Specifically, 80–90% of Americans underestimate the prevalence of support for major climate change mitigation policies and climate concern. While 66–80% Americans support these policies, Americans estimate the prevalence to only be between 37–43% on average. Thus, supporters of climate policies outnumber opponents two to one, while Americans falsely perceive nearly the opposite to be true.
While I don’t doubt a large amount of Americans will say they support major climate change initiatives, none of them are willing to change their lives in any meaningful way or give up their conveniences. They won’t get rid of meat, their car, their Mickey D’s, their single-family homes. I really think the average person expects “major climate change initiatives” to be banning plastic straws or something.
I get your frustration, but this seems pretty close to “how big is your carbon footprint” style blaming of individual consumers for how the world is set up. I fucking hate cars, but I can’t just decide on my own to “give it up” like you might give up junk food, I have commitments and participate in activities with friends that I have to drive to, and so do my wife and daughters. There’s no alternative transportation system here. I agree Americans love treats, but even if they wanted to, in a lot of cases, they really don’t have the choice of just “giving it up” on an individual level.
Its the same deal as the catch 22 of taking away old people's licenses. They live in a place where they need to drive to survive, yet they're no longer able to drive. They cause accidents because they have no other option to push driving past the point of safety.
yeah it's definitely not down to individual choices or whatever, but the total restructuring of the economy necessary to prevent climate apocalypse would result in major change to the American lifestyle, and i'd like to know what the opposition to such a restructuring would be. Even though the results in this study are interesting, and i'll admit surprising to me, the specific policies they're asking about are:
Like, these basically amount to "should we press the Fix the Climate button or not?" The Carbon Tax proposal is specifically formulated to be as uncontroversial as possible, and the GND proposal omits all of the controversial parts of the actual GND brought before congress. It's essentially the Democrat position on climate policy, which is that private sector scientists are gonna have that Fix the Climate button ready by 2050 at the latest, and by then we'll definitely have the political power to press it, and at no point will anything major have to happen to the American way of life.
This is exactly what I was getting at; you said it better than I could. When the choices are laid out like “Should we save our future and have no negative impacts on your life whatsoever, or should we do nothing” of course the majority of people will support it.
I get that and I was afraid I would come across too much like that’s what I’m saying. I don’t believe rugged individualism will save us from climate disaster. When it boils down though, if a goal is to, say, make these oil and gas companies accountable, that is going to be giving up your car eventually. Because there will be no gas on a consumer level. Or if we want to give up factory farming, there will be no more McDonald’s because food cannot and should not be that cheap to produce. I just don’t believe that the average person realizes that in order to achieve actual progress when it comes to climate change, eventually your treats will need to be curved or extinguished altogether.
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I think the broader point here is that cars are basically necessary to participate in even the most atomized forms of society until such time as public transit and walkable cities are made the only option for development. Putting yourself in solitary confinement isn't going to change shit, and neither is any measure to reduce driving going to work as well as giving better alternatives.
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This is just liberal consumption rhetoric. The person you are responding to was very clearly talking about basic levels of social interaction in our car focused society. Individual consumption choices, not tied into a broader structural framework, is literally just liberal buying a prius moral posturing at this point.
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"Activities with friends are not basic requirements to function."
Yes it is.... we are social organisms and to expect people to cease all social interaction is just absurd, and a political argument we would be doomed to lose. You can only get so much from virtual interaction.
And yeah i understand the scale if death and destruction that climate is going to cause I am a biologist and am painfully and intimatelyaware of the climate science. I see the nightmare every fucking day, but telling people not to perform basic social consumption is not going to fix anything without larger structural change. So long as we live under a system of private market distribution, individual reductions will simply lead to greater consumption in other sectors. That is how fucked we are.
And no I am not saying "go hog wild and burn gasoline for fun in a pit in your back yard." I am talking about normal social average consumption. Driving to see a friend once a week is no what is going to destroy the planet. Staying healthy and sane is also important.
And I didnt even slightly imply we should roll coal or go and splurge. Yes, if possible, emphasis on the if possible, take what mitigative steps you can. Even if it doesn't actually structurally change anything it atleast works to change social expectation. But going to extremes of asceticism is simply liberal moral purity posturing.
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Wow, the mental health understander has logged on. Please, Maslow, explain what behaviors are “basically functioning,” and which are decadent luxuries that we can’t afford, cause id’ve thought social interactions with others would be in the first category but evidently not. Also, super great idea to discourage meeting up with others because it’s immoral, that’ll really put the spark to any revolutionary momentum.
Yes ultimately these changes need to come from government, but people will throw an actual fit over giving up meat, cars, homes. That popular people's government won't remain popular for long tbh, there would have to be some concessions in other areas to extract these things. My thought is possibly a combination of lab grown meat to replace animal agriculture (this tech is coming, but our government could put more money into R&D for this), giving everyone an appropriate home/apartment/townhouse or whatever is deemed necessary, full employment for people with good paying jobs. People will still get mad as hell about single family homes but idk, there would definitely need to be some give and take
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