Anti-vaxxers and Anthropogenic Climate Change Activists

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In this video Marketplace (a Canadian TV marketing reporting show) examines the errors which occur which causes people to make bad decisions.

One of the first things talked about is the motivation that people have in order to promote their ideas. One of the maxims of the business world is that you want to create a "need" for your product. In the case of the Anti-vax campaign (trying to induce people not to vaccinate their children against serious disease) they look at how much that the main activists make on their speaking engagements. They command a $10,000 speaking fee. On the Anthropogenic climate change campaign, the lead activist - Al Gore - earns a minimum of $100,000 per engagement. Gore had entered US politics at age 28 and continued until the early 2000s. In 2004, he co-founded an investment firm - Generation Investment Management - which capitalizes on climate change frenzy. This venture has earned him in excess of $100 million.

Things to be aware of:

Identifiable Victim Bias

Whenever you see advertisements for charity, they will always feature some child who has experienced some horrendous event. In the case of Anti-vaxxers, they will highlight some individual child who has experienced some misadventure with vaccines. Instead of focussing on the millions of children protected from harmful disease, the activists will point at relatively few people who react to the medication. Additionally, there is a narrative that vaccinations cause Autism citing a single study (now discredited) that supported that viewpoint. While people cite how autism is rising is proof of the claim, they fail to recognize that the definition has changed - encompassing more people under the diagnosis - and that other factors also are at play.
The Identifiable Victim Bias as it applies to anthropogenic climate change will look at events like the fires currently in Australia. Burned Koalas are the poster child for the event. Yes, there has been a large fire season this year. Yes, koalas are being killed. The idea that this is a fire never occurs and is due to increased CO2 is purely erroneous. The Eucalyptus is evolved to propagate best with fire. Its litter and bark formation explode with fire and during hot seasons, its volatile gum evaporates creating an explosive atmosphere. It has surface buds that require fire to release. Another tree in Canada - the Jack Pine - require fire to open its cones. It isn't a question of if a fire will happen ... it is just a question of when.

Ommission Bias

This is a function that plays against the Anthropogenic climate change movement. When faced with tough choices people will choose not to do something. In the case of Anti-vaxxers, they will choose not to vaccinate. In the case of human-based climate change, people need to choose to not work, not go to school, not eat. Everything activity that humans do will have some impact on our environment. The fact it does not rise to the level of affecting the climate in comparison to external to human factors is irrelevant.

Probability Neglect

In the vaccination issue, there is a fear of damaging your children. There is a much higher probability that your children will be damaged if you do nothing. The people born just a few decades older than me had a reality or contracting diseases like polio or "German" measles which had lasting and sometimes fatal consequences. Today in an environment where people cannot see what the world is like without vaccinations, they have a higher risk aversion of damaging their own children. In 1952 (last polio epidemic) there were 210 cases of polio per 300,000 children in the US. In 1979 (after the vaccine was commonplace), there was a negative reaction of 152 cases in total. In regard to the Anthropogenic climate change issue, it is far easier to point at increased CO2 and not the real causes. Should we pay taxes to "reduce" human carbon production when there is no causation because of CO2 or should we spend money to mitigate the effects of increased climate change?



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