Yes, making voters feel good is a great strategy for re-election, regardless of truth.
The difference between smoking cigarettes and global warming is that we really can do something about the smoking - if we want to. But it's a personal choice.
In the case of the climate, I think we've proven by now that there is nothing we can do about it, short of turning off our electricity and parking our cars permanently (and even that is debatable), and so we blame corporations and tax irresponsible citizens. And yes, that does make certain people feel good, for some reason and so if you're a government seeking re-election, it's a worthwhile endeavor in that sense.
The issue of climate change is not about people suffering heat stroke, it’s about ecosystems. Whether we like to admit it or not, we depend on ecosystems for survival. It’s like when a child takes a toy apart, or a bicycle, and doesn’t know how to put it back together again. It’s such an important lesson for a kid to learn that it’s even worth losing a toy or an old bike for them to understand. The climate is different though because we only have one. If it’s broken and we can’t fix it, that’s a very very costly mistake, and we won’t be the ones to suffer from it, future generations will. We have all the experts telling us in no uncertain terms that we need to stop doing what we’re doing because we don’t know what the results will be or whether we can fix them. Maybe we CAN fix it, and everything will be fine. I hope so! But we shouldn’t be taking that bet just because we ‘don’t like gubments’ or something like that.
I'm continually astounded at the pride of man. In this case, that arrogance also comes with a good side of gaslighting. We've seen how "successful" these government policies are at turning down the temperature. We've seen it for decades and still our carbon taxes in this country continue to escalate. Even more astounding is how, in the face of this, regular people continue to parrot the same tired talking points.
I think I’ve just found a major point of agreement with you. Canada, just like much of the western world (including my home country), is run by neoliberals. The job of the neoliberals is to serve capitalism in the same way conservatives do, while making liberals feel better about themselves by saying the kind of things that liberals like to hear. The neoliberals use global warming as just another opportunity to transfer wealth from you and I to the corporations they serve. There is an enormous amount of gaslighting going on in that regard and obviously we’ve seen no improvements made because they’re not interested making improvements, they’re interested in making profits. I would add that isn’t prideful to put faith in expertise, it’s quite the opposite, and it may be a ‘tired talking point’ to say that cigarettes cause cancer or burning fossil fuels causes global warming, but that’s a terrible reason to dismiss a truth.
Yes, making voters feel good is a great strategy for re-election, regardless of truth.
The difference between smoking cigarettes and global warming is that we really can do something about the smoking - if we want to. But it's a personal choice.
In the case of the climate, I think we've proven by now that there is nothing we can do about it, short of turning off our electricity and parking our cars permanently (and even that is debatable), and so we blame corporations and tax irresponsible citizens. And yes, that does make certain people feel good, for some reason and so if you're a government seeking re-election, it's a worthwhile endeavor in that sense.
The issue of climate change is not about people suffering heat stroke, it’s about ecosystems. Whether we like to admit it or not, we depend on ecosystems for survival. It’s like when a child takes a toy apart, or a bicycle, and doesn’t know how to put it back together again. It’s such an important lesson for a kid to learn that it’s even worth losing a toy or an old bike for them to understand. The climate is different though because we only have one. If it’s broken and we can’t fix it, that’s a very very costly mistake, and we won’t be the ones to suffer from it, future generations will. We have all the experts telling us in no uncertain terms that we need to stop doing what we’re doing because we don’t know what the results will be or whether we can fix them. Maybe we CAN fix it, and everything will be fine. I hope so! But we shouldn’t be taking that bet just because we ‘don’t like gubments’ or something like that.
I'm continually astounded at the pride of man. In this case, that arrogance also comes with a good side of gaslighting. We've seen how "successful" these government policies are at turning down the temperature. We've seen it for decades and still our carbon taxes in this country continue to escalate. Even more astounding is how, in the face of this, regular people continue to parrot the same tired talking points.
I think I’ve just found a major point of agreement with you. Canada, just like much of the western world (including my home country), is run by neoliberals. The job of the neoliberals is to serve capitalism in the same way conservatives do, while making liberals feel better about themselves by saying the kind of things that liberals like to hear. The neoliberals use global warming as just another opportunity to transfer wealth from you and I to the corporations they serve. There is an enormous amount of gaslighting going on in that regard and obviously we’ve seen no improvements made because they’re not interested making improvements, they’re interested in making profits. I would add that isn’t prideful to put faith in expertise, it’s quite the opposite, and it may be a ‘tired talking point’ to say that cigarettes cause cancer or burning fossil fuels causes global warming, but that’s a terrible reason to dismiss a truth.