Global warming a tough sell for the human psyche

NEW YORK

The consequences of global warming are seen as occurring in far-off places, he said: “It’s happening up in the Arctic or it’s happening in Bangladesh, and it’s not happening in my backyard.” And the slow changes are not as attention-grabbing as a “fast disaster” like an earthquake, he said.

…But beyond that, psychologists say, the nature of climate change itself makes it a tough sell for many people.

Janet Swim, a psychology professor at Pennsylvania State University, recalls a conversation from last month with a taxi driver in Cape Town, South Africa.

“I don’t think there’s climate change,” the driver said. “If there was climate change and sea levels were rising, I would have seen it.”

He was going by his own experience, said Swim, who studies how people feel about global warming. “People experience weather on a day-to-day basis, and that’s how they think about climate change,” she said.

AP