Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumWhy Are We Giving the Silent Treatment to the Crisis Which Could Make All Others Irrelevant?
http://www.alternet.org/environment/bill-moyers-why-are-we-giving-silent-treatment-crisis-which-could-make-all-others***SNIP
Tony Leiserowitz, welcome.
ANTHONY LEISEROWITZ: Oh thank you, Bill, it's great to be here.
BILL MOYERS: What did you mean that we almost couldn't design a problem that is a worse fit with our underlying psychology? What did you mean by that?
ANTHONY LEISEROWITZ: Well, look, as human beings we are exquisitely attuned to what's happening in our immediately environment and what we can see around us and what literally touches us physically.
If you're walking through the woods and you hear the crack of a stick behind you, your body immediately goes into a fear response, a fight or flight response. Climate change isn't that kind of a problem. It's not an immediate, visceral threat.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)We can't permit a carbon gap!
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Only when it rises up to bite someone personally in the ass do they even begin to think about the problem, and then, again, they have no clue what to do.
And please, don't suggest a "carbon tax" will do anything to slow the problem. While I applaud the intentions of those who back such plans, I've yet to see anything that suggests one could actually work.
indepat
(20,899 posts)man foolishly continues to think and act as if life will always be the same. When 10% of today's Florida has been claimed by the ocean, Republics might acknowledge climate change is real, but it will almost assuredly be too late to reverse what has become irreversible.
We've been here since almost the beginning...6000 years ago.
Duh.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)there is an accident blocking the road, do you worry about what caused it before you take your foot off the gas?
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)It really resonated with me when he spoke about his favorite spot and seeing it change being his wake-up call. For myself it was exactly the same situation except for oak & redwood trees.
People who are connected to the land, who can see the changes happening, many of them are starting to wake up by themselves. I've spoke with them. Hard right leaning people who for as long as I have know them, hated environmental & species protecion acts. For as much as they have been taught to hate them, they have a love of the land they grew up on. That their families grew up on and that appears to overshadow any corporate sponsored training.
Sadly, for those isolated in steel forests, very few will feel that connection. Even more so on the hard right. I don't know how they can be reached, or at the very least, reached in time to avert the worst case scenarios. They are the captains of industry. The CEO's of Anything for a Buck Inc. They will never tire in the relentless pursuit of putting fiduciary responsibility ahead of moral, ethical or religious sentiments. I fear our only hope is that those who do still put some stock into those sentiments start holding less stock of those opposed to them.
RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)Why is everyone fiddling while our planet burns?
reteachinwi
(579 posts)abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)here's the video...
Kurovski
(34,655 posts)Aint I something?
I found the outline of the 6-or-so different types of people's response to the crisis interesting. if scientists could get together with Hollywood and the weather channel maybe they could create an experiential and therapeutic modality that would instigate the required sense of panic and horror before real panic and horror become pedestrian occurrences.