They don't know any better, the Right has them brainwashed into thinking "Think things are bad now, the scary liberals will make it worse you temporarily embarrassed millionaire you."
Utilitarianism: burning down their capital makes a lot of emissions in a short period of time, but we can restrict them more as they rebuild so it eliminates far more future emissions.
Well yes, but have you considered that it makes me feel better to believe that the cause of this is something beyond my control, i.e. everyone else being more stupid than me, more susceptible to the wrong propaganda, etc., instead of being something I could take action over, i.e. a protracted, not particularly well protected portion of the population being more powerful?
Well yes, but also the "them educated people are dumb as shit" idea is very real and doesn't need to be taught. probably goes back over 100 years now. I've heard my own family spout shit like that. It's not necessarily even stupidity in every case, it's just the idea that "you're not better than me" taken to an extreme
Nah, even really smart people can be tricked by propaganda. Human brains love patterns and propaganda works best by shoving information into your face multiple times over multiple sources. And when you see things from multiple sources saying the same thing, you're very likely to believe it.
When the science part of the brain sees information going against the beliefs held dearly, the science part just short circuits and starts twisting logic and facts into a pretzel until it fits the beliefs.
Very few of us are actually climate scientists. So ultimately we end up putting our trust in people who know more about it than we do.
Only some basic science knowledge is required to get the gist of what climate change is about. So it is easy enough for a non-scientist to understand what the causes are, roughly how it happens, and what the likely effects are. But it is also easy to 'understand' various alternative arguments about how the evidence is flawed or the effects won't matter, or that it is actually caused by something else, or whatever.
Each person can be manipulated at the point where their own understand starts to get blurry. For many people, that's means they are manipulated by some really basic crap - because they don't know much in the first place. But people who know more about science can still be tricked and mislead by just some more advanced contrived science-like reasoning just on the boundaries of what the person already understands.
And that's why the anti-action arguments seems to have an endless number of layers. Including 'its not happening', 'it's happening by it is due to natural cycles not humans', 'it is caused by humans, but it is not harmful', 'it's harmful, but manageable', 'it's harmful and totally unavoidable and therefore we should ignore it'; and so on. The arguments are often contradictory, but they are actually aimed at different groups of people.
But the rich aren't getting less richer. They are rich and wealth begets wealth. They divest move their investments and leave their bribed politicians as the bag holders and so we're fucked even more
They will simply invest in renewables. It's the short-term profits that they worry about. Rest assured they will continue to profit when things evolve.
They’re force-fed propaganda by their favorite media sources. They’re far less to blame than those generating and disseminating the propaganda. Pointing the finger at them is exactly how we divert our focus from the problem.
Well, no. They're wilfully ignorant, i.e. they deliberately ignore reality in order to maintain their twisted world view. The yokels are absolutely to blame.
Some are. Most are skeptical of anything outside their own understanding. It’s more of an issue of fear-induced loyalty than a choice made with the understanding of both sides. How often do you read Truth Social or Fox News? They’re heavily drenched in fear-mongering.
Most are skeptical of anything outside their own understanding.
Not true. They will readily agree to a lot of things that they don't understand as long as the "right" people tell them to agree.
You're right about the fear motive, but pure authoritarianism is a huge part of it too: if the leaders say it, they'll tend to not even consider disagreement an option.
Let's not forget that their poor understanding starts with poor education. I wonder if anyone in particular is working towards making education worse.....
Absolutely. School vouchers will only make things worse for the affected areas. All the more reason we should be focused on those sending the message over those repeating it. Their goal is to keep us fighting with one another instead of focusing on those creating the problem.
Yes. That is exactly what I think. All the relevant information is out there and easily accessible. You need to very much make a decision to ignore all this.
