Wanted: an eco prophet--People are drifting into a lethal slumber on climate change. ...

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/07/climate-change-inertia-prophet

Wanted: an eco prophet

People are drifting into a lethal slumber on climate change. More of the same won't wake them up

Peter Preston
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 March 2010 19.30 GMT

It's an exceptionally inconvenient truth. http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming">Only one American in three believes that human beings are responsible for climate change: a polling result 10% down on where opinion rested the year before. Worse, the number of Americans who believe that climate change is a hoax or a scientific conspiracy – not doubting, just damned blank certain – has doubled since 2008. Add in those who assert that the changes, if any, are of "no significant concern", and you've got 30% of the US denying, scoffing and just walking on by.

Are the issues clearer, the people more committed, here in Britain? Call for the latest evidence from Ipsos Mori – and find that the proportion of UK adults who believe that global warming is "definitely" a reality http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/23/british-public-belief-climate-poll">has plummeted from 44% to 31% in the last 12 months. Figures like these, on both sides of the Atlantic, are getting more sceptical week by week. The real change of electoral climate is that fewer and fewer voters pay any heed to scientists and politicians.

It isn't hard to collate the factors that drive disillusion. Professors with a colloquial touch writing http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/01/phil-jones-climate-science-emails-select-committee-hearing">"awful" emails; a recession so tough that it blows future shock away; a cold, cold winter the Met Office didn't forecast; scientific angst about swine flu revealed as way over the top; dodgy figures, dodgy reporting, dodgy issues way up to UN level.

These are only a few of our least favourite things. Mix them together in the stew of pre-election politics, and the result is lethal inertia. Once upon a quite recent time, David Cameron seemed bent on playing a new green giant. Now he's just another family-friendly campaigner, keen on pressing pounds sterling into sweaty palms. Environmental issues have slithered down the greasy pole of public anxiety. They won't get much of a mention on the hustings in May: no fresh commitments, no crucial pledges. In one sense, the heat may by rising; in another, the heat is off.

...

[kestrel91316]

1. Sadly, that just plays right into the hands of those RWers who

sneeringly call environmentalists "religious fanatics" and "cultists".

Like that guy who posts on E/E sometimes, let's see, what IS his name, lol?

[guardian]

2. Correction: it's more of a smirk than a sneer. n/t

[tom_paine]

6. Your smirk might carry more weigh if you knew the first thing about science

or scientific method.

But you don't, as has been demonstrated repeatedly.

[guardian]

3. He's still there.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_oinion/oped/articles/2010/03/03/gore_still_hot_on_his_doomsday_rhetoric/

[pscot]

4. People won't take it seriously

until it begins to bite.

[hatrack]

5. I wouldn't worry too much about it - once things get bad enough, we'll have plenty of "prophets"

The problem, of course, is what they'll be preaching, and my guess is that it won't be about the need for reasoned, rational responses.

[tom_paine]

7. Sure we will, and they will say the same thing they always have "Kill the Liberals, Jews, Witches,

Gays, whatever."

Yawn.

History is boring. Murderous and replete with examples of "the bad guys" ("the booted and spurred" aristocrats, as Jefferson called them) just winning and winning and winning, but boring because it's always the same and it always ends up the same.

"Kill the Liberals."

[Nihil]

8. There you go then: a "Communal Bio-fuel Initiative" combined with a revival of tradition ...

... burning the "others" at the stake in the village square, just like
their great-great-great-grandparents used to!

Ideal for marshmallows, crumpets and jacket potatoes fuelled by the
natural oils & fats of the unwanted parts of the community ...

:evilgrin: