible and now we're this far down the road where the American Enterprise Institute says it's probably caused by humans but regulation is not the way to solve this problem and it probably isn't as bad as everybody's saying it is and we should probably focus a bit like building walls around Manhattan or something that's the background of who this woman works for the other people on the panel are a historian and two journalists and then we've got a lobbyist a person whose job is to affect public policy is in to affect how people understand things to change them to use her words to change people's opinions whereas the other people's job theoretically is to use their words to explain the world as it is it's strange to have her on this panel so let's just go through it one by one I don't think we can have any doubts that there is climate change whether it's anthropogenic I don't know I'm not a scientist I look at this as a citizen so it's seen a lot of people share this clip and say like look at this woman who's dumb and not a sign and I might stop one why are you sharing the perspective of the person who is trying to prevent us from dealing with the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced we knew she wasn't a scientist but the fact that she said she's not a scientist that divides people it so one group of people like like ultra me type people are gonna be like well why are you even talking to this panel go away especially it can be like a gotcha and it could be a Twitter thing and like you can get a bunch of likes on your tweet but none of the other people on the panel are scientists either they're all news people or a historian and also like I'm not a scientist I'm just and like as a citizen like I don't think that that invalidates your perspective I'm also not a scientist I haven't been in a lab in like 20 years so that like I'm not a scientist it's a fine thing to say and it is not a gotcha moment I'm not a sighs she's not a scientist and I think that it is also interesting that she chooses the word anthropogenic which makes that sentence more confusing than all of the other sentences she says in this anthropogenic instead of I don't know if people are causing it she says anthropogenic it's an interesting choice to me this seems extremely well-crafted and it's not it wouldn't be weird for it to be well-crafted the American Enterprise Institute does lots of working on this messaging they work very hard on messaging they do like surveys to see what messages resonate most with people so like this is bound to be like the best message that they could they could find to work on the broadest number of people and so that's why I think it's interesting to look at because like here we have the message that they have calculated works best so let's look at the message that works best and now we get into the really interesting part of it on the other hand we need to also recognize that we just had two of the coldest years the biggest drop in global temperatures that we've had since the 1980s the biggest in the last hundred years I'm just gonna say that back to you on the other hand we need to also recognize that we just had two of the coldest years the biggest drop in global temperatures that we've had since the 1980s the biggest in the last 100 years here's a graph of temperature increase over the last hundred years or so it's from NASA what show me I'm super confused about what she's means this is not something that she would not be able to defend this statement because she's very good at this and I'm upset with Chuck Todd for not asking what do you mean we've had two of the coldest years since the 1980s in the last 100 years the biggest drop in temperature which are a bunch of different things it she said since the 1980s and also in the last hundred years she says the coldest years and the biggest drop in temperatures which are two different things it's an extremely confusing statement and I cannot figure out for the life of me what it means and I feel like probably if you look at the data in some particular way maybe you can find a big temperature drop from year to year but that doesn't mean anything it just means that the climate is going crazy like if there's a bigger than average temperature drop one year to the next then it has ever been had like that would be an indication of the climate being unpredictable and annoying and and that's bad maybe this is it if you average out all the years in the 1980s if you average out the 1980s and then there was a year there have been two years where it was colder than the 1980s average is that what she means it's very confusing and then she says this we'll talk about that because it's not part of the agenda it's not part of the agenda we we don't talk about it because it's not part of the agenda so there's a premise in that statement that is assumed that has never questioned that somehow there is a we and there is somehow an agenda and and by we she's on Meet the Press it sounds like she means the media doesn't talk about this because it's not part of the agenda which indicates that the media is participating in unattended terrible like so clever amazing premise in that little sentence buried in the middle of this thing I mean honestly like it's I almost feel impressed that we don't talk about it because it's not part of the agenda not because it's not part of the narrative no not part of the agenda not part of the agreed-upon work that the media is doing to push the idea of climate change we don't talk about it so this is something that was carefully crafted they had found a statistic that makes it seem like climate changes is less of a big deal I don't even know what it is I can't figure out what it is and I know a lot about this but there's probably a statistic that they found that they can back up and it's complicated enough that no one's ever gonna look at it because it's like oh you averaged out all the 1980s and then we had some years that were below the 1980s average so or something I don't know but we don't talk about that weird statistic that you found because we're it's not part it doesn't like fit into the agenda whoof next sentence the United States has been dropping in co2 emissions since we pulled out of Paris that's another fascinating premise that's hidden in there we've dropped co2 emissions since we left Paris we were decreasing in co2 emissions before we left Paris and that is a very slow decrease and that started in 2008 when the economy collapsed but has continued due to efficiency energy efficiency due to largely it is due to natural gas taking over from coal-fired power plants and it's also due to some renewables but mostly it's due to natural gas taking over when she says it sounds like it happened because we left the Paris Accords but it has it is a trend that has continued and honestly it's a trend that has continued in every country even China and India have seen significant slowdowns in how much greenhouse gases they're producing and that has happened recently and it's a huge story it's a really big deal and it's really good news we're not gonna talk about that instead let's talk about this we are not using dirty coal anymore it's the Europeans who are using dirty coal so first the thing I love about this sentence is that you think that she's gonna talk about China or India let's talk about those places because they're you know China is contributing more to global warming than any other country right now but like that sort of a little played out and second we know that China's dirty like we know the India's dirty those are the developing countries but compare it so like she's saying well compare apples to apples Europe is worse than America in one way and like it's such an esoteric way so Europe is burning less fossil fuels than a per capita by far right we burn more low sulfur coal there are a lot of different ways in which you can look at this information you can look at how much people drive you can look at how much electricity they use per capita you go get a ton of different things you can look at decreases but if you look at that one thing that she found then she can say this sentence which sounds to your ears in the middle of this sentence just all you hear is Europe is actually worse than America so what are we complaining about in America why is that where are we so bad over there and they're like socialist Europe they're still worse than you us oh man it's neat except it's terrible and then finally we end with ultimately the new talking point that we're all gonna have to get used to yes we need to deal with these problems yes we need to mitigate the things we see but we shouldn't be hysterical we need to deal with these problems unclear what exactly they are we need to mitigate the things that we see using of this phrasing we shouldn't be hysterical about it indicates that the current perspective of you know people who care about this who we do be who are worried about it it's just Doomsday's prophecies and yeah we can weekend like we can handle this the market can handle this as this becomes a more obvious problem we'll figure out ways to deal with it and that like ultimately might be the thing that we end up doing and I personally I don't think that it's kind of like extinct us I think that it will cost us more if we wait it will cost us more if we don't spend money now I think that the the dividends it will pay if we work hard to decrease our emissions faster than they are currently decreasing that will be a better investment than continuing to have the cheapest possible energy right now and the question of should we be hysterical like the answer to that is pretty obviously if people if you're an average person like I don't want to be hysterical about that like no what so like framing it as hysterical and then one of the other people on the panel said actually frankly I think we should be hysterical about it you just took word for what this is not not reasonable not reasonable concern hysterical you took her word you said that we should be that and I don't think we should be hysterical like I think that we should be gravely concerned I think that we should be you know frankly indebted to the rest of the world for the benefits that we have gotten from the emissions that we have we in America per capita more than almost anywhere else in the world have pumped out into the atmosphere I think that that is a serious problem that we should take seriously and I think that it is also something that we should lead on and saying that that is hysterical is incorrect we should be gravely worried but we should certainly shouldn't be hysterical because that word means upset legitimately that woman is amazing that was that was a the perfectly crafted response to appeal to the Center on climate change and we need to be ready for it

Channel: hankschannel

Views: 405,922

Rating: 4.6388154 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: _Es4gG9xVf8

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 26 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/rokyn]

This is what money talking looks like, despite what pornhub might lead us to believe, good on this guy to call it out.

[u/KCdonkeybong64]

I’m eating sketti