Recently, during one of our daily news meetings, Rachel and the staff were trying to figure out why the mainstream media (and people in general) aren't more motivated by pressing environmental stories (like for instance, the proposed Keystone pipeline and the heated protests against it). We weren't able to reach a consensus, aside from a lingering sense that politicians tend to believe it's always OK to punch the hippies. But here is a chart confirming that yes, there really is less interest in planetary concerns, and it's not just Americans.
The research firm Globescan polled 22,000 people in 22 countries. TreeHugger reports that the number of people who consider various environmental problems including climate to be "very serious" is the lowest found in two decades of surveying.
Which isn't to say that air pollution, water pollution, species loss, automobile emissions, fresh water shortages and climate change are one iota less serious than 20 years ago. Quite the opposite. So, is it the media? Is it us? Do we all have Planet Fatigue Syndrome?
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Al Gore summed it up pretty much in his analogy of a frog slowly being boiled to death. People don't notice small changes over time. Or at least they don't tend to panic over them.
Climate change also isn't something that's very easy to depict on TV, unless you count the odd event like a hurricane. It doesn't make for "sexy" TV programming.
But the biggest reason I believe is that people feel completely powerless to do anything about climate change. What can they do? Not drive to work?
But the more I think about this, the more I have come to the conclusion that climate change is the most important problem facing us today. Issues like the budget, the war in Afghanistan, reproductive rights, health care, gun control, it all pales in comparison to the importance of climate change. After all, there will be no need for a budget, if in 30 years we're all dead because the earth can no longer support life.
it is called SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION. what people do notice is 25% - that being
but the stupid repoops adapt so easily, they could be eased into a sewer and wouldn't know it. come to think of it, they talk a lot of.... what ever are they eating?
Guess I didn't realize that Al Gore invented the frog in the kettle analogy...
Seriously, though- the reason Keystone isn't being hammered by the media? It's the same reason the drones aren't being hammered. Why the hit list targeting assasinations of terrorists isn't being hammered. I recall Rachel doiing an Op-Ed after Obama was first elected stating that she was much more comfortable knowing Obama was calling the shots on the war- her example was she thought Bush or McCain would target someone specifically- and she called that an assassination vs someone being killed in war- where they just happened to be where a bomb went off or a bullet arrived. Well- the media in general and MSNBC hosts in particular aren't playing these things up because Obama is in charge. With his teflon coverage- it is to thepoint that if someone questions one of his acts- they get attacked. It is laughable that he says he has the most open Presidency- but the media doesn't call him on it. They jump when Keystone first came about a year ago. Now- all indications are he will allow it- so the media just wants it quietly allowed and then to disappear. Some hippies, as the article calls them, happen to be standing in the way...
Re: #2.3
The term used was changed to be more precise.
When global temperatures rise the effect that causes the damage is the dramatic changes in climate.
Van, because people like you don't understand climate science. If we get a big snow storm you seem to think that's evidence that global warming is fake. When in reality, warmer temperatures mean more water evaporation, which means there's more vapor in the air, and when it condenses in the winter you get increased snow fall.
See how that works? The climate is actually kinda complicated. It's not like putting a planet in an oven. You see there are these weird things called currents. They do this really neat thing where they draw warm water up along the west African coast, which ends up along the west coast of Europe, making Europe a whole lot warmer than it would otherwise be. Isn't that neat? You realize that Germany is as far north as the state of Maine? Who knew ocean currents could heat up land.
I'll tell ya something else that's amazing. When hot dry air from central Africa hits cold wet air over the Atlantic ocean, you get a hurricane. Yeh, it seems that hurricanes are the planet's way of distributing a massive heat build up. When you have more heat build up you have more hurricanes. Neat, huh?
I wonder what effect the approval of Keystone will have on the hurricane season?
how about WEALTH FATIGUE SYNDROME? you know, where all the wealth gathers into a small pool of "oligarchal rulers" and their pimped outs who simply run the lives of all others like Bashar does and Momar did?
Spitting into the wind gets tiresome. The money tossed at politicians and the corporate ownership of media outlets work against us. The sixties are over! We got clear cutting and strip mining outlawed. Seriously we did! Can't you tell?
Fact is that we are more concerned with putting food on the table today than with our grandchildren growing up in a world of famine and thirst.
it is all about OWNERSHIP. think this thru. all the way thru. you are on to it!
Joe, the conclusion I've come to is that none of this would be happening if we didn't have an economic system that depended upon growth to remain functional.
If climate change stands to be as bad as every scientist who's looking at it says it will be, then that would mean the we can forget about the A-bomb. Capitalism is the most deadly thing mankind has ever invented.
I imagine it's because of industrialization. There's such a big disconnect now between what you purchase and where it came from, people just don't see the impact. Pollution used to be highly localized and very lethal - companies would dump heavy metals and toxins right into rivers that people drank from. Turns out, when you see and feel the impact of that pollution, you get pretty incentivized to stop it.
Contrast that to climate change. There are no central sources - the CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels...in cars, in factories, in forest fires. Each one of these sources only composes part of the total CO2 being dumped into the atmosphere, so it's hard to see how me driving my car is making the entire atmosphere of the whole planet worse.
I get your point Coke. Though I would argue that people DO realize their small part in the big problem. Thus they recycle (if they can), keep their cars tuned up and working right, etc. But once they have accomplished that bit, they are at a loss of what more to do, no matter how serious the problem is.
Write my congressman? somewhat laughable, since they can't find their collective ass with both hands right now. You know what I mean?
Van, do a google search of "Why is Venus' surface temperature 800 degrees?" I'll give you a hint. It starts with a C, It has an O and it ends in a 2.
Looking at the chart, it seems there's a nosedive right around the time the economy began to implode. It makes me think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When life is good, and we have the luxury of plenty of time for leisure, we can turn our thoughts outward to what's going on around us. But when things are tight, when we're scrabbling around to make ends meet, anxious whether we'll have a job or a home in six months, then we're more likely to focus inward, and concepts such as climate change, pollution, and so forth are no longer as important or relevant to our lives, as they're not as immediate to us as our basic needs.
Exactly what I was thinking.
Well, I certainly haven't lost my zeal for this cause...
My inbox is full of alerts about the horrible attempts to roll back the wolf reintroduction in the West even though the science shows it was the single most significant event in revitalizing Yellowstone's ecosystem since the land was set aside as a National Park.
Here on Planet Utah, one of the road hunter crowd has asked the legislature for $300K for lobbying efforts to remove wolves from the Endangered Species list even thought there are none known to be in the state...
I just think it's "Liars fatigue"; there are so many out there shoveling the shinola--including a lot of junk science--that we all have to pick-and-choose our battles...
Time to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable...
And the bottom line is we need to put a condom on the population problem...
I think the support is out there, but I also think the media directs that support. The more they write about what's new on twitter the less they address real life concerns like stories about the environment. People then become less aware of shady business deals going through that help destroy the world one small cut at a time. Only the most dedicated are keeping the real issues alive.
I was just asking my 70-year-old aunt who lives about a county over from the projected path of the Keystone Pipeline, to see how she feels about it. This Nebraska Republican replied. "I don't like it. We only have one water table, and if we lose that, we're sunk."
Truer words were never spoken.
Honestly, I've stopped worrying about the environment just like I've stopped worrying about retirement. I don't expect to live long enough for lack of a safety net to be a problem for me nor do I expect to live long enough to see the Great Die-Off that will cause Van Roberto's children and grand-children to die like miserable peasants in a Third World country. The human race has chosen self-extermination, and I can no longer be bothered to care.
We do not agree. You disgust me beyond words. I merely accept that stupid people like you will kill the rest of us through greater numbers. I hope you will be man enough before you die to explain to your children how much you hate them and want them to suffer during the Great Die-Off. I'm certain they'll hate you even more.
Or it could just be that most people view climate and processes deemed "natural" as things they cannot control.
There could be many reasons - here is one - it could be the world public "mood" relative to the economy. When times are good, the world public appears to give environmental issues a higher ranking. When things are not so good - priorities shift.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/12/chapter-1-the-national-report-card/
http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm
In 2004 one survey showed that Europeans ranked environmental issues to be as important as social and economic issues.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2005/2005-05-02-02.asp
I think part of it is, despite the best efforts of a lot of bright people, it's just too big, and requires too much sustained effort to deal with it. People's attention span just doesn't go that far for that long.
lets talk about real problems. some time ago i watched a special on global warming. the scientists were drilling core samples in arctic ice. then they took the frozen samples back to the lab to study them. the result. about 250 years ago they began to see from the ice that the atmosphere was starting to slowly change. and of course that time frame coinsides with expansion to america and to many other places on earth. we were able to direct ships too and from almost anywhere we wanted to. so what does this common event have to do with the enviroment? let me give you a hint. we needed homes and furniture. of course, trees! prior to that time people used small amounts of wood that was easy to gather. we began to clear fairly large tracts of land for farming. we took the trees and just burned them if there was no easy access to a river to move them. we are still doing the same thing today in south america and the u.s.a., only on a smaller scale. in my state 100 years ago there were vast forests with huge, old, trees. sadly today much of that is gone. so when people talk about the enviroment i believe we need to talk about planting literally billions of trees. as everyone knows trees convert co2 to oxygen. so the question becomes, do we need to continue to cut down the trees that have helped us for hundreds if not thousands of years. some day in the distant future mankind may come up with an energy source that doesn't throw out co2 in large quantities. now i know about wind and solar but it can only scratch the surface in supplying the energy we need as a country and as a planet. i believe we need to restart some initiatives that have been on going for some time. we need trees, trees, trees! i do not believe we fully understand the impact that trees have had on our world. i think its time for us to do whats right. lets start planting together!
Hey Rach, when are you gonna comment on this?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2992736/posts
You little blurb came from Free Republic, not exactly a credible site.
The planet will be "fatigued" with our race that it will cure with a nice sauna.