I think the parent — like most people (including myself until recently) — has a poor understanding of the professional makeup of rural communities. There was n

I think the parent — like most people (including myself until recently) — has a poor understanding of the professional makeup of rural communities. There was never a period in American history where most rural people were farmers. That was a Jeffersonian daydream. In the colonial/early-American period, farms consisted of landowners, and a mix of slaves and poorly-paid employees. When slavery ended and the industrial revolution came along, tractors took over most of the work and the employees left for factories; the number of landowners (what we now call "farmers") is not very different now than in 1800. Here's a census report on the actual careers of small-town America. Lot of community service (education, health care), a little manufacturing and retail… about what one might expect, really. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/newsroom/blogs/2016/12/beyond-the-farm/fig01-type-industry.jpg https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/newsroom/blogs/201... … so getting back to the point of climate change… on the one hand, since farmers don't make up the majority of rural communities, their opinions on climate change don't mean much politically. On the other hand, they do have a very direct and personal effect on the climate w/r/t soil practices (erosion, pesticides, etc), and there are some positive signs on that front.