“JC comment: Kahan gets it partly right – there are indeed two climate changes. But IMO he misunderstand what they are. There is human caused climate change, and then there is natural climate variability. Farmers don’t care so much about what is causing climate variability change; rather their job is to continually assess weather/climate risks to their crops and then adapt.”
I don’t think he misunderstood what the two are; it’s just that there is more than one way to divide climate change into two halves. Anthropogenic/non-anthropogenic is a fine distinction, but the one he is drawing is, I think, an important one, and one I have not seen explicitly called out before now. I’m inclined to think he’s right, but consider whether you agree.
Taken seriously, Kahan is asserting that people purport to believe things that they really do not believe, because purporting to believe in these things places one in a particular in-group. So, for example, some people might profess religious faith, and even go to church on Sunday, yet still not pray. The belief is an affectation, adopted because it defines a social group, but when push comes to shove, this person doesn’t really expect the real world to work the way they say it does.
This might explain why, for example, famous men can purport to believe they are women. That would appear to be a sufficiently verifiable fact that no one could really be confused about it, yet the phenomenon exists. Or, for those offended by my example, consider the epidemic of men in Africa purporting to have had their genitalia stolen by a witch. Obviously, scientific proof cannot change these people’s minds, BECAUSE THEY ALREADY KNOW THEY ARE WRONG. Likewise, Kahan says, a bunch of people who purport to believe in anthropogenic global warming don’t REALLY believe it–as for example, is revealed by the fact that they do not advocate for many policies that would make sense if they really did believe it. The opposite phenomenon–people who purport not to believe in global warming but actually secretly do–certainly exists, too, though it would be harder to detect, since the free-rider problem and other such market failures would conceal their private doubts about their professed position.
