The psychologist shows an interesting twist to the debate.
The big conference:
World leaders in the French capital are working against the clock to broker a deal that would stave off the most devastating effects of climate change as the 2015 United Nations COP21 conference enters its second and final week.
Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues that part of the reason public consensus lags behind scientific consensus is that our brains evolved to respond to threats that are intentional, immoral, imminent and instantaneous, like terrorism. The most devastating consequences of climate change — expected to occur down the line if humankind stays on its current path — have none of these qualities.
“Global warming isn’t trying to kill us, and that’s a shame,” Gilbert wrote in a Los Angeles Times column. “If climate change had been visited on us by a brutal dictator or an evil empire, the war on warming would be this nation’s top priority.”
Similarly, at the conference on Monday, action movie star and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.......
“It drives me crazy when people talk about 30 years from now, rising sea levels and so on,” he told the Guardian. “What about right now? Thousands of people are dying from pollution. People are living with cancer [because of air pollution].”
Schwarzenegger, a Republican, recalled an advertising campaign in California that showed children whose respiratory systems had been damaged by breathing in air pollution. Poll numbers changed after people saw “what we are doing to our kids,” he said.
In Beijing on Monday, the local government issued its first red pollution alert for its extraordinary level of smog. The Chinese capital’s government is enforcing serious restrictions on traffic and factories in an attempt to protect its population from the deadly air.
A vendor wearing a protective face mask waits for a customer at Jingshan Park on a polluted day in Beijing, Monday, Dec. 7, 2015. Beijing issued its first-ever red alert for smog on Monday, urging schools to close and invoking restrictions on factories and traffic that will keep half of the city's vehicles off the roads. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
http://news.yahoo.com/ban-ki-moon-u...ng-towards-climate-catastrophe-190037547.html
The big conference:
World leaders in the French capital are working against the clock to broker a deal that would stave off the most devastating effects of climate change as the 2015 United Nations COP21 conference enters its second and final week.
Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues that part of the reason public consensus lags behind scientific consensus is that our brains evolved to respond to threats that are intentional, immoral, imminent and instantaneous, like terrorism. The most devastating consequences of climate change — expected to occur down the line if humankind stays on its current path — have none of these qualities.
“Global warming isn’t trying to kill us, and that’s a shame,” Gilbert wrote in a Los Angeles Times column. “If climate change had been visited on us by a brutal dictator or an evil empire, the war on warming would be this nation’s top priority.”
Similarly, at the conference on Monday, action movie star and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.......
“It drives me crazy when people talk about 30 years from now, rising sea levels and so on,” he told the Guardian. “What about right now? Thousands of people are dying from pollution. People are living with cancer [because of air pollution].”
Schwarzenegger, a Republican, recalled an advertising campaign in California that showed children whose respiratory systems had been damaged by breathing in air pollution. Poll numbers changed after people saw “what we are doing to our kids,” he said.
In Beijing on Monday, the local government issued its first red pollution alert for its extraordinary level of smog. The Chinese capital’s government is enforcing serious restrictions on traffic and factories in an attempt to protect its population from the deadly air.
A vendor wearing a protective face mask waits for a customer at Jingshan Park on a polluted day in Beijing, Monday, Dec. 7, 2015. Beijing issued its first-ever red alert for smog on Monday, urging schools to close and invoking restrictions on factories and traffic that will keep half of the city's vehicles off the roads. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
http://news.yahoo.com/ban-ki-moon-u...ng-towards-climate-catastrophe-190037547.html