2017 has left climate deniers with nowhere to go. Merciless hurricanes, heatwaves, floods, and droughts swept the planet all year, along with impossible-sounding fires – in icy Greenland; and in California in December. All are an early taste of what life on a hotter world would be like. Public opinion recognises the link with climate change, with international polls showing that worries about global warming are now at record levels with vanishingly few people thinking it’s a hoax.
Oh, goodness, some weather events happened! We should totally believe that they were caused by Someone Else driving a fossil fueled vehicles!!!!!!!!
Yet the climate war is far from over. While climate denial may have lost, there is another problem: climate apathy. Most people understand climate change is happening, but just don’t think about it much and don’t accept they should change their lives to deal with it. This matters because stopping dangerous climate change won’t be possible with only popular measures like replacing coal power stations with solar panels. There will have to be difficult changes too, like cutting emissions from flying and meat eating. So long as many people are apathetic, governments will avoid the hard changes that are also needed.
One long-standing reason for apathy is the way climate change often feels like a distant problem, something for polar bears and future generations. So it matters that climate change is now devastating places where emissions need to fall. Those of us who want faster action shouldn’t hold back from pointing out that this is what would become normal if emissions don’t fall.
Interestingly, climate apathy is something that can be assigned to members of the Cult of Climastrology. They are the ones who are constantly bleating about doom, whether it be future doom or ZOMG CLIMATE CHANGE IS HERE!!!!!!!, yet, they take few actions in their own lives to mitigate their own carbon footprint. They’re super enthused to institute carbon taxes/fees on Other People, along with restrictions on That Guy and the way they run their lives, but Warmists are rather apathetic about doing more themselves other than go to a rally (in a fossil fueled vehicle) and complain online.