You’re just measuring things all wrong
Using Fahrenheit Can Obscure the True Severity of Climate Change
Americans are finally beginning to grasp the profound dangers of climate change. But with many still in denial, it’s important to understand the mental blocks that keep us from acknowledging the need for action.
New research pinpoints one unexpected barrier: the Fahrenheit temperature scale.
In a new paper, researchers report the scale’s central oddity—freezing happens at 32 degrees, as opposed to the more logical 0 degrees Celsius—makes it more difficult for people to grasp the significance of a projected rise in average temperature.
“Is it possible that a mere change in whether the information presented is in Celsius or Fahrenheit will influence one’s perceived concern about climate change?” asks Eugene Chan of Australia’s Monash University. “Our results suggest the answer may be yes.”
In the Journal of Environmental Psychology, Chen describes two studies that make that case. The first featured 332 American adults. All read a brief statement about the seriousness of climate change, followed by one of four sets of statistics.
See, we could totally solve this whole thing if we used Celsius.
–The one and only commenter to that article.
As meaningless as the garbage strewn about by the nignorant angry little black fella from st louis.
OMG. Groan. How desperately sad. Emo dramatic. And utterly idiotic liberal logic.
And here I always thought that using Celsius yielded smaller and somewhat less emo-dramatic numerical changes in temperature.
No offense intended, Cons, but your (not you’re) argument should be with the research article:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027249441830447X
The authors concluded there was a statistically significant difference in “concern” depending on whether the test data were expressed in degrees C vs degrees F.
So, why aren’t these arguments presented in Fahrenheit, at least side by side with Celsius? If you want to sell somebody something, you need to be speaking the same language.
Sooo, it made sense to the nignorant angry little black child from st. louis.
Well there you go.
“Using Fahrenheit can obscure the true severity of climate changeâ€. These are typical tactics from the alarmist’s playbook-start from a false premise, and go from there. What “true severity†are they talking about? The severity can’t be true because nothing out of the ordinary has happened and future scenarios are simply model-based. They would have to first prove what the “true severity†is- they can’t, so the F. or C. is largely irrelevant
Yes, Con Boyz, science IS hard, even soft social science. It’s doubly hard when your (not you’re) mind is already made up!