Why Do We Fear GMOs More Than Global Warming?

Almost eight out of ten scientists believe climate change is a very serious problem, but only a third of the general public agrees, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
On the other hand, almost nine out of ten scientists consider genetically modified food safe, but less than two in five Americans agree.
The scientists tend to blame a lack of education on the issues. The public tends to doubt whether scientists know what they’re talking about, the Pew survey shows.
And both may be right, in a way.
It all comes down to how we perceive danger, according to psychology professor Paul Slovic.
Slovic has been publishing on the science of risk perception for decades and he’s concluded it’s not as simple as scientists convincing the public they’re right. Sometimes it needs to be the other way around.
Common folk simply don’t see the world as a set of data. That is a problem, as it’s easier for emotions to mix in. Yet it’s also an advantage. Unbound by empirical evidence, people sometimes assess risks more accurately than scientists.
People’s understanding of a risk is “much richer than that of the experts, and reflect legitimate concerns that are typically omitted from expert risk assessment,” Slovic wrote in one 1987 paper.
MORE:
In a 2004 paper Slovic gave an example of a study exploring the costs of treating smokers by the Czech Republic government. “Employing a very narrow conception of costs, the analysis concluded that smokers benefited the government by dying young,” Slovic wrote.
Phillip Morris, who commissioned the study, was forced to apologize for it.
But the public also gets it wrong, and smoking is a fitting example. It took decades of studies to convince many smokers that filling their lungs with spoonfuls of tar is harmful.
“[T]here is wisdom as well as error in public attitudes and perceptions,” Slovic stated.
And so while our gut tells us cutting genes is wrong, we feel a few degrees of rise in global temperatures will somehow work out.
The solution lies in the attitude, according to Slovic.
“Each side, expert and public, has something valid to contribute. Each side must respect the insights and intelligence of the other,” he wrote.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1234873-why-do-we-fear-gmos-more-than-global-warming/?sidebar=related-below

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Climate Change Skeptics Lash Out At New Global Warming ‘Hiatus’ Study That Questions Ocean Temperature Measurements

Image
Share on facebook 227 Share on twitter 22 Share on linkedin Share on google_plusone_share More Sharing Services 128 An estimated 35,000 walruses are pictured crowding on a beach near Point Lay, Alaska, because of a lack of sea ice in this September 2014 photo. A study published June 4, 2015, refuting the notion that the Earth’s temperature rise has been interrupted since 1998 was lambasted by the usual skeptics and their supporters.  Corey Accardo/NOAA/NMFS/AFSC/NMML/Via Reuters A new climate study was released Thursday that refutes the claim that there’s been a slowdown, or “hiatus” in the rate the Earth is warming, but some conservative-leaning media sites skipped covering the study itself and chose instead to promote the views of the minority of climate change deniers, such as  Christopher Monckton . For example, the Drudge Report, an immensely popular headline aggregator operated by conservative Matthew Drudge, promi...
Read more

Global warming could drive world temperatures up 7 degrees by 2100

Another piece of the  global warming  puzzle has been revealed. According to new research published on Jan. 1 in the journal  Nature , increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will reduce the number of clouds that form. This, in turn, will cause temperatures to rise much higher than previous climate-change models have predicted. According to this new research, global temperatures could rise 4 degrees Celsius or 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100, and twice that by 2200. Lead researcher Steven Sherwood at the Climate Change Research Center at Australia's University of New South Wales, told  The Guardian  that this level of climate change would be "catastrophic rather than simply dangerous. For example, it would make life difficult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics, and would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet."   In a  news release , Sherwood said this new...
Read more

Why Is Critical Technology to Stop Global Warming Stalled?

Image
Pumping CO2 underground can help fight climate change but remains untested for the most part March 12, 2015  | By  Howard J. Herzog  and  The Conversation US Injection of CO2 and other gases into geological formations has been practiced for many years.  Credit:  SaskPower There are many uncertainties with respect to global climate change, but there is one thing about which I have no doubts: we will not solve climate change by running out of fossil fuels. Understanding this leads to three posible pathways we can follow to lower greenhouse gas concentrations, and explains why I’ve chosen to focus  my research  on carbon capture and storage. We can: continue to burn fossil fuels with little or no restrictions. We will blow by atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 450 parts per million (ppm), the level many scientists think is dangerous to exceed, and we will keep on going. We have enough fossil fuels to easily go above 1,000 ppm. The impac...
Read more