First Short Quiz

[The Gurneys]

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Submitted by Ted and Tucker Gurney IAW the recusal of John Karls vis-a-vis This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate.


1. From the reading on climate change you have already done, have you found evidence that persuades you that humans have unwittingly caused recent high temperatures, drought, and storms? Describe the evidence that has persuaded you.

2. If persuaded, which evidence would you use to win over a climate skeptic?

3. If you are not persuaded, say why the evidence has not convinced you.

4. Naomi Klein quotes Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan who is an expert on risk perception and on legal opinions influenced by cultural experience. Kahan’s ideas are important for understanding the influence of culture on opinions made by judges and juries. The same concepts apply to understanding why Global Warming Deniers are against climate change. Kahan thinks that most scientists readily accept new scientific evidence for climate change but most other people make hard decisions using their oldest and most firmly held principles. Newer considerations, such as the revelations of man-caused climate change, cannot trump better-established beliefs such as divine creation of climate or the sanctity of the free market. If testimony from new climate experts conflicts with old beliefs, it will be received skeptically. So is Naomi Klein right when she says “This Changes Everything”?

5. In her introduction, Naomi Klein says that she previously accepted human causation of climate change but that she used several types of denial to avoid taking climate change seriously. What stages did she move through before she made a commitment to work on this issue?

6. Klein’s attitude changed in 2009 when she heard a Bolivian woman propose a “Marshall Plan” for the earth. What was that plan? Are people working for something like that as part of the Climate Justice Movement that Klein describes?