Link to Information: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/02/climate_change
In fact, more than half (58%) of Americans actually do think that Climate Change is a serious problem, and exactly 1/3 (33%) see it as “Very Serious.” Even with these numbers, the United States is less worried about Climate Change than a lot of countries, and in the US, you will actually still see debates on television about whether climate change is even real or not. There are a handful of explanations for this:
Psychological view: “The consequences of climate change are too awful to contemplate. Therefore, we're denying the issue, as we used to deny monsters in the room by hiding under the blanket. If you don't look at it, it can't look at you.”
I agree that people still deny Global Warming because they don’t want to deal with it, but, unlike the monsters in your room, Global Warming is very real. If we don't face it now, it will just get worse.
Economic view: “The costs of a large-scale effort to fight global warming are too steep to bear. Therefore, we're trying to ignore the issue, or pretending it doesn't exist, or we believe that the economy (including development) is more important.”
I also see here what the government perceives. The government has to spend a lot of money on this, so they think that ignoring the issue would help. They might even think that if they ignore it, more people will ignore it, therefore; the government can spend less money on research for it. The truth is that polar ice caps are indeed melting at a speed faster than ever recorded, and thus our sea levels rise, so the more the government pushes this issue off, the worse it’s going to get, and the longer they wait, the more money they will have to spend.
Epistemological view: “Why should we believe in climate change? Where's the evidence? All we know is what scientists say, and scientists are sometimes wrong. And don't even get me started on Al Gore.”
People think scientists are making up these numbers and statistics (those people think back to Y2K) and that those scientists are making a profit over it, but, like mentioned before, Climate Change is indeed very real. Learn more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/koch-brother-funded-study_b_1032439.html
More reasons will be covered in my next post.
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