Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Having spent a lifetime (or most of one – I didn’t write to any legislators before I could write) at a minimum caring about how my nation was governed, and by whom, and how it should be governed, and expressinh those opinions I cared about, I am well aware that there are many different ways to do so, and that some are more effective than others. Petitions, for instance, can be more effective than individual letters since they represent so many people – provided, that is, that they are addressed to the appropriate person or persons to deal with the issue, and that they do in fact comprise consyituents of that person(s). It also helps if they do not contain any inaccuracies. But writing a personal letter to an individual who is in public office, or a candidate for such office, whether elected or appointed – that is a different matter altogether. It’s also much more difficult. Pitfalls are everywhere. Of course you want to send your communication to the appropriate person (To use an absurd example, you would not want to direct a letter regarding Medicare/Medicais to the Scretary of Transportation, not to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thay is not in their purview.) But then you run up against spelling, grammar, making logical arguments, and of course avoideing any errors of fact. And, especially on a topic on which “alternate facts” are bouncing all over the internet and the media, it can become important to cite your sources, as the author here points out – and shows you how.
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Contacting your legislator? Cite your sources – if you want them to listen to you

Daniel E Bergan, Michigan State University

Suppose you have an issue you are really passionate about – taxes, gun control or some other important policy. You want to do more than vent on social media, so you decide to write an email, place a phone call or even draft a letter to your state legislator expressing your views.

As a citizen, I would praise your sense of civic responsibility and willingness to express your opinion. As a scholar, I would encourage your efforts – they’re more consequential than many people realize.

I teach communication and public policy at Michigan State University and study how constitutents’ communication with lawmakers affects public policy decisions.

In my previous research, I analyzed – with their permission – the efforts of coalitions working to get citizens to contact their lawmakers in support of major legislation in New Hampshire and Michigan. I conducted a rigorous evaluation of the types of contact constituents made, the messages they conveyed and the behavior of lawmakers both before and after receiving those communications.

The results showed that communications from constituents can have a large impact on how legislators vote. For example, emails from constituents encouraging policymakers to support smoke-free workplace bills in New Hampshire increased state legislators’ support on critical votes by an estimated 20 percentage points – a substantial effect.

But a lot of people don’t bother to contact their elected officials, thinking it’s not worth communicating with them.

In today’s polarized political environment, is it possible to get through to policymakers from the other side?

Discounting opposing views

Some work, including my own mentioned above, suggests that policymakers are responsive to communications from the public. But research has also shown that policymakers engage in what’s called biased reasoning, writing off communications from constituents who do not share their policy views.

For instance, political scientists Daniel Butler and Adam Dynes asked state and local policymakers in two online surveys to evaluate a hypothetical communication from a constituent. Policymakers were randomly assigned to evaluate a letter that either supported or opposed a controversial policy and then rated the hypothetical writer letter on various characteristics.

The authors found that policymakers rated hypothetical constituents who disagreed with them as less knowledgeable about the topic. This discounting of constituents who disagree on policy could explain why policymakers tend to have biased perceptions of public opinion, believing the public’s attitudes to be more in line with their own positions than polling suggests.

Is there a way to prevent lawmakers from writing off constituents’ perspectives?

Do your research

In recent work with political communication scholars Hillary Shulman and Dustin Carnahan, I sought to develop strategies to limit policymakers’ discounting of constituents’ opinions.

We asked a national sample of elected local policymakers – among them city council members – to evaluate a hypothetical email writer randomly assigned to express support or opposition to raising the minimum wage. The survey was fielded by Civic Pulse, which specializes in samples of elected officials.

This study was similar to the Butler and Dynes study described above. But we added two randomly assigned conditions – what we called a “read” condition in which the writer expressed having “read a lot about” the topic, without any specific detail, or a “cite” condition in which the writer summarized and cited a study supporting their position.

We anticipated, based on research on biased reasoning, that providing clear evidence that the constituent is knowledgeable about the issue would prevent biased discounting of constituent opinion.

Policymakers in our study were asked to evaluate to what extent they thought that the constituent understood the issue, was representative of the community, and was sincere and held their position strongly, and whether they thought the communication was a form letter rather than a constituent-intitiated communication – and therefore presumably more likely to be written off.

How to not be written off

The results confirmed previous findings that policymakers indeed discount the opinions of constituents with whom they disagree. When policymakers read an email expressing an opinion that differed from their own on raising the minimum wage, the email writer was rated lower across all five dimensions.

However, if the email writer provided evidence that they knew about the issue – citing research supporting their position – policymakers were more likely to perceive that the email writer understood the issue. The effects of citing evidence are stronger than simply stating that one has read about the issue.

My own work suggests that a constituent expressing an opinion to an elected official can influence the official’s vote on the issue. But just writing to an official is no guarantee that the constituent will persuade the official or have the issue resolved in the way they prefer.

Our study is important in identifying a way constituents can avoid being written off.

We also found that there are no downsides to providing evidence supporting one’s position.

You might expect that when provided with unambiguous evidence that a disagreeing constituent understands the issue, policymakers might direct their efforts to discounting other constituent characteristics, rating the constituent as less sincere or less representative of the community.

We did not find any evidence that this happened. When faced with evidence that their constituent knows the issue well, policymakers are less likely to discount their opinions.

How to be heard

The practical results are clear: When communicating with a policymaker, especially one with whom you disagree, you want to stop them from discounting your opinion. One way to do this is by citing quality evidence to support your position.

While this advice seems straightforward, it did not appear in guides we surveyed created by citizen groups like the Sierra Club, ACLU or Christian Coalition.

When contacting a policymaker about an issue, be aware that they may discount your opinion if they disagree.

But note also that carefully crafted communications can convey your position without being written off – and could improve how accurately the policymaker understands public attitudes about public policies.

Daniel E Bergan, Associate Professor in Communication & Public Policy, Michigan State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, if we could all live in districts which elect legislators of our own party, it might not be so important to learn the techniques the author offers – techniques of basic rhetoric, oral or written (and that’s not a bad thing.) I’m sure we’ve all heard and/or seen the expression “the facts speak for themselves.” And facts often do. But not always in a language that everyone can understand, or even hear. That’s pretty clear from the beliefs so many Americans hold about politics and government. Anything we can do to move the conversation in the direction of truth is not only a good thing, but a necessary thing.

The Furies and I will be back.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

When I was in high scholl (and through my college years), Dr. S. I. Hayakawa emerged as an expert on semantics, and in fact made it a household word. I doubt whether this is the dictionary definition – but he and his work made us think about how the way we speak about things, the words and phrases we use, the way we form questions and answers, actually influence the way we think. The author of this articles does not use the word “semantics,” but he certainly addresses its implications, and in particular when it comes to climate change. And he’s right. Referring to extreme weather as “the new normal” may be a good desription; it may even terrify a few people into paying attention, but it does not address the problem. Climate change is a symptom, an indicator. It itself is not the disease that caused the symptom. I am inclined to call that disease “human arrogance.” Perhaps you have a better idea. But, when I call it that, I can see clearly why no one is directly addressing it. “You can’t fix stupid,” and there is equally no direct way to fix arrogance.
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Summer 2023 was the hottest on record – yes, it’s climate change, but don’t call it ‘the new normal’

Scott Denning, Colorado State University

Summer 2023 was the hottest on record by a huge margin. Hundreds of millions of people suffered as heat waves cooked Europe, Japan, Texas and the Southwestern U.S. Phoenix hit 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) for a record 54 days, including a 31-day streak in July. Large parts of Canada were on fire. Lahaina, Hawaii, burned to the ground.

As an atmospheric scientist, I get asked at least once a week if the wild weather we’ve been having is “caused” by climate change. This question reflects a misunderstanding of the difference between weather and climate.

Consider this analogy from the world of sports: Suppose a baseball player is having a great season, and his batting average is twice what it was last year. If he hits a ball out of the park on Tuesday, we don’t ask whether he got that hit because his batting average has risen. His average has gone up because of the hits, not the other way around. Perhaps the Tuesday homer resulted from a fat pitch, or the wind breaking just right, or because he was well rested that day. But if his batting average has doubled since last season, we might reasonably ask if he’s on steroids.

Unprecedented heat and downpours and drought and wildfires aren’t “caused by climate change” – they are climate change.

The rise in frequency and intensity of extreme events is by definition a change in the climate, just as an increase in the frequency of base hits causes a better’s average to rise.

And as in the baseball analogy, we should ask tough questions about the underlying cause. While El Niño is a contributor to 2023’s extreme heat, that warm event has only just begun. The steroids fueling extreme weather are the heat-trapping gases from burning coal, oil and gas for energy around the world.

Nothing ‘normal’ about it

A lot of commentary uses the framing of a “new normal,” as if our climate has undergone a step change to a new state. This is deeply misleading and downplays the danger. The unspoken implication of “new normal” is that the change is past and we can adjust to it as we did to the “old normal.”

Unfortunately, warming won’t stop this year or next. The changes will get worse until we stop putting more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the planet can remove.

The excess carbon dioxide humans have put into the atmosphere raises the temperature – permanently, as far as human history is concerned. Carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere for a long time, so long that the carbon dioxide from a gallon of gasoline I burn today will still be warming the climate in thousands of years.

That warming increases evaporation from the planet’s surface, putting more moisture into the atmosphere to fall as rain and snow. Locally intense rainfall has more water vapor to work with in a warmer world, so big storms drop more rain, causing dangerous floods and mudslides like the ones we saw in Vermont, California, India and other places around the world this year.

By the same token, anybody who’s ever watered the lawn or a garden knows that in hot weather, plants and soils need more water. A hotter world also has more droughts and drying that can lead to wildfires.

So, what can we do about it?

Not every kind of bad weather is associated with burning carbon. There’s scant evidence that hailstorms or tornadoes or blizzards are on the increase, for example. But if summer 2023 shows us anything, it’s that the extremes that are caused by fossil fuels are uncomfortable at best and often dangerous.

Without drastic emission cuts, the direct cost of flooding has been projected to rise to more than US$14 trillion per year by the end of the century and sea-level rise to produce billions of refugees. By one estimate, unmitigated climate change could reduce per capita income by nearly a quarter by the end of the century globally and even more in the Global South if future adaptation is similar to what it’s been in the past. The potential social and political consequences of economic collapse on such a scale are incalculable.

Fortunately, it’s quite clear how to stop making the problem worse: Re-engineer the world economy so that it no longer runs on carbon combustion. This is a big ask, for sure, but there are affordable alternatives.

Clean energy is already cheaper than old-fashioned combustion in most of the world. Solar and wind power are now about half the price of coal- and gas-fired power. New methods for transmitting and storing power and balancing supply and demand to eliminate the need for fossil fuel electricity generation are coming online around the world.

In 2022, taxpayers spent about $7 trillion subsidizing oil and gas purchases and paying for damage they caused. All that money can go to better uses. For example, the International Energy Agency has estimated the world would need to spend about $4 trillion a year by 2030 on clean energy to cut global emissions to net zero by midcentury, considered necessary to keep global warming in check.

Just as the summer of 2023 was among the hottest in thousands of years, 2024 will likely be hotter still. El Niño is strengthening, and this weather phenomenon has a history of heating up the planet. We will probably look back at recent years as among the coolest of the 21st century.

This article was updated Sept. 15, 2023, with NOAA and NASA also confirming summer 2023 the hottest on record.

Scott Denning, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, “you can’t fix stupid.” But you can fix ignorant – at least some of the time. The only way I see to drive a wedge into stupid is to fix ignorance. That’s difficut enough, heaven knows, but it’s doable – not fixing all the ignorance in the world, no; but fixing enough to get to a practicable consensus is. And semantics can’t hurt and may help in that.

The Furies and I will be back.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Just now as we are waiting for reams of motions to be put forward and adjudged before jury selection can begin on even the earliest scheduled trial, I thought it might be a good time to address President Biden’s age, which has everyone so concerned (and not just the “concern trolls.”) Many people appear not to have noticed that different people age at different rates. That has always been true. Age has also always been looked at through two lenses. On the one hand, there is loss of physical and sometimes mental ability. On the other, there s experience – which has always been considered a plus. And now, at a time when there are so many with absolutely no political experience who think they can govern, experience is more important than ever. But don’t take it from me. Take it from our founding fathers.
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80 is different in 2023 than in 1776 – but even back then, a grizzled Franklin led alongside a young Hamilton

Maurizio Valsania, Università di Torino

President Joe Biden’s announcement that he’s running for another term raises concerns for many Americans. At his potential second inauguration, he would be 82, beating himself in becoming the oldest among American presidents.

Aging has changed dramatically over the centuries. Medicine and better lifestyles have significantly diminished the effects of time.

In the past, things were much different. In 1783, for example, at age 51, Gen. George Washington resigned his military commission and took a hard look at himself.

What he saw was a wreck – nearly a Methuselah. He had grown, in his famous statement, “not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.”

As a biographer of Washington, I can assure you that his well-known description of his condition may have been a bit of an exaggeration. Washington wasn’t that old, really, although the average life expectancy in that era was 38.

Old people today, so to speak, are much younger than they used to be, especially when they are wealthy. The field of anti-aging is waxing, and data suggests that science might be able to extend not only life span, but also the years a person remains healthy and free from disease. Furthermore, a youthful frame of mind can have a powerful effect, increasing longevity.

But no matter what, 82 remains a high number.

Old ‘machines,’ giving way

Americans have long nurtured mixed feelings about age and aged leaders. For starters, the men who fought in the Revolution and molded the young nation were themselves very young.

Alexander Hamilton, the mastermind behind the Constitution of the United States, was only 30 when he attended the famous Philadelphia Convention, where that document was written.

In opposition to “the Old England vices,” America was envisioned as springing out from the creativity of the young. It represented huge potential.

“Great Britain has past the Meridian of her Day,” wrote Edward Rutledge, at 26 the youngest delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence. And while England was old beyond recall, “we are young,” he concluded.

During a period when medicine and knowledge of human anatomy were all but rudimentary, old age terrified everyone.

“Our machines have now been running for 70. or 80. years,” an old Thomas Jefferson, age 71, explained to an even older John Adams, age 78, “and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way.”

People in their 70s were usually decrepit when the American nation was young. But it would be wrong to assume that the founding generation simply despised old age. Young America admired venerable old sages – Moses of the Bible, first and foremost.

In August 1776, a debate for designing a new great seal for the republic took place. A commission was formed, and Benjamin Franklin, a member of the commission, proposed to draw a Moses, with his wand lifted, in the act of dividing the Red Sea, and the pharaoh, in his chariot, overwhelmed with the waters. Franklin also suggested a motto: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

Like Washington and Jefferson, who led a revolution against a tyrannical king and his country, Moses had similarly led a liberty-loving people, the Jews, out of the shackles that tyrannical Egypt had kept them in.

Prophetic old age

America has repeatedly relied upon very old leaders. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Franklin was 81. This senior statesman from Pennsylvania didn’t talk much.

One of the most charismatic men of the 18th century, Franklin was universally recognized as a prophet, a Moses dressed in American clothing. Despite “his extreme age” and “particularly sensible of his weakness,” as James Madison said, Franklin stood out from much younger delegates.

His appearance communicated an “antique simplicity,” a French witness held. He looked like a sage, a living classic “contemporary with Plato,” as if he had come directly from “the age of Cato and of Fabius.”

While Franklin was much more than just someone performing a task, old leaders, back then, could still look to the future and attend to many types of tasks as well.

In 1798, after he had completed two terms as president, a worn-out Washington, age 66, was ready to serve again in a military capacity. War with France was probable, and President John Adams had asked for his help.

Washington experienced “Sensations” – which means mixed feelings – at the prospect of entering, “at so late a period of life,” the “boundless field of public action – incessant trouble – and high responsibility.” And yet he agreed to serve. Fortunately for the country, war didn’t come.

Similarly, what Thomas Jefferson achieved during the last years of his life, in his late 70s, is extraordinary. In what he described as “the Hobby of my old age” he devised, organized and built a public university, the University of Virginia.

He worked hard on his last project, which opened to students on March 7, 1825. Jefferson would die one year later, elated by this accomplishment. The University of Virginia, Jefferson believed, would create better leaders who would halt the “threatening cloud of fanaticism” polluting the “atmosphere of our country.”

Biden is old. His speech is imperfect. For sure, he will execute tasks, but slowly, at his own pace. In many ways, he can’t be a match for younger competitors. What’s more, he’s neither Franklin, nor Washington nor Jefferson.

Yet, had he lived in that earlier age, like his more illustrious predecessors, his value would have likely outweighed his deficits in the eyes of his country – a youthful country fighting against the ossified leadership of its British colonial overlords, but also aware of the wisdom that certain old leaders could still provide.

Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di Torino

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, I might point out that after the signing of the Declaration, Franklin was our Ambassador to France for another 9 years, returned to the US and lived another five years – long enough to see the Constitution ratified. And was still making witty remarks on his deathbed. And that was without the benefit of modern medicine. Sure, he was unusual. So is Joe. Have you ever tried to ride a bicycle on a beach? I wouldn’t even have tried that forty or more years ago. Joe? No problem. I could go on, but I’m probably preaching to the choir already. Dear Furies, it’s probably the media you need to go after and keep in line. Lately a few supposedly reputable outlets have jumped on and promoted polls commissioned and executed (disingenuously) by the GQP. That’s not good for Biden, and it’s not good for the country.

The Furies and I will be back.