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Trump Likely Broke With His Own Stance in Indiana Manufacturing Deal

by MaureenMahler Posted on November 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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President-elect Donald Trump and his team are celebrating the announcement that a company that came under fire for planning to move 1,400 jobs to Mexico will keep around 1,000 of those jobs in Indiana. The announcement late Tuesday came after Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the outgoing governor of Indiana, applied pressure to Carrier, an Indianapolis furnace manufacturer, to keep jobs in the state. At a rally in April, Trump had promised “100 percent” to rescue the jobs at the plant, and Trump and Pence plan to visit Indiana this week to publicize the victory.

But there are still questions about what kind of deal was struck to persuade the company to keep production in the state. Any deal-making would be an about-face for Trump, who as recently as last month derided government incentives to keep companies in the United States.

“I’ve been watching these politicians go through this for years,” Trump said at a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, on October 10. “I’ve been watching them give low-interest loans. I’ve been watching them give zero-interest loans. These companies don’t even need the money, most of them; they take the money. There were a couple of instances where geniuses with great lawyers gave them money and then they moved anyway…I mean, the whole thing is crazy.”

Trump made the same point in August at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania. (The Democratic super-PAC and opposition research outfit American Bridge found these examples and shared them with Mother Jones.) “Over the years, I’ve watched, for years, for 10 years, for 12 years, for 15 years, beyond Obama, and I’ve watched as politicians talked about stopping companies from leaving our states,” Trump said. “Remember, they’d give the low-interest loans. Here’s a low-interest loan if you stay in Pennsylvania. Here’s a zero-interest loan. You don’t have to pay. Here’s a this. Here’s a tax abatement of any kind you want. We’ll help your employees. It doesn’t work, folks. That’s not what they need. They have money. They want to go out, they want to move to another country, and because our politicians are so dumb, they want to sell their product to us and not have any retribution, not have any consequence. So all of that’s over.”

If the Indiana deal is any indication, however, these kinds of corporate incentives are not over yet. Neither Trump nor Carrier, which is owned by Indiana-based United Technologies, has disclosed the terms of the deal. CNBC reported that the state of Indiana offered the company incentives to stay. The report also indicated that the company may have chosen to keep the factory in Indiana in order to curry favor with the new administration. United Technologies does lucrative work for the US government making engines for military jets.

Trump was correct that without strict enforcement mechanisms, incentives often fail to keep jobs in the country in the long term if the company stands to make more money by shifting production abroad. Even as Trump has apparently stopped Carrier’s relocation for now, a company a mile away is in the process of shutting down its plant and sending nearly 300 jobs to Mexico. Both Carrier and the second company, Rexnord, had already benefited from tax incentives to stay in Indianapolis when they both decided to move operations to Mexico. Carrier had agreed to pay back $1.2 million to the city. The Indianapolis Star reported in August that under Pence, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation had awarded $24 million in incentives to companies that sent production overseas. Of that sum, $8.7 million had already been paid out.

Trump had railed against corporate welfare long before he launched his presidential campaign. In 2011 and 2012, he repeatedly criticized the Obama administration’s loans to Solyndra, the solar technology company that declared bankruptcy in 2011 despite receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee through the 2009 stimulus package. “Washington is wasting over $2 billion this year on Solyndra type loans,” Trump tweeted in October 2011. The following March, he tweeted that President Barack Obama “has wasted billions of our tax dollars on speculative green projects like Solyndra. He is an economic ignoramus.”

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Trump Likely Broke With His Own Stance in Indiana Manufacturing Deal

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Mass transit wins big in ballot initiatives

by MaryanneParkins Posted on November 10, 2016

In an otherwise rough election for cities, poor people, and the environment, all three got a bit of good news from state and local ballot initiatives funding mass transit. Across the country, voters approved a majority of measures to expand bus and rail lines.

Smart Growth America, the pro-transit and urbanism advocacy group, compiled a list of the biggest transit initiatives on Tuesday’s ballots. Of the 27 measures tracked, 19 passed. And of the eight that failed, five received majority support but fell short because local tax increases required a supermajority.

Among the biggest successes were a sales tax increase to build new light rail in Seattle, a property tax to pay for repairs and maintenance on the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, and a slight sales tax hike to expand bus and rail services and upgrade bike lanes and sidewalks in Los Angeles County.

It wasn’t only the famously eco-friendly cities of the Left Coast that supported mass transit. Even in the South — the country’s most conservative region, with some of its most car-dependent metro areas — voters approved taxes for transit. Wake County, North Carolina, passed a half penny per dollar sales tax increase for new services, including three bus rapid transit lines and a commuter rail line. Atlanta passed two separate sales taxes for biking and walking trails, street and sidewalk improvements, and bus upgrades and rail expansions.

There were also positive results in smaller cities in the Midwest and Interior West. In Eastern Washington, the conservative side of the state, Spokane passed a 0.2 percent sales tax to fund more bus service and launch the area’s first bus rapid transit line. Indianapolis and surrounding Marion County voted for a 0.25 percent income tax to increase bus service. (The Indianapolis area has long had Republicans who support transit, such as former Mayor Greg Ballard and Carmel, Indiana, Mayor Jim Brainerd.)

The Center for Transportation Excellence, a pro-transit think tank, kept track of all transit-related ballot measures and found support for mass transit in small and mid-sized cities, too. Kansas City, Missouri, passed a 3/8-cent sales tax increase to build light rail, while Greensboro, North Carolina, voted for a transportation investment bond to fund new sidewalks.

There were also some disappointments. Measures to expand transit in Broward County, Florida, and in southeast Michigan failed. But, overall, the results were evidence that most Americans — even Trump voters — are willing to pay for greater, greener mobility.

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Mass transit wins big in ballot initiatives

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Why Did Hillary Clinton Send Michelle Obama to Arizona?

by LucioK20ml Posted on October 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Clinton campaign is going all-in for a state it doesn’t even need to win. On Monday, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager announced that her campaign would spend $2 million on ads and direct mail in Arizona. Perhaps more important, the campaign is redirecting some of its top surrogates from traditional battleground states to Arizona, including Chelsea Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and perhaps the campaign’s most valuable asset, Michelle Obama, who spoke in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon.

Sometimes presidential candidates with a commanding lead try to expand the electoral map simply because they can; a dominant win can translate into a mandate once in office. In 2008, for example, Barack Obama’s campaign was so far ahead in polling and resources that it started investing in Indiana. Obama won the state, which became a symbol of how big his 2008 victory really was.

But Arizona could serve a strategic purpose that Indiana did not. Unlike the Hoosier State, it has a large and increasingly politically active Latino population. Tellingly, when Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook announced the investments in Arizona, he also announced an ad buy in Texas, another state with a large Latino population that was thought to be out of play for Democrats until the Donald Trump campaign began its recent implosion. If she wins Arizona, Clinton could bring Republicans to the table on immigration reform by proving to them that they have no shot at the White House—that even formerly safe red states will turn blue—if they continue to hold the Trump line on immigration.

“We have been able to move the Latino community to participate in the civic life of Arizona on the issue of immigration,” says Ben Monterroso, executive director of Mi Familia Vota, a group that has worked to register Latinos in Arizona and other states this year. He points out that in 2010, the year Arizona passed its draconian anti-immigrant law, there were 50,000 Latinos registered to vote by mail. Today, he said, there are more than 350,000. “I hope that Hillary Clinton and her campaign see this as an opportunity to send a clear message to Republicans that enough is enough to be playing around with the issue of immigration.”

The fact that Clinton has sent the popular first lady to Arizona is a sign that the campaign is in it to win it. “Sending Michelle Obama sends a signal that a lot of it will hinge on turnout, and in that state particularly Latino turnout,” says Gabriel Sanchez, a pollster with the firm Latino Decisions. Sanchez says his survey data shows that if the campaign can ramp up turnout among Latinos, it has a “legitimate” shot at winning Arizona. Obama did not disappoint; the first lady delivered a rousing speech to a sea of fans in Phoenix. Of course, there will still be hurdles to accomplishing immigration reform in Congress, thanks largely to the uphill battle Democrats face in taking back the House of Representatives. But it would be a warning shot to Republicans in Washington to help move on immigration reform—and to future Republican presidential candidates that Trump’s hardline immigration stance was a losing electoral strategy.

Monterroso believes Arizona is more like California than like Indiana. Just as Arizona’s Barry Goldwater helped launch the conservative movement with his 1964 presidential candidacy, California was once a home base for the Republican Party, sending Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to the White House. In 1994, California’s Republican governor supported an anti-immigration ballot initiative known as Proposition 187. The move is largely credited with turning the state solidly blue by mobilizing Latinos against the GOP. “Look at what happened in California,” he says. “I think Arizona is in the same direction if the Republican Party doesn’t do anything different in this election.”

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Why Did Hillary Clinton Send Michelle Obama to Arizona?

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Stop Calling Mike Pence Boring. Here’s His Track Record on Gays, Women, Immigrants, and the Planet.

by StevieF65vjg Posted on October 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will square off against Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) tonight in the campaign’s only vice presidential debate. The showdown could prove pretty interesting, even if it cannot approach the pyrotechnics of last week’s Trump-Clinton matchup. Pence and Kaine may seem “boring” compared with their running mates, but, Trump aside, Pence is anything but. Over nearly two decades in political life, first as a congressman and later as Indiana’s governor, Pence has been one of the leaders in efforts to push extreme conservative ideas—from limiting abortion access to questioning climate change—into public policy.

We’ve covered plenty of these before, but here’s a refresher:

In March, Pence signed a bill into law requiring burial or cremation for aborted fetuses.
Last month, Pence said he’d like to “send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history.”
Pence signed a 2015 bill permitting Indiana business owners to cite religious beliefs as a reason to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers.
As Indiana’s governor, Pence slashed Planned Parenthood funding, arguably contributing to one county’s HIV outbreak.
During his 12 years as a congressman, Pence voted against nearly every piece of environmental legislation.
Pence voted to bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases.
Pence voted for opening the Atlantic up to offshore oil drilling.
As a congressman, Pence gave a floor speech advocating the teaching of creationism in public schools.
Pence wrote an op-ed arguing that “smoking doesn’t kill.”
Pence has advocated the use of public funds for conversion therapy, a discredited and potentially harmful form of anti-gay therapy.
Gov. Pence funneled $3.5 million in Indiana’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds, intended for needy families with children, to crisis pregnancy centers, which counsel women against having abortions.
Gov. Pence refused to comply with Obama administration rules aimed at reducing prison rape.
As congressman, Pence voted in favor of a bill that would have allowed for the detention of undocumented immigrants seeking hospital treatment.
Pence co-sponsored a bill in Congress that would have eliminated automatic citizenship for children born on US soil to undocumented parents.
Pence was one of 31 governors to oppose the resettlement of Syrian refugees in his state, declaring that state agencies wouldn’t cover the cost of some social services for Syrian refugees. His behavior earned him a strong rebuke from a panel of three federal judges, including one whom Donald Trump put on his Supreme Court nominee short list.

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Stop Calling Mike Pence Boring. Here’s His Track Record on Gays, Women, Immigrants, and the Planet.

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We Are All Mike Pence Laughing at Donald Trump’s Outrageous Black Support Claim

by AustinSwartwood Posted on August 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Friday, Donald Trump attempted to convince African-American voters to support his presidential campaign with the stark question: “What the hell do you have to lose?” After all, the real estate magnate reasoned, black people in America were jobless and impoverished and therefore risked nothing by rejecting his rival Hillary Clinton. Trump then announced that if he were elected president, he would secure 95 percent of the black vote by 2020.

When asked about the remarks on Monday, Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, couldn’t even maintain the illusion he took Trump’s assertions seriously. Instead, during an interview with Ainsley Earhardt on Fox news, the former Indiana governor joined the general response to the GOP candidate’s claim: he laughed out loud.

When Earhardt asked why he was laughing, Pence replied, “Well, that’s Donald Trump.”

(h/t Daily Beast)

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We Are All Mike Pence Laughing at Donald Trump’s Outrageous Black Support Claim

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We Actually Know a Lot About How Trump Would Handle Policing and Race

by Kristopher43W Posted on August 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump has been routinely criticized for sharing scant details about the policies he hopes to implement as president. But although he’s drawn little attention for it, there is one area where Trump has gotten pretty specific: policing.

In an interview with the Guardian US last October, Trump said he supported federal funding for body camera programs at local police departments. And in a Facebook post following the mass shooting of police officers in Dallas and the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police, he made appeals to both sides of the debate. He called for the restoration of “law and order” while acknowledging that “the senseless and tragic deaths of two people in Louisiana and Minnesota reminds us how much more needs to be done.” At a rally in Indiana, he pondered whether police officers had shot Sterling and Castile because of poor training.

Still, Trump has called the Black Lives Matter movement “divisive.” And of course there’s the time he threatened to fight members of the movement if they tried to disrupt his rallies. After a Black Lives Matter protester who did just that was assaulted by several Trump supporters last November, the Republican candidate condoned the attack. “Maybe he should have been roughed up,” Trump said. (He has been endorsed by the New England Police Benevolent Association and by conservatives with a range of views on criminal justice reform.)

So what does Trump actually think about the state of policing in America? In fact, he answered in his own words in response to a 33-question survey sent to him by the Fraternal Order of Police earlier this year. The self-proclaimed “law and order” candidate also met with the FOP earlier this month to seek its endorsement. (The FOP also sent the survey to Hillary Clinton, who did not respond.)

Here’s what Trump’s answers to the survey revealed:

Police militarization: Trump said he would repeal President Barack Obama’s executive order banning local police departments from receiving certain kinds of equipment through a federal program that transfers surplus military equipment to local and state police forces. Obama signed the order in May 2015 after public outcry over law enforcement’s aggressive response to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, in late 2014. (Obama recently said he will review each item on the “controlled equipment list” after law enforcement officials said they needed some of it in the wake of targeted attacks on police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge.) Trump also said he believes police should receive federal grants with no strings attached. Currently, departments can lose funding if they don’t meet incident reporting requirements or other mandates.

Racial profiling: “Current law and judicial precedent provide a great deal of civil rights protection,” Trump wrote. But he also noted that he would sign anti-racial-profiling legislation like the proposed End Racial Profiling Act “if there is a clear need for edification for certain civil rights that are being violated.” Trump responded to the FOP questionnaire months before the Department of Justice’s damning new report on racist policing in Baltimore. But there were already similarly outrageous DOJ reports on police departments in Cleveland, Ferguson, and Newark, New Jersey, the products of more than a dozen reviews and investigations into local police departments launched by the DOJ under the Obama administration.

Demographic data collection: Trump said he believes police departments “should be aware of the circumstances” of encounters between their officers and the public. If keeping information on the races of people interacting with police “is determined to improve policing,” Trump said, “then that should be part of the protocols officers use.” A major issue raised by police reform advocates in recent years has been the lack of reliable federal data on police shootings and the races of people killed by law enforcement. But the determination of whether to collect such data should be left to department administrators and local elected officials, Trump said.

“Blue lives matter”: Trump said he would push for harsher penalties for crimes against federal law enforcement officers and that he would consider signing bipartisan legislation to make any crime against a police officer a hate crime. (I reported on why that’s a bad idea earlier this year.) But he said he would not sign legislation to label murders or attempted murders a federal offense if the victim is a law enforcement official employed by an agency that receives federal funding. Doing so, Trump said, would effectively make state and local law enforcement agencies—which receive funding from the feds—an extension of the federal government, “which was not intended at the founding” of the nation.

Asked whether he would support legislation to limit the damages a plaintiff could win in compensation for injuries sustained as the result of an arrest after the commission of a felony or violent crime, Trump responded in a fashion more typical of his general lack of specificity. He stated that he would “sign any legislation that is in the best interest of America and Americans.”

The FOP announced that it will vote on which candidate to endorse later this fall.

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We Actually Know a Lot About How Trump Would Handle Policing and Race

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Donald Trump Introduces Mike Pence as His Official Running Mate

by ErrolCormack Posted on July 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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Following leaked reports that revealed Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, Donald Trump held an event on Saturday to officially introduce the Indiana governor as his vice presidential pick, a choice Trump said would help bring “party unity” to his campaign.

“I found the leader who will help us deliver a safe society and a prosperous society for all Americans,” Trump said, speaking from the Hilton Midtown in New York City. “Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was my first choice. I’ve admired the work he’s done, especially in Indiana.”

“He is going to fight for you,” he continued. “He is a solid, solid person.”

Before Pence arrived on stage, Trump spent most of the introduction discussing himself and attacking Hillary Clinton. At times, it appeared as though he almost forgot the purpose of the event was to unveil Pence as his running mate.

The presumptive Republican nominee reportedly had last minute reservations about the decision to put Pence on the ticket, and was furious the governor’s name surfaced in the media before he made a formal announcement. Trump, however, denied reports he had hesitated:

“Donald Trump is a good man and he will make a great president of the United States,” Pence said on Saturday in his speech accepting Trump’s offer. “Hillary Clinton must never become our president.”

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Donald Trump Introduces Mike Pence as His Official Running Mate

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On Climate Change, Pence and Trump Are a Perfect Match

by AngelWeidner87 Posted on July 15, 2016

green4us

 “Global warming is a myth.” Donald Trump calls global warming a “hoax.” He claims climate science is “bullshit,” and he’s even described it (supposedly as a joke) as a Chinese conspiracy. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that Mike Pence—who Trump just named as his running mate—has similar views. “Global warming is a myth,” Pence wrote nearly two decades ago in an op-ed unearthed by BuzzFeed. “Environmentalists,” the Indiana Republican explained, “claim that certain ‘greenhouse gases’ like carbon dioxide are mucking up the atmosphere and causing the earth to gradually warm. Despite the fact that CO2 is a naturally occurring phenomenon in nature, the greenpeace folks want to blame it all on coal (another natural mineral) and certain (evil) coal burning power plants.” He added (inaccurately) that “the earth is actually cooler today than it was about 50 years ago.” Mike Pence has a long history of rejecting climate science. You can read the full op-ed, preserved by the Internet Archive, by clicking here. Pence didn’t change his tune much after winning election to Congress. “The theory of global warming is just that—a theory,” he told the Star Press, a Muncie, Ind., newspaper, in 2002. Seven years later, he continued to express doubt. Pence told Hardball’s Chris Matthews in May 2009 that “the science is very mixed on the subject of global warming,” though he added, “I’m sure reducing CO2 emissions would be a positive thing.” He also insisted that there is “growing skepticism in the scientific community about global warming.” You can watch Pence’s comments above. As governor of Indiana, Pence doubled down. In a 2014 interview with Chuck Todd, Pence said he doesn’t know if man-made climate change “is a resolved issue in science today” and later added, “We’ll leave the scientific debates for the future.” Pence has also been an outspoken opponent of policies that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He told the Star Press that a cap and trade proposal passed by the US House of Representatives in 2009 would raise energy prices and harm the economy. The legislation would have put a limit and a price on the carbon emissions that cause climate change. “I really believe Democratic climate change legislation will cap growth and trade jobs,” he said. As governor of Indiana, Pence has continued to fight against policies intended to combat global warming. His latest battle? An effort to block President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations that would limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. Last year, Pence called Indiana a “proud pro-coal state” on a press call, according to the Indianapolis Star. He vowed to resist the new regulations. In June 2015, Pence sent a letter to Obama stating that Indiana would refuse to comply with the plan unless there was “significant improvement” to it. As in 2009, he warned of higher electricity prices if the proposal was implemented. He called the rules “a vast overreach of federal power.” “Your approach to energy policy places environmental concerns above all others,” he wrote to Obama. Despite Pence’s objections to federal efforts to combat climate change, he apparently has no problem asking the federal government to fund green jobs in his state. As Think Progress reported, in 2009 Pence wrote a letter to then-US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu supporting a grant application submitted by an Indiana company that wanted to use algae to produce fuels. “Algae production directly addresses all of the significant challenges being faced by the US,” wrote Pence, “namely domestic energy security, greenhouse gas emissions, scientific leadership in a variety of industries, and broad-based green job creation.” Master image: AJ Mast/AP

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On Climate Change, Pence and Trump Are a Perfect Match

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On Climate Change, Pence and Trump Are a Perfect Match

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Trump’s Racist Appeal Becomes More Explicit Every Day

by BennettWertheim Posted on July 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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I can’t believe I missed this, but I did:

During two separate discussions of Black Lives Matters protests on Tuesday, Donald Trump claimed that people have called for moments of silence for Micah Johnson, the gunman who killed five police officers in Dallas and injured nine others, without specifying who or where.

On an O’Reilly Factor segment….“I saw what they’ve said about police at various marches and rallies,” said Trump. “I’ve seen moments of silence called for for this horrible human being who shot the policemen.”

Trump repeated the claim Tuesday night, saying at a rally in Indiana, “The other night you had 11 cities potentially in a blow-up stage. Marches all over the United States—and tough marches. Anger. Hatred. Hatred! Started by a maniac! And some people ask for a moment of silence for him. For the killer!”

Josh Marshall:

This isn’t getting a lot of attention. But it should….There is no evidence this ever happened. Searches of the web and social media showed no evidence. Even Trump’s campaign co-chair said today that he can’t come up with any evidence that it happened.

….A would-be strong man, an authoritarian personality, isn’t just against disorder and violence. They need disorder and violence. That is their raison d’etre, it is the problem that they are purportedly there to solve. The point bears repeating: authoritarian figures require violence and disorder. Look at the language. “11 cities potentially in a blow up stage” … “Anger. Hatred. Hatred! Started by a maniac!” … “And some people ask for a moment of silence for him. For the killer.”

Trump’s explicit race baiting has been so normalized by now that we hardly notice this stuff. This kind of talk from a major-party candidate for president should be front-page news everywhere. Instead, it warrants a few words in various campaign roundups.

Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, foreigners of all stripes: they’re all grist for Trump’s crusade to convince white voters that they’re surrounded by rapists, murderers, terrorists, and assorted other predators who want to take their jobs away and impoverish them. It’s his whole campaign.

This is loathsome. For years it’s been clear that the Republican Party could only win by turning out an ever greater share of the white vote. But by 2012 they seemed to have done everything they possibly could: Fox News stoked the xenophobia, Republican legislatures passed voter ID laws, and outreach to white evangelicals had reached saturation levels. What more did they have on their plate? Now we know the answer: nominate a guy who doesn’t play around with dog whistles anymore. Instead he comes out and flatly runs as the candidate of white America, overtly attacking every minority group he can think of. That shouldn’t work. In the year 2016, it should alienate at least as many white voters as it captures. But so far it seems to be doing at least moderately well.

President Obama was right yesterday: America is not nearly as divided as the media makes it seem. But the only way for Donald Trump to win is to make it seem otherwise. That’s what he’s been doing for the past year, and the media has been playing along the whole time, exaggerating existing grievances where they can and inventing them where they can’t.

I’m not scared that America is such a hotbed of racial resentment that it’s about to implode. But I’m increasingly scared that Donald Trump can make it seem that way, and that the press—always in search of a dramatic narrative—will go off in search of ways to leverage this into more eyeballs, more clicks, and more paid subscriptions. There’s still time for us all to decide we should handle this differently. But that time is running out.

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Trump’s Racist Appeal Becomes More Explicit Every Day

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People don’t trust hypocritical climate scientists, study finds

by GeorgetDabney Posted on June 21, 2016

Snakes on a plane

People don’t trust hypocritical climate scientists, study finds

By on Jun 21, 2016 6:01 amShare

Climate scientists face a conundrum: To get their message out and conduct research, they often have to hop on a plane — but flying is exactly the sort of carbon-intensive behavior they discourage others from doing. And according to a new study from Indiana University, climate researchers lose credibility with their audience when they don’t follow their own advice.

That inconsistency is one that the general public is starting to notice. Shahzeen Attari, an author of the study, told Grist she was presenting on energy consumption a couple of years ago when an audience member asked her, “Hey, how did you come to the conference? Did you fly here?”

She was inspired to look into hypocrisy and how it changes the dynamic between climate experts and their audiences. Through two online surveys taken by almost 5,000 Americans, participants read a narrative about a researcher who offers advice on reducing personal energy use by flying less, conserving energy at home, and taking public transportation. The survey included one of several of statements about the researcher’s personal energy consumption. For example:

You later find out that the researcher flew across the country to the talk that you attended and that he/she regularly flies to lectures and conferences all over the world. Flying like this leads to increased negative climate impacts.

Then, the survey had participants rate the researcher’s credibility. When participants stated their own intentions to reduce energy use, their answers varied based on the researcher’s behavior. To put it simply: It turned out they were much more likely to take advice from someone who, well, takes their own advice.

But the effect wasn’t equally strong for all energy-consuming activities. According to the research, people are more forgiving of a climate scientist who flies often than one who lives in an enormous mansion. “If I live in a huge, gargantuan house … my credibility completely plummets,” Attari says. She suspects this is because people are more likely to understand that climate researchers are required to fly for work, while they have more choice over what they do at home.

Some climate researchers have started to limit their flights, but it’s really hard, Attari says. (Read the account of one climate scientist who decided not to fly.) During our interview, she admitted that she couldn’t talk very long since she had to catch a plane. “I know it’s ironic,” she said.

In a time where climate advocates like Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore have been lambasted for private-jet lifestyles, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that communicating with the public about climate change is a tricky business. Attari’s advice for climate experts: “Talk to your audience about your own carbon footprint and the ways you’ve been able to actually change it.”

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People don’t trust hypocritical climate scientists, study finds

Posted in alo, Anchor, Eureka, FF, GE, ONA, Ringer, solar, solar power, Springer, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on People don’t trust hypocritical climate scientists, study finds