As midterm elections loom in the U.S., and other countries edge into their own respective election cycles, the issue of climate change has been sidelined and pushed out of the limelight by a fierce global debate over everything from the economy to immigration.
But, nothing could be more important to the global community right now than coming together to agree on a global warming policy and abide by it. Copenhagen was disastrous failure, China’s energy consumption is growing exponentially, and the U.S. has failed to assume leadership on the world stage in regards to revisiting climate talks, although nothing can happen until we do.
Millennials have reported, in overwhelming numbers, that climate change is a top issue in their political decision-making process. In a recent Gallup poll, 58 percent of Millennials surveyed said protecting the environment should be given priority “even at the risk of curbing economic growth.”
Is it a top issue to you? Are you frustrated by the lack of a cohesive climate change policy?
Photo by @superamit
Perhaps when the issue is more than a political boondogle, with much more commerce on both sides than pure science, more people beyond the upper class will get behind this. As it stands now, the true consensus among academics is that the IPCC needs to start functioning like a scientific community and less like a propaganda machine. The hottest year on record is 12 years ago, yet CO2 in the atmosphere has skyrocketed in this time; hence they rebranded from Global Warming to the even vaguer term of climate change. What has been passing as “scientific fact” keeps getting torn to shreds when reviewed in depth. http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2010/08/climate_change_and_ipcc
If they want to tax energy for revenue then just call it a tax on energy! Most of the issues that the Left & Right disagree on are either religious or financial in nature and climate change has been proving to have both these qualities: on one end you have blind-faith zealots preaching that everyone be mandated to live their lives according to a new set of rules, and on the other end you have a group of people with strong ties to an industry that will be crippled if the other side gets their way.
The fact of the matter is that support for climate change is a luxury good (http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5423), hence it is a cause championed by affluent white suburbanites. The people who are already living paycheck to paycheck are a whole lot more protective of what’s left of the money they earn. The same people preaching polar Armageddon now were also preaching a pending ice age back in the 70′s, back when we were in a period of cooling, due to… co2 from fossil fuels.
Climate scientists make as many mistakes and false conclusions as possible for one considered a scientist can. It may be due to the fact that they’re trying to guess the behavior of a system so complex it’s beyond human comprehension. When the IPCC starts publishing legitimate science, that’s not carried out in bias, actually reviewed, and transparent, skeptics like myself may start to view the ecovangelists as more than just a cult. However before they start making 10, 20, and 100 years projections of doom, perhaps they can increase the accuracy of their 10 day forecasts?