Survey finds: I care, but do nothing about it

[kanzeon_2040]

concern about climate change does not automatically translate into lifestyle changesIt's that "collective irresponsibility" problem I've mentioned before -- your own behaviors aren't enough to fix the climate, and you receive zero positive reinforcement from the environment with respect to your own behaviors. No matter what *you* do, the problem

Comments

[kanzeon_2040]

Thanks, I will take a look.

I'm not despairing ... I guess there's a difference between how I view human nature and my own personal despairs. My historical world-view takes in all the billions of years of life on this planet and I have no illusions that humanity will exist forever.

I'm willing to help organize and stuff, and I was more politically active before I became a federal employee subject to the Hatch Act, I just don't have optimism that activism will work on this particular problem -- it is huge and global. I think the only way out of this climate change box is if technology makes non-fossil energy so uneconomic to use, that nobody would bother to do it. So long as the fossil energy in the ground is worth $100 trillion, somebody is going to dig that up and burn it.

We need better fission and fusion power options, better batteries for storing solar and wind power ... we need something worth significantly more than $100 trillion to wipe out the fossil fuel extractors, or we will lose.

Slavery wasn't stamped out (and it still isn't totally stamped out) until manufacturing with wage labor became more productive. Something's got to become more productive than fossil fuels ... but even then, without a moral component to stamp out fossil fuels, like we stamped out slavery ... and will we have to fight the Petro states to make them stop, because it is yet cheaper for them to burn their own fossil fuel locally than to transport it around the globe?

[gonzo21]

No, but I think most people do despair, so they stick their heads in the sand and deny the problem. Which is probably the single biggest problem to be overcome. We've somehow got to find a way to connect to conservative minds that yes, we actually do need to do something.

Because at the moment in this country at least the climate change denying conservatives have transitioned from 'climate change is a hoax' to 'climate change is real but there's nothing we can do about it so there's no point even trying'.

But yeah, the other interesting thing about oil and gas reserves is the Russian equation, much of the worlds remaining oil and gas reserves are in Siberia, which are becoming exploitable now thanks to climate change. So putin is very very invested in making sure EU and American markets don't stop burning hydrocarbons.