Climate Change Denial

[Lynsey953]

I am interested to know why so many people do not believe in climate change/don't want to do anything about it. I am definitely someone who does their best to limit waste and live as sustainably as possible as I believe that we should take care of all life on this planet. However so many around me don't recycle and buy for convenience - shein, Amazon etc ... Not to mention people who leave lights on all day and my granny who has her heating on ridiculously high! She's definitely in the Id rather be toasty than protect the planet category.
I am fascinated by people's thoughts on this, especially if they differ from my own.

I suspect you'll get some pretty vitriolic answers but I think there are a few factors.

First, people don't understand science, they don't understand how science is done. In particular I don't think the media understands science so when most people get their information from very poor media it's not surprising.

Humans haven't evolved to look very far into the future, not so long ago storing grain overwinter would be a long-term plan. Planning 10, 20, 30 years ahead is pretty weird TBH.

To in essence the truth is pretty incomprehensible, and the actions we need to take are very often.completely distorted.

People don't want to change their lifestle. They want to eat meat, fly to exotic places and buy into the American drwam. People don't generally want to live in a yurt in the wilderness growing orhanic veg ( although sometimes that sounds lovely!) .

I guess people are suspicious because the people who lecture us on climate change usually seem to be the ones who fly round in private jets. And despite what you are told in the news, even the scientists can't agree on the subject. See exactly what I mean here in this short video:

There aren’t many climate deniers these days, just people who don’t want to change or adapt. They’re listening to peak mainstream news via social media feeds, not seeking out scientists. As for your nan, I’ll bet her lifetime footprint is much much lighter than younger generations’.

I would say there are more 'climate deniers' (or realists) around these days, and growing. As people realise as our living standards deteriorate, yet our cost of living increases, that we can't afford to spend as a nation, 30 billion + a year on reducing CO2 whilst the Chinese and Indian economies power ahead of us based on the use of cheap, reliable, fossil fuel. And the science isn't even close to being settled. Realism has to bite us all at some point IMO.

You need to do some proper research on
The cost of not dealing with climate change ( not just financial)
The level of non fossil fuel energy development
The ratios of views on climate change, amongst climate scientists

Other than that...great

If you've been to the US recently you'll realise how futile our attempts are. I went for work and popped into Walmart. They INSIST on giving you a disposable plastic bag pretty much for every item. Most food places still use polystyrene packaging (we had ditched that by the mid 90s?) the food waste is astronomical.

It shouldn't be a race to the bottom but if you spent all year denying yourself and then see that it is literally all undone in an hour is pretty depressing

The plastic in the oceans, the rubbish in landfill, the destruction of natural habitats..they bother me. Supermarkets don’t need to wrap everything in plastic.

It’s ludicrous that we import saplings to plant here. Just think about that. We dig them up. We move them. Then plant them.

This all bother me way more.

Well OP, leaving lights on- although unnecessary- doesn't actually use very much energy, especially now that bulbs are low energy.

As for your grandma, it depends what kind of heating she has and how well her house is insulated as to how high her emissions are.

I really dislike the implication that you have to suffer in order to live responsibly as far as climate change is concerned. It's possible to have low emissions and still be warm and toasty if you have a well insulated house and electric heating, preferably a heat pump. In fact, every year it becomes more eco friendly to run electric heating as the share of our energy generated by renewable means increases. But not everyone can achieve this without help.

There are those out there who like to rubbish that idea- the gas boiler industry has put quite a lot of money into generating negative publicity against heat pumps, for example!

I realise I've written several paragraphs, which I suppose is why people switch off- it's a complex subject and requires a lot of thought and research, while "common sense" climate denial one liners are spoon-fed to the public constantly by a well funded lobbying industry.

Probably in the time it took to write this another 10 posts will have landed regurgitating the same crashing, easily debunked fallacies again and again....🙄

It's like everything else in life. The media get more clicks out of saying "just ignore that worrying news", science/data too hard to explain, so the more publicly attractive message gets the headlines until people start believing it. To the exclusion of the truth. See also: Brexit, HS2, immigration...

It's very hard for people to relate to an issue that affects people on the other side of the world, or years in the future. It's just too indirect even when food prices in Asda are going up because of crop failures etc.

A lot is being done in some parts of industry/economy to decarbonise, it's not just down to your granny turning down her heating.

I've been cycling everywhere, holidaying in the uk and washing yoghurt pots since the 1990's but let's be honest, it doesn't help that Labours climate Tsar has racked up 157,000 air miles in a year and over 100 private jets we used at COP 30. If there's one that that really pisses people off its snotty officials playing do as I say, not as I do.