Study: US Won’t Act On Climate Change Because Citizens Believe The World Is Ending

[kristopher]

Study: US Won’t Act On Climate Change Because Citizens Believe The World Is Ending

A new study concludes many Americans have failed to take action about climate change because they believe that the world will be coming to an end anyway.

In their study, titled “End-Times Theology, the Shadow of the Future, and Public Resistance to Addressing Global Climate Change,” David C. Barker of the University of Pittsburgh and David H. Bearce of the University of Colorado argue that citizens who believe in the end of days “often resist policies trading short-term costs for hypothetical long-term benefits.”

“(T)he fact that such an overwhelming percentage of Republican citizens profess a belief in the Second Coming (76 percent in 2006, according to our sample) suggests that governmental attempts to curb greenhouse emissions would encounter stiff resistance even if every Democrat in the country wanted to curb them,” Barker and Bearce wrote in the study.

.......

That sentiment is not just confined to average citizens. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, Rep. John Shimkus, said in 2010 that he opposed action on climate change because “the Earth will end only when God declares it to be over.”

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/study-us-won-t-act-climate-change-because-citizens-believe-world-ending

Posted originally by redfairen in the skeptics group:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12311907

[newfie11]

1. The world will still be here

But the idiots won't AND their stupidity could finish all of us.

[valerief]

2. Ah, religion. Is there anything it can't do?

[SamKnause]

3. Denial

If only their "Gods' could rapture all the believers.

Problem solved.

[pscot]

4. My step-father once entered a room expecting to find

my mother there. When she was not, he had a panic reaction, assuming she had been raptured. An early indication of the senile dementia that eventually carried him to glory.

[SamKnause]

5. Reply

Oh my.

Sorry for your loss.

[kristopher]

6. It isn't just Christian's that are in the End Days mode.

The same message with the same effect is relentlessly promoted here by our self-styled "doomer" community.

One sample exchange:

Doomer telling us that the expectation that 85% of new generation capacity over next ten years will be met by renewables doesn't matter:

"There are no models that support the expectations of status quo energy demand using renewables or any combination of all known sources of energy generation. The numbers just don't support any workable model of carbon free energy, that isn't greatly reduced in scale."

My reply:

We are, in FACT, much further along in mustering a global solution to carbon than was thought possible even 10 years ago. And that is in spite of a flood of propaganda from the entrenched energy establishment telling us that it can't or it shouldn't be done. They cloak their desperate attempts to derail progress in killing carbon behind a variety of facades but the ultimate message to those effecting change is exactly the same one you are peddling - "STOP!"

[joshcryer]

9. Climate alarmism has nothing to do with rapture nonsense.

It means that we aren't going to do anything substantive against climate change.

Of course we'll mitigate it with geoengineering.

But we will burn every last drop we can.

And the "renewable believers" won't change that fact.

[kristopher]

10. The claptrap I quoted might as well be from Genesis

Not surprised to see you defending it.

[joshcryer]

11. Defending what?

You are projecting, as usual.

[kristopher]

12. what you were defending by trying to rebrand it as "climate alarmism"

Doomer telling us that the expectation that 85% of new generation capacity over next ten years will be met by renewables doesn't matter:
"There are no models that support the expectations of status quo energy demand using renewables or any combination of all known sources of energy generation. The numbers just don't support any workable model of carbon free energy, that isn't greatly reduced in scale."

That is what you were defending by trying to rebrand it as "climate alarmism".

[joshcryer]

13. You misunderstand.

Any projections made by faith based renewable evangelists are not going to be met in order to stem catastrophic climate change. Those so called "doomers" are correct on that count.

Beyond geoengineering I cannot make a statement, because it's the go-to solution for pro-fossil fuel advocates, and it will be done. I don't know about you, but if you're in your 30s you'll likely live to see it. If not, then you can go to your deathbed happily deluded in your pretend future.

[kristopher]

14. Clearly I didn't misunderstand anything.

All you've done is confirm what I wrote.

[joshcryer]

15. Please explain.

How do I confirm your madness insinuating that climate "doomers" are wrong about the fact that renewable technology is in fact not on a trajectory to stem catastrophic climate change?

[kristopher]

16. I rest my case

You are doing a fine job of proving my point all by yourself.

[joshcryer]

17. You have no point.

I agree with a small part of your caricature while simultaneously disagreeing with your convoluted view of the future.

[kristopher]

18. Sure I do: It isn't just Christian's that are in the End Days mode.

The same message with the same effect as the OP is relentlessly promoted here by our self-styled "doomer" community.

One sample exchange:

Doomer telling us that the expectation that 85% of new generation capacity over next ten years will be met by renewables doesn't matter:

"There are no models that support the expectations of status quo energy demand using renewables or any combination of all known sources of energy generation. The numbers just don't support any workable model of carbon free energy, that isn't greatly reduced in scale."

My reply:

We are, in FACT, much further along in mustering a global solution to carbon than was thought possible even 10 years ago. And that is in spite of a flood of propaganda from the entrenched energy establishment telling us that it can't or it shouldn't be done. They cloak their desperate attempts to derail progress in killing carbon behind a variety of facades but the ultimate message to those effecting change is exactly the same one you are peddling - "STOP!"

Thank you for showing exactly how well reasoned and grounded in reality that position is. I really couldn't have asked for a better demonstration.

[joshcryer]

19. Oh, cute, copy-paste mode. Oh, cute, I disproved it already.

[kristopher]

20. You were fronting for Greenman, weren't you?

[joshcryer]

21. What?

Don't disparage greenman, at least he has logical positions, unlike our local natural gas and fracking supporter.

[MisterP]

7. dang Adventists!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McCready_Price

[The2ndWheel]

8. Citizens also believe the world isn't ending

and think that someone will think of something to get us out of this mess.

Nobody is going to act on climate change.

[cprise]

22. K&R