Climate fatigue? Worries that the public is losing interest in climate change shouldn’t be surprising
There is no such thing as the “rationality” of a belief, there is rationality of action.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Skin in the Game
Nothing lasts forever. A root canal feels like it will, and some baseball games, but even those come to an end. Fear epidemics are similar, they feel like they are here permanently and that we may be doomed in one way or another. The media feeds this; a few shootings become a crime wave, a nuclear accident becomes a general phobia of nuclear power, a new study finds coffee may be carcinogenic so we panic, etc.
An interesting thing these fear epidemics though is how they dissipate. Sometimes, the world can get its act together and remove the source of the fear, as was done with CFCs a few years ago. Remember them? The buildup of these chemicals in the atmosphere was destroying the ozone layer, and with that gone we’d all soon be dead. That was a good news story, because the globe got together and stopped using CFCs in aerosol cans, and the ozone layer healed itself (or so the story goes).
Sometimes the catalyst for the fear is simply so big that it can’t be quashed, so we just get bored and ignore it or learn to live with it. Being out of shape is one such thing, not just excess weight but, well, out of shape. We know it’s bad for us not to get exercise, and we hear plenty about how bad that is, but most people simply, at some point, say ah to hell with it and abandon the gym membership.
So it is with climate change, because the task is too monumental, as laid out by the climate change industry. Where would one start? Some started by taking the, hmm, easier path, by yelling at everyone to quit using fossil fuels, and coming up with apocalyptic visions of a world that might be 4 degrees warmer. The more difficult path would be to simply stop being part of the problem, to stop using fossil fuels.
An even bigger problem though is that everything we do is obviously contributing to climate change. Buying a new cell phone is. Travelling absolutely, most definitely is. Heating your home in winter is. Most citizens have no idea how much our lifestyle relies on fossil fuels.
The parts we are aware of though, we don’t want to do without. Thus, the warnings that fossil fuels are destroying the planet stop working, because people view it as a microscopic choice – well, the world won’t be harmed if I go on just one little flight to Florida/Spain/Thailand. And at the same time, a choice is made that the holiday is more important than pitching in to fight climate change.
It is hard to fault people for that attitude, because everyone treats it exactly the same. Everyone. Every member of Greenpeace uses fossil fuels.
Fear works at changing behaviour, until one day it doesn’t. That’s not always a ridiculous sequence, if we remained scared of everything we hear about we’d never do anything beyond breathing and eating raw vegetables. The other side of that coin though is that if we want people to get off fossil fuels, scaring them isn’t going to do it. Neither are crazed stunts like blocking pipelines though; we need to come up with solutions that limit consumption. Everything else is a waste of time.
Public Energy Number One 
8 Comments
Well written, Tony! 🙂
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Thanks Camilla!
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Of course no one talks about the number one cause of climate change, population growth, especially the acolytes of the climate change industry. For them mentioning limits on population growth is akin of of a fifteenth century inquisitorial heresy punishable by shaming and withdrawal of patronage.
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Exactly right. Seven billion people are the “problem”; it takes a great deal of everything to keep them alive. I am working on a book, out by December hopefully, and that is a central theme. Thanks for the comment.
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You are right about fatigue but I don’t think most people are really willing, or ever were willing, to do anything about climate change or elect a government that would force them. Take the bus to work, ride your bicycle to the supermarket, forgo that overseas holiday. Never going to happen and never was going to happen.
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Quite probably Graham. It’s like joining the gym after Christmas, sort of, everyone knows its a good idea but year after year February is a lot less busy. Thanks for the comment.
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I challenge the Church of Climatism also. Nature is a Freak Show! They never want to discuss “Atmospheric Rivers” that happened in the past flooding the NAPA Valley in California under 30′ of water in the 1800’s. The Houston Flood is easier blamed on warming which adds currency for their current rhetoric. I never heard the term until recently, but witnessed a phenomenon in the Fall of 2004, that I could only describe as that every rain cloud around the Globe must have gathered over a 20 mile stretch of Hwy 11 / 17 east of Nipigon Ontario and dumped. Every culvert and bridge approach was washed out. The CPR Mainline was hanging like ribbons of steel with ties attached. Tree’s were hanging in the Telegraph wires.
A similar deluge hit Nipigon and Red Rock in 1959. Back alleys were carved out and the soil piled up against buildings and cars further down the hill. Historic adverse rain events are better forgotten and blamed on the windfall of a CarBoon Tax. Our children can earn Degrees in Climate Change, when a History Degree would be more honest.
That day in September 2004 I was driving to a Clinic to get a WCB Form filled out. Because of the high humidity when I drove through the extensive deep rock cuts east towards Schreiber I was getting sick from vehicle exhaust trapped in between the rock walls. My trade as a Boilermaker building Energy Infrastructure and Air Emissions, Abatement equipment ended at 51 year’s of age. I loved that work, with heavy cranes etc.
The year before building an Air Emissions Project at a Pulp Mill the Client Owner threatened to go Non-Union if the Building Trades Council stood firm and wanted the manifold installed over the 27 Vents and Chimneys into a Super Stack as the first step as the Client had built 2 years before at another Mill.
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Cont’d, hungry Unions wanted to get their members to work so those understanding the gravity of Toxic Emissions were out voted. My last day of work in August 2003 on that Project there were 59 tradesmen on oxygen at the Hospital.
H2s and Carbon monoxide are documented in my diagnosis, both toxic gases common in the Energy Industry. We have the technology to detect both and many more and methods to capture them and use them as an energy source. On another Air Quality issue we built many Electrostatic Precipitator’s, to remove Particulate from Coal fired Boilers and Recovery Boilers at Pulp and Paper Mills. They should be repaired twice a year. Team Wynntario,s Moe, Ministry of the Environment were twiddling on their thumbs and neglected to inspect one Industrial Emitter over a SiX year period. There were 6′ holes in the Particulate Collector Plates, and most of the Charge Wires lay broken in the Fly Ash Hoppers below.
Team Wynntarioweowe had a Cap and Trade Program with California and Quebec. Did they Publicly disclose that this Mill owner was now the Fox of his domain, and we’re they compliant to a perverse and corrupt Cap and Trade Program?
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