Why do you think people reject the need to act on the climate crisis, even in the face of evidence.

[Smash!]

This may be an unpopular opinion and I'm prepared for downvotes. I try to be as eloquently as possible but English isn't my first language:
What I see in my country is that the whole climate debate has become religious in the sense that both sides think they are right and have the only solution and the other side is wrong instead of actually listening to reach other instead of finding the common ground which is climate change is real and it's important to do something. The way this change should happen differs in my opinion.
I'm a heavy critic of Greta Thunberg and the climate change movement she represents. That doesn't make me a climate change denier (I work at a big university) nor do I not want to make a change. But the way my government handles it and the bills they decided on will have the effect that life will get much more expensive. If you put a CO2 tax on gas, jet fuel, prohibit house heaters with mineral oil etc. the result will be that food, goods, electricity etc. will get much more expensive. Add all that to the rising costs of rent, health insurance and public transport (our public transport company is playing with the idea of charging the rush hours more because the trains are cramped during those times) and a lot of people will fall into poverty who are now solid middle class. Such plans only work if you simultaneously extend social welfare or support the alternatives with government money. At least here that's not the case and I'm honestly worried about my standard of living, meaning not being suddenly poor.
Here the plan seems to be that paying for climate change will the middle class and the poor, while the industries are spared out. What about for example the packaging industry? There are already shops where you can get you rice, cereal etc. from big spenders. You bring your own container and pay according to the weight. If we had this in all shops, we could save a lot of plastic. But interestingly our politicians have no interest in stuff like this. Maybe because nowadays you can make money off of climate change?
Another point is, I firmly believe we don't have to sacrifice our technological progress like flying to climate change. There are a lot of promising findings in research, but they need more money. Because climate change is so urgent countries should put more money into the research in climate neutral materials, cities etc. But that isn't the case, in contrary they cut research funds.
Plus, climate change should be a global effort. As long as China and South East Asia are developing in the pace they are doing now there will be more CO2 in the air every year and more people flying than ever. So we cut our CO2 (which is good) but it's no use overall. I don't have a solution for this.
So long story short: Yes climate change his happening but I'm not happy and critizise the way our government handles it heavily. I'm sure there would be more sustainable solutions but those are more difficult to reach because it needs a system change and it would affect the big industries. But of course it's easier to simply put a tax on gas and tell the public they don't care how to all afford it.

[formergothardite]

2 hours ago, Smash! said:

and a lot of people will fall into poverty who are now solid middle class.

The same thing will happen if drastic changes aren't made, though. It is happening now. In my state, people who were solid middle class have lost everything because we now get hit with horrible hurricanes each year. They can't rebuild these houses and businesses yearly. Industries that kept people middle class are now being lost over climate change. It used to be a huge thing for people from the cities to come to the country and the mountains to see the leave change color. Now the leaves don't change color because it stays so hot. They just turn brown and fall off. No one is coming to see that, so people who were depending on the Autumn tourist money now are losing that income. Same with the ski industry, whole towns are based around that and it is hard to have a ski business when it is too hot to even blow snow. 

We have had horrible droughts that made it hard on the small farmers who are middle class and then it would switch to like last year where it rained non-stop which caused flooding that also made if harder for the smaller farmers to make ends meet. 

The idea that we can't make huge changes because it will make things cost more is BS because not making huge changes is also making things cost more. Things are going to cost more either way, we might as well go the way that will hopefully save our world. 

I do think that the big industries should bear a lot of the costs and that the government needs to expand programs to help people. Here for that to happen we will need to get rid of the entire republican party and make drastic changes to how special interest groups can funnel money to politicians. I would love if I could take a train places instead of driving, but the auto industry doesn't want that to happen. They don't want people to start driving less and taking public transportation more so they will fight it and pay off politicians. 

2 hours ago, Smash! said:

There are already shops where you can get you rice, cereal etc. from big spenders. You bring your own container and pay according to the weight.

I would love if grocery stores went this route, but again, as long as the republican party has any control in America it won't happen. Hell, they went into irrational screaming at the idea of reusable straws. 

The factory farming here is America is awful for the environment, but politicians are afraid of doing anything because they will be accused of attacking American farmers, It doesn't matter that in NC some of the big hog farms are actually owned by people from China. They don't want to risk the smear campaigns that make it look like that are putting farmers out of business. Plus they are afraid of making the cost of meat go up. 

We are long past the time for making tiny changes, big changes are necessary and it will be hard. But we once lived in more environmentally friendly ways, and not even that long ago. Even in my childhood people got things repaired instead of replaced. We didn't have cheap exotic fruit from all over the world available to us. It will take a change in attitude and lifestyle but there isn't really a lot of easy options at this point if we want our children to have a world. 

Sort of related, my oldest daughter was studying WW II and rations. We got into a discussion about how Americans would react now if their food was rationed. Being told that you can only have one cup of coffee a day?! Or a certain number of eggs each week? People would riot.  We have become a society that values cheap easy access  to the things we want over the good of the world and even our country. A shift in attitude is what is needed because if we continue doing what we are dong now, the people who are the most vulnerable are going to be the ones who suffer the most.

[fraurosena]

@Smash! I'm not going to downvote you. You have every right as everybody else to your own opinion. You have a different way of looking at things, and that's fine. However, I do have some commentary of my own. I hope you take it as a means to opening a discussion on the subject. 

2 hours ago, Smash! said:

But the way my government handles it and the bills they decided on will have the effect that life will get much more expensive.

What would you rather have: more expensive life, or no life at all? 

I realize that your commentary isn't about an unwillingness to change. But the necessary measures to combat climate change will bring costs with them. There simply isn't a way to avert it by only implementing measures that don't cost anything / less. That said, I think I understand the point you are trying to make: governments should look into how to implement measures that don't necessarily cost so much and still have the desired effect. And I agree with you that this is something that should be done. But sometimes, a measure that has more impact / or faster impact / better impact simply costs more. 

Should governments do cost-benefit analyses? Of course. They shouldn't blindly implement the first measures that come to their table, or the ones that they can implement the most easily. And the knock-on effects of any measure should be looked into before implementing them too.

Combatting climate change comes at a price. But not -- or half heartedly -- combatting climate change comes at the highest price.

I believe a lot of money can be gleaned from taking away subsidies that now go into intensive bio-industry and putting that money* instead towards effective measures for climate change. The bio-industry in my country, for example, is heavily subsidised in order to sustain it. But more than 80% of what they produce is exported to other countries, and we import the very same products from South America because they're cheaper... If this idiocy were to end (no more subsidies, no more import of products we make ourselves), it would not only garner finances for climate change measures, but it would also have the knock on effect that the Amazon won't be set alight in order to produce products we are producing ourselves, the amount of nitrogen we produce would be drastically reduced, and so on.

(*I'm over-simplifying how it would actually work, but it serves the purpose of the point I'm trying to make)

2 hours ago, Smash! said:

Here the plan seems to be that paying for climate change will the middle class and the poor, while the industries are spared out. What about for example the packaging industry? There are already shops where you can get you rice, cereal etc. from big spenders. You bring your own container and pay according to the weight. If we had this in all shops, we could save a lot of plastic. But interestingly our politicians have no interest in stuff like this. 

I heartily agree with you here. I believe that the 'polluters' should pay the price, and pay the price relative to the amount of pollution they produce. The more you contribute to pollution, the more you have to contribute to alleviate the consequences. That means that the industries should not be spared at all. But I also believe that individual consumers should try to reduce their own 'pollution' as much as they can. Bringing one's own containers to shops is a good example of something everyone can do. I don't think we actually need politicians to enforce this. People should just start doing it. 

2 hours ago, Smash! said:

Another point is, I firmly believe we don't have to sacrifice our technological progress like flying to climate change. There are a lot of promising findings in research, but they need more money. Because climate change is so urgent countries should put more money into the research in climate neutral materials, cities etc. But that isn't the case, in contrary they cut research funds

I can't disagree with you here. Technology is not by definition a bad thing. On the contrary, it could help us in combatting climate change. And yes, any research that serves that goal, should most certainly receive the funding it needs. I think it's time that priorities in that regard started changing. Politicians shouldn't be focussed on driving the economy, they should be focussed on how society survives. Economy serves society, not the other way around.

2 hours ago, Smash! said:

Plus, climate change should be a global effort. As long as China and South East Asia are developing in the pace they are doing now there will be more CO2 in the air every year and more people flying than ever. So we cut our CO2 (which is good) but it's no use overall. I don't have a solution for this.

Very true. Climate change should be a global effort. I don't have a ready solution either, except that we should be leading by example and exert all the efforts we can (political, diplomatic, economic or otherwise) to influence other countries and regions and convince them to also take the necessary actions. One scenario I can think of is that if we should develop technology (see above) that reduces the amount of pollution and is also cheaper than / costs just as much as conventional transport then China et al. would have no reason not to adopt them too (and maybe even copy the technology, making it even cheaper -- yeah, I can dream).

3 hours ago, Smash! said:

So long story short: Yes climate change his happening but I'm not happy and critizise the way our government handles it heavily. I'm sure there would be more sustainable solutions but those are more difficult to reach because it needs a system change and it would affect the big industries. But of course it's easier to simply put a tax on gas and tell the public they don't care how to all afford it.

I can only agree with this. 

I don't quite understand your criticism of Greta Thunburg though. All she's actually saying is that politicians should damn well get off their arses and do something about climate change already and stop focussing on economic benefits. The world is dying, do something!

[smittykins]

On FB, I’m seeing a lot of the same sentiment against Greta that there was against the Parkland survivors—that she’s being used as a tool by the “radical left,” and “what does she know, she’s just a child!”

[fraurosena]

11 minutes ago, smittykins said:

On FB, I’m seeing a lot of the same sentiment against Greta that there was against the Parkland survivors—that she’s being used as a tool by the “radical left,” and “what does she know, she’s just a child!”

When someone holds up a mirror and you don't like the reflection you see, it's always easier to attack the person for holding up the mirror than it is to change the cause of the reflection. 

[fraurosena]

 

[adidas]

Do the deniers need more evidence? Just send them here to Australia where yesterday when I got up in the morning it was barely out of the negatives (so it was cold) yet news of three people being killed in unprecedented bushfires hit our news. More are missing. The forecast is for complete catastrophe in the coming week - today we are updating our emergency evacuation survival kit. It isn’t even summer yet. 
What more evidence do the deniers need? 
Maybe they want to visit us in our upcoming summer. Wait until January or February to send them. I can’t imagine the horror we will have seen in another few months.

[formergothardite]

15 minutes ago, adidas said:

What more evidence do the deniers need? 

I watched something once where they interviewed these people who lived on the coast and whose houses were washing away. They were watching with their own eyes climate change destroy their homes and yet they still denied. There is no evidence that these people will believe. None. 

[unsafetydancer]

On 11/9/2019 at 11:44 PM, adidas said:

Do the deniers need more evidence? Just send them here to Australia where yesterday when I got up in the morning it was barely out of the negatives (so it was cold) yet news of three people being killed in unprecedented bushfires hit our news. More are missing. The forecast is for complete catastrophe in the coming week - today we are updating our emergency evacuation survival kit. It isn’t even summer yet. 
What more evidence do the deniers need? 
Maybe they want to visit us in our upcoming summer. Wait until January or February to send them. I can’t imagine the horror we will have seen in another few months.

This is awful. I hope that you manage to stay safe and that something can be done to mitigate the damage.

We have had a few "unprecedented" winters here in Scotland. The "Beast From the East" caused a lot of chaos and potentially even a few deaths. Businesses and members of the public were completely unprepared, despite repeated warnings from international weather monitoring agencies that there was a disaster coming. People took dangerous risks; my old employers sent me out with a team right into the middle of Fife. It's like a big bowl between two sets of hills and set a fair distance back from the sea. The snow falls right into the big bowl.

I am 5' 10" and the snow was up past my knees in some places, our car almost got buried and one member of our team started to show signs of hypothermia. I am an experienced outdoor girl and I had checked the weather and told my manager we were expecting severe cold weather and dangerous conditions, I was told I was being melodramatic. When I called to say I was abandoning that shift I was told our team would not be paid for the remaining 3 hours because we had "chosen" to go home. The company was later given a warning by Health and Safety authorities because they sent us to work outside in this with no way to keep warm.

The point is people were not prepared and are still not prepared for weather to get worse. There is a complete lack of any acknowledgement that climate change is putting people in danger and little desire to tackle it.

To answer your question: I don't think any amount of evidence will change people's minds for as long as the number one priority of our civilisation is to make more and more money and chase infinite growth on a finite planet. People don't want to listen because it might mean they have to challenge themselves to change their outlook.

[fraurosena]

Two years ago, we went to the tropical north of Australia where we had 33 degrees in summer... Hot, right?

This year, this is what the temperature was in our back yard, in the shade, at quarter past 6 in the evening:

So don't tell me there is no such thing as climate change.

[fraurosena]

So very much deserved.

 

[fraurosena]

Yes!! This is great news for my country-- and the rest of the planet. Finally the continued governmental stalling and procrastination on climate change actions will have to come to an end.