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If people aren’t going to combat climate change on the bases of mass extinction and threat to all advanced civilization as we know it, I don’t expect they will

If people aren’t going to combat climate change on the bases of mass extinction and threat to all advanced civilization as we know it, I don’t expect they will be persuaded by ill health effects.

legutierr 5y ago
False. It’s not that hard to fool yourself into thinking that you will be able to navigate the societal disruption that will be caused by climate change, especially if you have money. If you have the resources you can move north, pay more for food, hide behind the security services. But no one wants to imagine living inside a literal bubble or seeing their grandkids crippled by CO2 poisoning. Escaping the heat and its effects is one thing—it’s entirely a different thing to have to escape the atmosphere.
- f6v 5y ago
  > it’s entirely a different thing to have to escape the atmosphere. Right, you’d think people would care about water as well [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/eHCaIvPN2rY https://youtu.be/eHCaIvPN2rY
  - stadium 5y ago
    Long term water supply definitely influenced my decision on where I wanted to live.
  - legutierr 5y ago
    Water pollution like this is a localized phenomenon. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is not. What the study is saying is that there may be no environmentally safe outdoor spaces anywhere in the world at the end of the century. This has never been the case previously, even when environmental pollution has gotten out of control in certain places.
    - f6v 5y ago
      It’s not about it being local(which I bet it’s not anyway). The point is that we can witness an example of people literally drinking mud. And they still continue polluting what’s left of the water.
theonemind 5y ago
I wouldn't count on that necessarily. Mass extinction and threat to all advanced civilization seems abstract, your own ill health seems more personal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences) You often see news stories with a personal frame to drive them home, rather than a situational frame. Though I don't know, indeed, you might have it right, it might make no difference.
- f6v 5y ago
  > your own ill health seems more personal Hundreds of millions ignore the obesity impact on their health. And that’s something you can feel right away. I seriously doubt people are going to pay attention to something so intangible.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    I doubt they ignore it. People that are obese and fine with it are a minority. That doesn't mean it's easy to stop being obese. Compared to obesity, CO2 doesn't have genetic factors, the science on it is clear, there are easy solutions to monitor it. You could also do something like make people do a test in a CO2-heavy room and in a CO2-light room. On the other hand, you can't show obese people what it's like to not be obese, or non obese people what it's like to be. The two situations are very different.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  We’re not appropriately concerned with air pollution even though it affects our personal health today.
xwdv 5y ago
I thought the same thing then I saw how people freaked out over COVID and it gave me some hope. I thought masks would never catch on as much as they did. So perhaps there’s room for manipulating people into effective action if we can find the right triggers.
- s5300 5y ago
  The right triggers have already been known forever. Look at the history of recycling campaigns in Texas. Bet you didn't know "don't mess with Texas" is about recycling. Unfortunately, toxic machismo is likely not going to work, especially nation wide, for things based purely in science. Seems pretty incompatible.
- shakezula 5y ago
  It’s not people, it’s corporations that are the problem. Polling shows that >70% of people support legislation to combat climate change.
  - aaron-santos 5y ago
    In agreement. Average citizen preferences have no bearing[1] on the adoption of legislation. [1] https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...
    - shakezula 5y ago
      I frequently try to express this to people and I don't know how to get it across sometimes. Our representative republic has been so clogged up by corporate interests that we can't even pass infrastructure that would benefit most of those same corporate interests at this point. I have basically zero faith that we will be able to address climate change in any meaningful way.
Amezarak 5y ago
'Advanced civilization' is the reason the human animal is deeply sick; if we saw any other animal population with 15% requiring psychiatric medication, [1], 40% obese [2], with fertility rates plummeting below replacement rate [3], we would conclude that this animal species was deeply distressed and experiencing a social collapse reminiscent of those observed in Calhoun's rat utopias. [4] But because we evolved a highly capable rationalization mechanism, people are able to convince themselves that things are OK even as various trends worsen. (A common justification is 'we're not animals, we can ignore out instincts - meanwhile, everything we do is driven by instinct.) Even from an environmental perspective, sure, burning fossil fuels isn't sustainable and has disastrous ecological impacts. I agree. So does battery production, microchip production, industrialized farming, etc. We are polluting and destroying the ecosphere with all of our 'advanced' civilization, not just climate change. The air and water are filled with all kinds of man-made poisons, not just fossil fuels, and we're inventing more every day. This is not a problem that can be solved with more technology. That's why I don't worry too much about climate change. If it gives us a systemic collapse sooner rather than an even worse one later, that's a good thing. More people will survive at a higher level of culture. I don't see anything upsetting about this. People thrived most of the time for most of human history prior to the Industrial Revolution. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db380.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db380.htm [2] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html [3] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fertility-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fert... [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/pdf/procrsmed00338-0007.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/pdf/pro...

If people aren’t going to combat climate change on the bases of mass extinction and threat to all advanced civilization as we know it, I don’t expect they will be persuaded by ill health effects.

legutierr 5y ago

False. It’s not that hard to fool yourself into thinking that you will be able to navigate the societal disruption that will be caused by climate change, especially if you have money. If you have the resources you can move north, pay more for food, hide behind the security services. But no one wants to imagine living inside a literal bubble or seeing their grandkids crippled by CO2 poisoning. Escaping the heat and its effects is one thing—it’s entirely a different thing to have to escape the atmosphere.

f6v 5y ago
> it’s entirely a different thing to have to escape the atmosphere. Right, you’d think people would care about water as well [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/eHCaIvPN2rY https://youtu.be/eHCaIvPN2rY
- stadium 5y ago
  Long term water supply definitely influenced my decision on where I wanted to live.
- legutierr 5y ago
  Water pollution like this is a localized phenomenon. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is not. What the study is saying is that there may be no environmentally safe outdoor spaces anywhere in the world at the end of the century. This has never been the case previously, even when environmental pollution has gotten out of control in certain places.
  - f6v 5y ago
    It’s not about it being local(which I bet it’s not anyway). The point is that we can witness an example of people literally drinking mud. And they still continue polluting what’s left of the water.

theonemind 5y ago

I wouldn't count on that necessarily. Mass extinction and threat to all advanced civilization seems abstract, your own ill health seems more personal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences) You often see news stories with a personal frame to drive them home, rather than a situational frame. Though I don't know, indeed, you might have it right, it might make no difference.

f6v 5y ago
> your own ill health seems more personal Hundreds of millions ignore the obesity impact on their health. And that’s something you can feel right away. I seriously doubt people are going to pay attention to something so intangible.
- Zababa 5y ago
  I doubt they ignore it. People that are obese and fine with it are a minority. That doesn't mean it's easy to stop being obese. Compared to obesity, CO2 doesn't have genetic factors, the science on it is clear, there are easy solutions to monitor it. You could also do something like make people do a test in a CO2-heavy room and in a CO2-light room. On the other hand, you can't show obese people what it's like to not be obese, or non obese people what it's like to be. The two situations are very different.
throwaway894345 5y ago
We’re not appropriately concerned with air pollution even though it affects our personal health today.

xwdv 5y ago

I thought the same thing then I saw how people freaked out over COVID and it gave me some hope. I thought masks would never catch on as much as they did. So perhaps there’s room for manipulating people into effective action if we can find the right triggers.

s5300 5y ago
The right triggers have already been known forever. Look at the history of recycling campaigns in Texas. Bet you didn't know "don't mess with Texas" is about recycling. Unfortunately, toxic machismo is likely not going to work, especially nation wide, for things based purely in science. Seems pretty incompatible.
shakezula 5y ago
It’s not people, it’s corporations that are the problem. Polling shows that >70% of people support legislation to combat climate change.
- aaron-santos 5y ago
  In agreement. Average citizen preferences have no bearing[1] on the adoption of legislation. [1] https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...
  - shakezula 5y ago
    I frequently try to express this to people and I don't know how to get it across sometimes. Our representative republic has been so clogged up by corporate interests that we can't even pass infrastructure that would benefit most of those same corporate interests at this point. I have basically zero faith that we will be able to address climate change in any meaningful way.

Amezarak 5y ago

'Advanced civilization' is the reason the human animal is deeply sick; if we saw any other animal population with 15% requiring psychiatric medication, [1], 40% obese [2], with fertility rates plummeting below replacement rate [3], we would conclude that this animal species was deeply distressed and experiencing a social collapse reminiscent of those observed in Calhoun's rat utopias. [4] But because we evolved a highly capable rationalization mechanism, people are able to convince themselves that things are OK even as various trends worsen. (A common justification is 'we're not animals, we can ignore out instincts - meanwhile, everything we do is driven by instinct.) Even from an environmental perspective, sure, burning fossil fuels isn't sustainable and has disastrous ecological impacts. I agree. So does battery production, microchip production, industrialized farming, etc. We are polluting and destroying the ecosphere with all of our 'advanced' civilization, not just climate change. The air and water are filled with all kinds of man-made poisons, not just fossil fuels, and we're inventing more every day. This is not a problem that can be solved with more technology. That's why I don't worry too much about climate change. If it gives us a systemic collapse sooner rather than an even worse one later, that's a good thing. More people will survive at a higher level of culture. I don't see anything upsetting about this. People thrived most of the time for most of human history prior to the Industrial Revolution. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db380.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db380.htm [2] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html [3] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fertility-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fert... [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/pdf/procrsmed00338-0007.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/pdf/pro...