Mother Jones says that Gen Xers (those born
between 1961 & 1981) are better educated, work longer hours are more active
in their community but don’t seem to give a toot when it comes to the climate.
It doesn’t make any difference about the political persuasion they just respond
“meh” when it comes to the climate. Well, the liberals are a bit more
concerned, but you’d expect that.
The sociologist they rely upon for this,
Jon Miller of the University of Michigan, thinks this is the result of climate
disinformation campaigns. So, they just tune out when it comes to climate
issues; beside Al Gore kinda looks like a penguin and it is hard to take him
seriously.
Gen Xers seem to be more immediate
concerned than long range thinkers. So until it is at the doorstep (which could
be a lot sooner than they think), they don’t get very excited about it.
The good news is the a Pew poll showed a
slight rise in people who see evidence of global warming. And a Gallup survey
said 70% wanted higher greenhouse emission standards for business and industry.
My wife really wants to take a cruise to
Alaska. I hope they have some icebergs left by the time we get there.
But now we are off to the Olympics where the weather will be unusually high; hmmmm.
But now we are off to the Olympics where the weather will be unusually high; hmmmm.
The disinformation campaign has been extremely successful. Lying works, especially when its well funded and especially when the lie is something that people want to believe. Denial is a powerful weapon, especially in a country where scientific literacy is poor, and the population has recently been trained by politicians and the media to disbelieve and distrust science generally.
ReplyDeleteThe warming and its causes are accepted as scientific fact in the scientific world, where facts actually matter. But in the popular media and political elites, it's still viewed as "in dispute". A similar political treatment is given to evolution, which has been regarded as an indisputable scientific fact for decades. Both are evidence of an abysmal failure of science education in this country.
So from the standpoint of postponing action until it's too late to fix, the conservative disinformation campaign has "won". The arctic ice cap WILL be gone in summer by mid-century, and we can look forward to more heat and food supply disruptions, more extinctions, more random misery we can't even quantify yet. Yet another happy milepost on the road through the conservative economic paradise.
Pretty much the reason why there are so few Republicans among we scientists ...
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