Why Americans don't care about climate change. An interesting theory.

It's hard to convince people to try sleeping through a sweltering summer night without using their AC to keep the world from overheating or getting a break from a North Dakota winter by flying to St. Croix when they know damn well doing so will accomplish nothing. And really, few Americans are much affected by climate change. Yes, a number of people have lost homes to widlfires or beach front property to storms but that's a really, really, small fraction of the US population and those things were happening long before Al Gore was toilet trained. I think it's less a matter of Americans not caring about climate change than of Americans not believeing anything they do is going to have anymore than symbolic significance.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/your-electric-car-and-vegetarian-diet-are-pointless-virtue-signalling-in-fighting-climate-change-2019-12-26

You're right. It doesn't seem practical right now. Maybe someday it could.

Hopefully Disney World's insurance will go away and a hurricane will solve the problem.

I understand our lives depend on the energy oil supplies, and we are not going to give up our lives. We might change them in ways that are equally comfortable and more sustainable if it's cheaper. What is more practical is to bank all oil profits towards mitigation of climate change, resiliency, building green energy, and research.

China and India are only "causing climate change" in the sense they are manufacturing products to sell to Americans and Europeans.

*Basically we've offshored our emissions to Asia and now blame them*

Also, America and particularly Europe have been making major contributions to climate change for 250+ years since the start of the industrial revolution, whereas China's only been a high emitter for ~30

Put a punitive tax on frequent flyers then! Tax the rich!

Or probably because the same people who push climate change hysteria have been demonstrated to be proven liars on Russiagate, Covid, inflation, Biden isn't senile, Trump called white supremacist's very fine people, and everything in between.

That and Americans, especially those who don't live in progressive cities, more so than any other nations population despise government dictates and don't want to be told what to do.

Apparently you think a retired politician should avoid taking actions which can arguably be construed, symbolically, as hypocritical compared to positions they took as politicians.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt about "Keeping it Real", I won't bother with arguments about symbolism. As the liberal economist John Maynard Keynes said 100 years ago: "In the long run we are all dead."

Obama's run is not going be that long, he probably figures that despite global warming being a serious long term problem, he will still be able to enjoy his seaside house for the rest (25 or so years) of his life.

You're welcome.

Glad we agree!

I figure the same as Obama: despite global warming being a serious long term problem, I'm going to keep enjoying my ICE car and jet skis, keep flying around the country and world visiting interesting places, and keep my house on the temperature I feel most comfortable at.

Thanks!

There's a real gap between what we're told about this issue and what nearly all of us experience with this issue. The predictions about the disasterous consequnces of climate change are largely predicted to happen late in this century or early in the next one. Not only will I be dead then but almost everyone over twenty will be. And these are predictions. It's not like someone from 2099 has come back in a time machine to tell us how awful it's gotten.

How many of us have been really affected by climate change, i.e.,lost a house to a wild fire, become a climate refugee, etc.? If all I knew about climate or weather was from experience I'd see no problem at all. I'd note that summers seem to be more humid than they once were, though they've always been humid much of the time. Winters have been milder. I'd have noticed this if all I knew of climate came from experience and I'd like it, less snow removal to deal with. None of this would seem like a reason to lower my standard of living voluntarily. There's just no disastrous consequence that seems even remotely imminent.

I don't believe the issue is so much that Americans don't care about climate change as that except for people who are deeply into this issue there's just no sense of urgency in terms of dealing with it because the observed effects are just not as dire as we're told they are.

It’s a theory…. Not interesting though

When the world completely floods, burns, rots, overheats and swelters to literal death, no species will deserve it more than Americans.

Well it’s because all the workers are told to do with less for the environment while those with money and power are not in the name of profit. An entire town can zero scape their yards, while all the businesses water their grass at 2 in the afternoon and keep their stores at 65 degrees

What is with the American bashing? jealous because we rocked Paris?

Calls Americans illiterate and then says "that us buy." This is peak LR right here.

In ten years farming will fail and there will be no food!

there are probably 15 grammar mistakes in my original post why pick that one

maybe because it's the one that makes you feel clever.

it just makes you look like a grammar pedant without a good point

i'm not writing a ministerial brief, i'm writing for letsrun posters showing no awareness of per capita emissions, upstream or scope 3 emissions, historical carbon contributions or concept of climate justice

any contribution there is useful, even one with the grammar pedant police on it's case.

my original point stands, exactly as communicated

Wow is this ever a huge pile of horse sheet!!

Wow is this ever a huge pile of horse sheet!!

Too bad we probably aborted the people who could solve this crisis.