Climate change....is the truth that we are too apathetic to care?
When we are presented with the doomsday predictions of climate change, do many of us think along the line..."Sorry...too busy, got other things to worry about" In the 13 years since Kyoto, if a person sees absolutely no change to the environment they personally live in, aren't they inclined not to be fazed? Summers are just as they remember, Winters are just as they remember. It is human nature to be slow to react. Even events of massive human tragedies like earthquakes, floods and tsunamis soon fade from memory. Humans worry more about the here and now, the global financial crisis, losing the house, being able to put food on the table. In a lifetime, no human is going to notice any effects of climate change, so is it fair to say, that would be a reason a lot of people don't give a damn about it and don't share the passion of the "true believers"?
2010-09-03T16:51:45Z
@ Dana...my point entirely, and by your own admission..climate change is not exactly "smacking us in the face". Remember too, that there are contributors here considerably older than you and I am one of those and sadly am approaching the end of my lifetime here, so the "naivety" you suggest is in fact observation of reality.
Cool L2010-09-03T17:04:32Z
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The polls show that a majority of people around the world are very worried about climate change, but they do not know what to do about it, and when they think about it, they feel fearful, and fear is immobilizing.
When most people think of what we need to do to stop global warming, they list personal actions, like driving less. However, their alternatives are limited. Walkers and bicyclers venture out in peril for their lives in many places. Public transportation in the US is pitifully underfunded and inadequate. And why? Because the automobile, oil and highway business have received massive public subsidies. So this is not a matter of personal choice, but of faulty systemic planning.
Now, let's be fair. Before 1980, climate science did not exist. Before sophisticated computers, it was not possible to make the calculations of zillions of measurements and calculations to figure it out. Then, the first predictions were that the carbon overload from burning fossil fuels would warm the Earth slowly, and give us time to study it, and figure out what to do. Within two decades, those first predictions were shown to have seriously underestimated the speed and the intensity of climate change. So it really has only been 10 years since the real urgency of solving this NOW has been clear.
At that point, the US had the abysmal bad luck to elect to the presidency a man who had owned an oil company. And what did he do, this oil man who had minimal educational background in science, and but a brilliant team of wordsmiths? He said that we are all 'addicted to oil.' He also censored science about global warming, reduced funding for satellite research and took advice on it from a novel writer with a great imagination.
So the it is no wonder that the US population is confused and discouraged. We need now the leadership of the US and corporate interests to adopt a policy which deals realistically with the facts of climate change and undertakes the reasonable investment to stop it.
The idea that we are addicted to oil has stuck in the popular mind frame. It implies that we the people are to blame, that we are weak and undisciplined, and that if we could only kick the habit, that the problem would be solved. Total rubbish!
We have been lured, waylaid, ambushed and trapped. Memos from the Petroleum Institute from the mid 1990s reveal their massively funded campaign, hiring scientists, journalists and public relations specialists to convince the American public that climate change is too uncertain for us to take action to stop it. A comparison of the Congressional votes on legislation to help the US switch to clean energy, shows a direct correlation between negative votes and campaign contributions from the oil and related industries. See Science as a Contact Sport by Stephen Schneider, Climate Cover-Up by Hogan, and Doubt is their Product by Michaels give details of these events.
So now, is it too late? No. Now is the time for people of conscience and courage to make solving this problem a part of their lives. About a 120 years ago, people in the US lived about half as long as they live today, partly because the knowledge of basic hygiene had not yet spread through the population.
We can educate others, spread the word, and encourage everyone we know to join. Millions of citizens, who understand the truth and demand that their elected officials stop funding future catastrophe can break through the gridlock, and put us back onto the path towards a vibrant, safe, clean and sustainable economy.
Some organizations that have websites that can help citizens get educated and start a weekly habit of lobbying decisions makers are:
http://ucsusa.org http://greenpeace.org or http://pirg.org. or http://nrdc.org or http://1sky http://globalchange.gov is the US government information site on global warming.
Guy Dauncey's book, Climate Challenge, 101 Solutions to Global Warming has great ideas and excellent, up to date, scientific explanations. ($12 on Amazon)
One of the things about climate change is that the effects are insidious, there are no dramatic changes from one year to the next and so the gradual changes go un-noticed.
It’s the same situation we observe in our friends and families. On a day to day basis we don’t notice that they’ve changed but looking back at photos from 10 or 20 years ago and the changes are quite dramatic. If you were able to be transported back in time by 50 or 100 years the difference in climatic conditions would be quite noticeable.
Summers and winters are not as I remember them to be. Here in the UK, everyone who is old enough to remember, will immediately identify 1976 as being the year of the long hot summer. It sticks in people’s minds because it was exceptional. The reality is that temperatures have been exceeded the 1976 value in 15 different years since then. These higher temperatures have become the norm so they go unnoticed.
It’s exactly the same with other weather anomalies. Again, here in the UK there has been a tripling in the number of flood events, in recent years most major towns and cities have experienced flooding. It happens that often these days that it’s become the norm. In the US the number of category 5 hurricanes has more than doubled, globally the incidence of heatwaves has more than doubled.
These changes have been slow and progressive and as such they tend to go unnoticed, it’s only by looking at the historical data that a true and accurate assessment of the changes can be made. I wonder just how many skeptics and deniers have ever conducted such a statistical analysis.
I’ve noticed very significant changes in winter conditions as well. For fun I go mountaineering, skiing, snowboarding etc. Many mountains that I climbed in the 1980’s and 1990’s necessitated navigation over glacial approaches, today many of those same mountains can be approached along glacier free valleys. Snow lines are higher than they used to be and this has led to the foreshortening of ski runs, numerous resorts now have ski-tows in places where there is hardly any snow.
We have some properties that are in very remote locations, several miles off the public roads. It used to be accepted that anyone staying there during the winter months would get snowed in, in recent years that has barely happened.
If you look at evidence it becomes impossible to believe that the climate hasn’t changed significantly. The evidence can be found in the historical data records, photographic documents, historical journals and reports, naval logs, it’s everywhere.
Turning to your specific question as to whether we’re too apathetic to care. What you’ll find is that the US is just about the only country in the world where there exists a substantial number of deniers. In a global poll conducted by World Public Opinion it was found that 90% of the global population considered climate change to be either a ‘serious’ or ‘very serious’ threat, only 8% of respondents didn’t consider it to be such a threat (the remaining 2% had no opinion or didn’t answer).
"Summers are just as they remember, Winters are just as they remember."
no it may be like that for you and the folks that live in the USA or Europe. i live in India and the summers are getting hotter each year. and the winters are getting shorter and cooler. this year the temperature in summer reached to 46.7C where i live in the a town in western India. it registered a record of 10 years. usually its max around 45C during the summer. but this year it reached 46.7C. last year too, it broke the record of few years. we are seeing irregular rainfall during monsoon in the recent years. see the recent floods in Pakistan. it broke the record of 50 years. the winter in Britain broke the record of 100 years. now i know someone can argue this is not causing due to global warming but we cant just sit there and continue to be careless about the environment. the whole American economy is based on use of oil and consumerism, which is the major reason for global warming. they use 10 times the oil compared to India while their population is just one fourth of India. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption this gives u an idea how much oil they are using and their government is hypocrite when they say they care about the environment. the whole UN is just a puppet to the USA. why the USA is not a part of the Kyoto protocol inspite of being the biggest polluter.
Most people are, yes. Including those who naively believe "In a lifetime, no human is going to notice any effects of climate change."
Unfortunately people are very bad at preparing for long-term problems. If it's not smacking us in the face, we tend to ignore it. Climate change isn't quite smacking us in the face yet, and by the time it does, it will be too late to do much about it.