Educating away people’s political convictions has seen very limited success when it comes to convincing them that radical action on climate is needed.
I would point out that this has been largely liberals trying to convince conservatives about climate science; cross-tribe communication is pretty difficult. Indeed, I wonder if support for nuclear among conservatives stems as much from opposing the “liberal media”’s scare mongering than anything else. There’s been some success, at least on the left, from efforts to get the word out about “the” 97% consensus among climate scientists. Educating people on the left seems like an easier problem—there are die-hard anti-nukes who can’t be convinced, but they’re a small minority.
AFAIK no one has seriously attempted the educational resource I propose, so before saying it can’t work I think it’s worth trying. We do have some stuff like Gordon McDowell’s videos that basically targets maven personalities like myself, but I found that it still doesn’t provide all the information I need to get a complete mental model for nuclear power. An educational site is not enough by itself to change public opinion, but it could at least be valuable to maven-type people who want to change minds about nuclear power but don’t have good sources of information that they can link to and learn from.
Public opinion is a very hard nut to crack, but what about the media? I would guess that influencers like Jon Oliver probably got some of their information from SkepticalScience, so I think public education may be able to percolate to the people by first percolating up to the media.
I would point out that this has been largely liberals trying to convince conservatives about climate science; cross-tribe communication is pretty difficult. Indeed, I wonder if support for nuclear among conservatives stems as much from opposing the “liberal media”’s scare mongering than anything else. There’s been some success, at least on the left, from efforts to get the word out about “the” 97% consensus among climate scientists. Educating people on the left seems like an easier problem—there are die-hard anti-nukes who can’t be convinced, but they’re a small minority.
AFAIK no one has seriously attempted the educational resource I propose, so before saying it can’t work I think it’s worth trying. We do have some stuff like Gordon McDowell’s videos that basically targets maven personalities like myself, but I found that it still doesn’t provide all the information I need to get a complete mental model for nuclear power. An educational site is not enough by itself to change public opinion, but it could at least be valuable to maven-type people who want to change minds about nuclear power but don’t have good sources of information that they can link to and learn from.
Public opinion is a very hard nut to crack, but what about the media? I would guess that influencers like Jon Oliver probably got some of their information from SkepticalScience, so I think public education may be able to percolate to the people by first percolating up to the media.