Note that the window might not be glued shut! Your erroneous belief will stop you from trying anyway. If you believe the window in our thought experiment above is glued shut, you won’t even get out of your chair. Any misconceptions on their part influence how they behave, i.e., their willingness to support aggressive policies, make bold statements in their public outreach, or create “balanced” media coverage of climate change.Īnother key determinant of human behavior with extensive empirical support is efficacy, or our belief that we can do something. Misconceptions take on an even larger significance when we remember that those in positions of power are people too. The lack of public discussion reinforces the norm that others are not concerned and hampers the likelihood of collective organization to address climate change. People believe that others are not concerned-or that they are even skeptical of climate change-which encourages them to refrain from discussing it with others. Based on this new data and the recent work of others on pluralistic ignorance 9, it becomes clear that we are locked in a self-fulfilling spiral of silence. Currently, worrying about climate change is something people are largely doing in the privacy of their own minds. discuss one explanation for why others influence us-namely, that social norms (what we believe others are doing and thinking) are important and powerful determinants of behavior 8. is also seeing the heat ratchet up, with "feels-like" temperatures pushing 100 degrees by Monday and Tuesday in the major cities of the I-95 corridor.Sparkman et al. Intermountain West, Desert Southwest and California with hundreds of record highs. CBS News This heat wave comes on the heels of another historic heat wave less than two weeks ago that baked the U.S. The core of the heat dome, as measured by the thickness of the air column over British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, is - statistically speaking - equivalent to a 1-in-1,000-year event or even a 1-in-10,000-year event. CBS News The heat is being caused by a combination of a significant atmospheric blocking pattern on top of a human-caused climate changed world where baseline temperatures are already a couple to a few degrees higher than nature intended. Portland has already broken its former all-time record of 107. These are all-time heat records for select cities prior to the current heat wave. By Monday, some - if not all - of the all-time record highs seen below are forecast to break, with many more cities not listed here expected to achieve the same feat. These are extremely dangerous numbers, especially in a region not used to heat like this, where many people do not have air conditioning. Canada is expected to register the nation's all-time highest temperature before the event is done. Portland, Oregon, has already broken its all-time record hottest temperature at 108 degrees on Saturday and the peak of the heat wave has not even been reached yet. By one measure it is more rare than a once in a 1,000 year event - which means that if you could live in this particular spot for 1,000 years, you'd likely only experience a heat dome like this once, if ever. Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, Canada, is of an intensity never recorded by modern humans.
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