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As I get older the number of these long term predictions that never come that I have personally live through increases. I never believe anyone of them now. I

As I get older the number of these long term predictions that never come that I have personally live through increases. I never believe anyone of them now. I wonder if that is why there is such resistance to climate change among older people...

jemmyw 4y ago
The original climate change predictions were pretty much on the mark even though they weren't complex models. The problem is usually the media rather than the science. Journalists turn everything into sensationalist claims.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Original? In the early 20th century global cooling and an end to the interglacial period of the ice age we’re still in was a prominent concern. By the way if we reset to the atmospheric conditions of a few hundred years ago this would be a certainty within a period of thousands of years at most. Much of the world’s population centers, agriculture, etc covered in hundreds of feet of ice.
  - veqz 4y ago
    That's not correct. We have had models showing global warming caused by fossil fuels since the late 18th Century at the very least. A few papers in the 1980s were predicting global cooling, but those have been shown to be erroneous – sometimes even by the very same authors.
- lzooz 4y ago
  >The original climate change predictions were pretty much on the mark even though they weren't complex models. No? It's 2022 and our cities should be sunk in the ocean and we should be boiling or frozen and there should be no drinkable water left and blah blah blah.
  - hedora 4y ago
    Here’s a scan of the earliest projections I know of (1982), from the American Petroleum Institute: https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AQ-9-Task-Force-Meeting-1980.pdf https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AQ-... They predicted 1C in 2005, and 2.5C in 2038. We are right on schedule. They also predict global economic growth to halt in 2025 due to climate change impacts. That’s plausible, given recent years’ industrial and agricultural climate disasters. However, on that metric, we’re probably a bit behind schedule. Five years, maybe?
    - refurb 4y ago
      Taking a thousand projections and cherry picking the ones that were right isnt science.
      - mensetmanusman 4y ago
        real time p-hacking
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    When I mention journalistic sensationalism it was a criticism, not a challenge.
taberiand 4y ago
Do you have examples in particular of those long term predictions that haven't eventuated?
- mahkeiro 4y ago
  The one I remember for my country was that by year 2000 (prediction made in 1980s) half of the forest will be gone because of acid rain. I remember as a kid magazines with illustrations showing large dead forest everywhere. Lack of ozone layer was also supposed to kill most of the planet. Fortunately when the danger is identified people start to act, this make long term predictions very difficult.
  - cokeandpepsi 4y ago
    - labster 4y ago
      Only in California.
  - JaimeThompson 4y ago
    >half of the forest will be gone because of acid rain. The wide scale introduction of systems, required by laws and regulations, that drastically reduced the amount of sulfur byproducts released had a lot to do with that same thing regarding CFCs and the ozone layer.
- issa 4y ago
  I am 50 years old, a science fiction fan, and an amateur follower of actual science. Generally speaking, the sci-fi authors are the best at making predictions. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/l...
akudha 4y ago
I don’t know about other predictions, but at the end of 2022, if someone denies climate change, it is just dumb. My guess is that these older people probably think they’ll be gone soon anyway, so why give up air travel, gas guzzling cars etc? It is a problem for younger generations to deal with
version_five 4y ago
People "resist climate change" because most climate change rhetoric is transparently trying to get them to vote a different way or buy some different thing. If it was stated just in terms of a causal relationship, like rising CO2 raises global temperature, fewer people would object. Put another way, one group conflates the fact of CO2 increases + greenhouse effect with suggested political acrions. Another group counters by conflating not agreeing with political actions with disputing the underlying physics.
- veqz 4y ago
  It was stated as a causal relationship and reported in the news since the 19th Century. It was still denied by some, and ignored by most. At some point we should probably start doing something – and enough – about it to maybe avoid the worst consequences?
  - pojzon 4y ago
    Like locking ppl up at homes and make them stop driving cars, planes, boats? Make them buy less because production is hindered due to various reasons and make them pay more for petrol and energy?? Hmm, Im curious whether we could do that on global scale. Maybe if there was some convinient way to tell ppl to stay at home.
    - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
      The most meaningful step (that every politician manages to avoid) is to get rid of coal in energy production. Putting money into solving Renewable intermitency (either through large scale storage projects or nuclear) and decommisioning every single coal plant on earth (followed closely by gas plants) would be the single largest step change in emissions that has fuck all to do with 'consumer' behaviour.
- gruez 4y ago
  > People "resist climate change" because most climate change rhetoric is transparently trying to get them to vote a different way or buy some different thing. If it was stated just in terms of a causal relationship, like rising CO2 raises global temperature, fewer people would object. "resist climate change" could mean different things. It's true that something like "rising CO2 raises global temperature" is uncontroversial, but agreeing to that doesn't get you anywhere close to implementing climate policy, or to even acknowledge that humans are the leading cause. For instance, you can agree that "rising CO2 raises global temperature", but still think that the warming is totally natural (ie. not primarily caused by humans) and/or that it's impossible for humans to stop. Polling suggests a good chunk of republicans believe in the former[1]. I suspect that most people would characterize those people as "resisting climate change" even if they believe that co2 leads to atmospheric warming. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ps_2020-06-23_government-and-climate_00-09/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of...
Klathmon 4y ago
Or it shows that humanity is capable of solving the problems so the worst case scenario predictions never come true.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Climate change is one of the long term predictions that has been consistently confirmed with each passing year. I do understand what you’re saying about old people being tired of apocalyptic predictions that come to pass. Even I remember being taught about Peak Oil and how the world would grind to a halt as we ran out of oil in the very near future. I remember being very worried about it as a child and wondering why none of the adults were equally concerned. I wish there was a better way to convey the difference between widely corroborated, slow-moving concerns like climate change with the overly sensationalized short-term apocalyptic concerns that crop up every few years.
- themihai 4y ago
  I think that after a certain age what will happen in the next 5-10 years is vastly more inportant than what will happen in 50-100 years for obvious reasons.
  - pojzon 4y ago
    Dont quote me on that but it feels like we will have a war in Iran or somewhere else to bring the world economically back from recession. Europe is silently happy about UA war because it will in the end stimulate economy. Qnd if few mil more ppl leave UA for Germany perm, they will be happiest than ever… World is ugly and how elites treat normal ppl is ugly.
    - radford-neal 4y ago
      War is not good for the economy. This should be completely obvious based on common sense, but if you want more evidence, consider the widespread hunger in Europe after World Wars I and II, even in the countries on the winning side. Sure, if you're away from the areas of destruction, you can perhaps make money selling weapons to the belligerents, but I think today one would be foolish to think that a major war can't possibly affect you, where ever you may be.
- Petersipoi 4y ago
  > Climate change is one of the long term predictions that has been consistently confirmed with each passing year. While this is true, you're dismissing that the claims around climate change have been wildly wrong. The world should have ended a dozen times by now if we look at past predictions by "experts". I'm not denying climate change at all, and we definitely need to take actions to curb it. But I understand where the skepticism is coming from.
Angostura 4y ago
> I wonder if that is why there is such resistance to climate change among older people... I think that is mainly true in a few countries where it has become a politically divisive issue
MrVandemar 4y ago
> I wonder if that is why there is such resistance to climate change among older people... Responding to climate change in a meaningful way generally means making lifestyle choices that are responsible. This would include driving a small car (instead of a SUV) and driving it at a fuel-efficient speed (not the maxiumum). This would include limiting reproduction. This would include not buying a new phone every n years. This would include buying more expensive, locally grown food. This would include voting for a party that is not about "jobs'n'growth" and "the economy" and "tax cuts for the rich" and one that is more about responding to the existential challenge. Nobody wants that. They want their cars and phones and their lifestyle and their overseas holidays and their 20 grandkids. We are taught to want that. From The Matrix (1999): "You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
- tomp 4y ago
  Your actions alone won't solve the CO2 problem, so you might as well enjoy your life. Most of the actions you list at a societal scale are completely pointless, literally the only action we need as a civilisation (collectively, not individually) is building nuclear. With abundance of clean energy that nuclear can provide, we can drive fast, procreate a lot, and eat globally.
  - katbyte 4y ago
    sad thing is we have known about the affects of fossil fuels, and had solutions, for near 70? years now and just haven't due to greed and politics.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      117 years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cove https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cove
    - refurb 4y ago
      Easy for you to say but how many human lives have been improved over the last 70 years do to economic growth which is highly dependent on fossil fuels? Billions? Many people wouldn’t mind being frozen in 1950’s USA (except those with cancer), but probably not 1950’s China or India.
vouaobrasil 4y ago
> I wonder if that is why there is such resistance to climate change among older people... It's because older people are used to the idea that they should be able to spend their money any way they like, and in order to combat climate change they are being told that they should consume less. Plus they probably don't care that much that their actions will cause suffering of future generations.
sircastor 4y ago
I Think the reason older folks resist climate change is 3-fold: - It’s scary - It requires a substantial change in lifestyle - It has become attached to politics, (particularly liberal, progressive politics) which makes it a representation of the “other”. That aside, there is something to be said about seeing the predictions of your youth fizzle out. On the other hand, we have a tendency to romanticize the party and reframe ourselves relative to it. We remember things differently than they were.
yodsanklai 4y ago
> these long term predictions Not all predictions are equal. It's one thing to doubt predictions from random pundits, it's another thing to doubt the current scientific consensus. A lot of smart people from many countries have been working on climate change. They may be wrong in their conclusions but what they're telling us is the best prediction at our disposal. > I wonder if that is why there is such resistance to climate change among older people... Probably for the same reason there was resistance to vaccines. A lot of people aren't rationale at all and believe whatever suits their view of the world, even though it's in direct contradiction with all evidences.
- junofan 4y ago
  I dunno, I think it’s pretty rational not to go along with every scheme to disrupt a bunch of people’s lives to avoid some future harm.
nojs 4y ago
Your username checks out :)

jemmyw 4y ago

The original climate change predictions were pretty much on the mark even though they weren't complex models. The problem is usually the media rather than the science. Journalists turn everything into sensationalist claims.

colechristensen 4y ago
Original? In the early 20th century global cooling and an end to the interglacial period of the ice age we’re still in was a prominent concern. By the way if we reset to the atmospheric conditions of a few hundred years ago this would be a certainty within a period of thousands of years at most. Much of the world’s population centers, agriculture, etc covered in hundreds of feet of ice.
- veqz 4y ago
  That's not correct. We have had models showing global warming caused by fossil fuels since the late 18th Century at the very least. A few papers in the 1980s were predicting global cooling, but those have been shown to be erroneous – sometimes even by the very same authors.
lzooz 4y ago
>The original climate change predictions were pretty much on the mark even though they weren't complex models. No? It's 2022 and our cities should be sunk in the ocean and we should be boiling or frozen and there should be no drinkable water left and blah blah blah.
- hedora 4y ago
  Here’s a scan of the earliest projections I know of (1982), from the American Petroleum Institute: https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AQ-9-Task-Force-Meeting-1980.pdf https://insideclimatenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AQ-... They predicted 1C in 2005, and 2.5C in 2038. We are right on schedule. They also predict global economic growth to halt in 2025 due to climate change impacts. That’s plausible, given recent years’ industrial and agricultural climate disasters. However, on that metric, we’re probably a bit behind schedule. Five years, maybe?
  - refurb 4y ago
    Taking a thousand projections and cherry picking the ones that were right isnt science.
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago
      real time p-hacking
- jemmyw 4y ago
  When I mention journalistic sensationalism it was a criticism, not a challenge.

taberiand 4y ago

Do you have examples in particular of those long term predictions that haven't eventuated?

mahkeiro 4y ago
The one I remember for my country was that by year 2000 (prediction made in 1980s) half of the forest will be gone because of acid rain. I remember as a kid magazines with illustrations showing large dead forest everywhere. Lack of ozone layer was also supposed to kill most of the planet. Fortunately when the danger is identified people start to act, this make long term predictions very difficult.
- cokeandpepsi 4y ago
  - labster 4y ago
    Only in California.
- JaimeThompson 4y ago
  >half of the forest will be gone because of acid rain. The wide scale introduction of systems, required by laws and regulations, that drastically reduced the amount of sulfur byproducts released had a lot to do with that same thing regarding CFCs and the ozone layer.
issa 4y ago
I am 50 years old, a science fiction fan, and an amateur follower of actual science. Generally speaking, the sci-fi authors are the best at making predictions. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-fair.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/l...

akudha 4y ago

I don’t know about other predictions, but at the end of 2022, if someone denies climate change, it is just dumb. My guess is that these older people probably think they’ll be gone soon anyway, so why give up air travel, gas guzzling cars etc? It is a problem for younger generations to deal with

version_five 4y ago

People "resist climate change" because most climate change rhetoric is transparently trying to get them to vote a different way or buy some different thing. If it was stated just in terms of a causal relationship, like rising CO2 raises global temperature, fewer people would object. Put another way, one group conflates the fact of CO2 increases + greenhouse effect with suggested political acrions. Another group counters by conflating not agreeing with political actions with disputing the underlying physics.

veqz 4y ago
It was stated as a causal relationship and reported in the news since the 19th Century. It was still denied by some, and ignored by most. At some point we should probably start doing something – and enough – about it to maybe avoid the worst consequences?
- pojzon 4y ago
  Like locking ppl up at homes and make them stop driving cars, planes, boats? Make them buy less because production is hindered due to various reasons and make them pay more for petrol and energy?? Hmm, Im curious whether we could do that on global scale. Maybe if there was some convinient way to tell ppl to stay at home.
  - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
    The most meaningful step (that every politician manages to avoid) is to get rid of coal in energy production. Putting money into solving Renewable intermitency (either through large scale storage projects or nuclear) and decommisioning every single coal plant on earth (followed closely by gas plants) would be the single largest step change in emissions that has fuck all to do with 'consumer' behaviour.
gruez 4y ago
> People "resist climate change" because most climate change rhetoric is transparently trying to get them to vote a different way or buy some different thing. If it was stated just in terms of a causal relationship, like rising CO2 raises global temperature, fewer people would object. "resist climate change" could mean different things. It's true that something like "rising CO2 raises global temperature" is uncontroversial, but agreeing to that doesn't get you anywhere close to implementing climate policy, or to even acknowledge that humans are the leading cause. For instance, you can agree that "rising CO2 raises global temperature", but still think that the warming is totally natural (ie. not primarily caused by humans) and/or that it's impossible for humans to stop. Polling suggests a good chunk of republicans believe in the former[1]. I suspect that most people would characterize those people as "resisting climate change" even if they believe that co2 leads to atmospheric warming. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ps_2020-06-23_government-and-climate_00-09/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of...

Klathmon 4y ago

Or it shows that humanity is capable of solving the problems so the worst case scenario predictions never come true.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

Climate change is one of the long term predictions that has been consistently confirmed with each passing year. I do understand what you’re saying about old people being tired of apocalyptic predictions that come to pass. Even I remember being taught about Peak Oil and how the world would grind to a halt as we ran out of oil in the very near future. I remember being very worried about it as a child and wondering why none of the adults were equally concerned. I wish there was a better way to convey the difference between widely corroborated, slow-moving concerns like climate change with the overly sensationalized short-term apocalyptic concerns that crop up every few years.

themihai 4y ago
I think that after a certain age what will happen in the next 5-10 years is vastly more inportant than what will happen in 50-100 years for obvious reasons.
- pojzon 4y ago
  Dont quote me on that but it feels like we will have a war in Iran or somewhere else to bring the world economically back from recession. Europe is silently happy about UA war because it will in the end stimulate economy. Qnd if few mil more ppl leave UA for Germany perm, they will be happiest than ever… World is ugly and how elites treat normal ppl is ugly.
  - radford-neal 4y ago
    War is not good for the economy. This should be completely obvious based on common sense, but if you want more evidence, consider the widespread hunger in Europe after World Wars I and II, even in the countries on the winning side. Sure, if you're away from the areas of destruction, you can perhaps make money selling weapons to the belligerents, but I think today one would be foolish to think that a major war can't possibly affect you, where ever you may be.
Petersipoi 4y ago
> Climate change is one of the long term predictions that has been consistently confirmed with each passing year. While this is true, you're dismissing that the claims around climate change have been wildly wrong. The world should have ended a dozen times by now if we look at past predictions by "experts". I'm not denying climate change at all, and we definitely need to take actions to curb it. But I understand where the skepticism is coming from.

Angostura 4y ago

> I wonder if that is why there is such resistance to climate change among older people... I think that is mainly true in a few countries where it has become a politically divisive issue

MrVandemar 4y ago

> I wonder if that is why there is such resistance to climate change among older people... Responding to climate change in a meaningful way generally means making lifestyle choices that are responsible. This would include driving a small car (instead of a SUV) and driving it at a fuel-efficient speed (not the maxiumum). This would include limiting reproduction. This would include not buying a new phone every n years. This would include buying more expensive, locally grown food. This would include voting for a party that is not about "jobs'n'growth" and "the economy" and "tax cuts for the rich" and one that is more about responding to the existential challenge. Nobody wants that. They want their cars and phones and their lifestyle and their overseas holidays and their 20 grandkids. We are taught to want that. From The Matrix (1999): "You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."

tomp 4y ago
Your actions alone won't solve the CO2 problem, so you might as well enjoy your life. Most of the actions you list at a societal scale are completely pointless, literally the only action we need as a civilisation (collectively, not individually) is building nuclear. With abundance of clean energy that nuclear can provide, we can drive fast, procreate a lot, and eat globally.
- katbyte 4y ago
  sad thing is we have known about the affects of fossil fuels, and had solutions, for near 70? years now and just haven't due to greed and politics.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    117 years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cove https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cove
  - refurb 4y ago
    Easy for you to say but how many human lives have been improved over the last 70 years do to economic growth which is highly dependent on fossil fuels? Billions? Many people wouldn’t mind being frozen in 1950’s USA (except those with cancer), but probably not 1950’s China or India.

vouaobrasil 4y ago

> I wonder if that is why there is such resistance to climate change among older people... It's because older people are used to the idea that they should be able to spend their money any way they like, and in order to combat climate change they are being told that they should consume less. Plus they probably don't care that much that their actions will cause suffering of future generations.

sircastor 4y ago

I Think the reason older folks resist climate change is 3-fold: - It’s scary - It requires a substantial change in lifestyle - It has become attached to politics, (particularly liberal, progressive politics) which makes it a representation of the “other”. That aside, there is something to be said about seeing the predictions of your youth fizzle out. On the other hand, we have a tendency to romanticize the party and reframe ourselves relative to it. We remember things differently than they were.

yodsanklai 4y ago

> these long term predictions Not all predictions are equal. It's one thing to doubt predictions from random pundits, it's another thing to doubt the current scientific consensus. A lot of smart people from many countries have been working on climate change. They may be wrong in their conclusions but what they're telling us is the best prediction at our disposal. > I wonder if that is why there is such resistance to climate change among older people... Probably for the same reason there was resistance to vaccines. A lot of people aren't rationale at all and believe whatever suits their view of the world, even though it's in direct contradiction with all evidences.

junofan 4y ago
I dunno, I think it’s pretty rational not to go along with every scheme to disrupt a bunch of people’s lives to avoid some future harm.

nojs 4y ago

Your username checks out :)