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koolaid-girl-407 karma

Unfortunately the question you're asking cannot be answered in an ethical way. Unlike studies concerning chemicals or physics which can be performed in a lab via experimental tactics, studies on human behavior in this day and age are all observational, meaning that we can't influence people or change their environmenr, just observe. The problem with observational studies is that we can't isolate every possible factor involved, meaning that we can find associations between two factors but have a really difficult time determining whether the trend is causal or due to some confounding variable.

For example, suppose it is found that teenagers who spend 10 hours per day or more on the internet are more likely to commit suicide. Your first instinct is to say it's the internet's fault, but what if in reality the type of teenagers who spend this much time on the internet don't have good home lives or good relationships with their families? Or perhaps they are already depressed and that leads them to spend more time on the internet than with friends. In both of these scenarios, the internet usage and suicide are both results of an underlying cause, but on first look it seems like one causes the other.

The only way to determine a casual relationship with 100% certainly is with an experimental study. Aka divide people into two groups before they hit puberty, give one internet and one no internet for ten years, and then see which group experiences more suicide in their 20s. This would be extremely unethical though.

koolaid-girl-405 karma

What approach would you recommend we take with people in our own lives who are not taking climate change seriously? Are there specific scenarios or arguments that increase people's value of the environment?