Jul 17, 2022 06:29 PM
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/07/...ains-huge/
EXCERPTS: There are many dramatic contrasts between the Biden administration and its immediate predecessor, and climate policy is high on the list. After four years of promises to restore coal use and claims that windmills caused cancer, we have an administration that promises to cut emissions in half by the end of the decade.
What does the US public think of this change? The Pew Research Center has been tracking attitudes on climate issues for the past several years, and it has new polling data from early May. The polling shows a general weakening of support for climate policies, with most of the change coming from Republicans. But it also shows that the two parties may not even inhabit the same reality, as they largely disagree about whether the weather has changed.
[...] A large number of people now think they've experienced the reality of climate change. Over 40 percent say they've experienced extreme weather and/or extended heat waves, while 30 percent say their region has gone through drought and another 20 percent cite major wildfires. In all these cases, 80 percent of those who said they had experienced these problems suspect that climate change has contributed to them (as, in many cases, it has).
As you'd expect, these results show regional differences, with people in the Western United States far more likely to note heat waves, droughts, and wildfires; other areas of the country more likely to note severe storms.
The disturbing thing here is that partisanship is clearly skewing basic perceptions of reality. With a single exception, Democrats were more likely to say they've experienced these phenomena than Republicans—the lone exception being drought in the West. The gaps in these perceptions could be enormous, such as a 24-point difference between the parties in the Northeast when noticing severe storms and heat waves. Most gaps were smaller, but their consistency across regions and weather phenomena was striking.
There's a growing, bipartisan sense that environmental laws may not be worth it... (MORE - details)
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Since the early 20th-century, zombie acquiescence to expert-regulated authority has probably worked out positively more times than not for "free" countries; but in instances where their governments are centrally involved, one or more factions may opportunistically utilize _X_ to also implement their own narrower interests and agendas -- ranging the spectrum from political to business.
Obviously rival factions cognizant of that surreptitious exploitation (when applicable) are only grudgingly going to accommodate the other domain's quasi-bogus salvation or deliverance efforts when they have to (it's human nature to be obstinate in that way).
Climate change probably is contributing to the Western US's woes. But in this case, I'd trust intuition more than regard the various alarmed declarations themselves as literally being uncompromised conclusions. Artificially-caused climate change has picked-up so much momentum that it is ubiquitously applied to disastrous sequences of weather events (akin to how Marxist memes attribute all human social ills to systemic oppression, no tolerance for any other possibilities).
For instance, if the Establishment of a country had been hooting about artificially-caused climate change back in the 1850s (let's say, then counterfactually derived from accepting a popular hypothesis with the same ultimate worth as phlogiston), the conformist myrmidon portion of its population would be attributing the droughts, floods, and other weather tribulations of that decade to climate change, too.
In that retrospective "what-if" scenario, authority's already existing background theory for interpreting "what's going on" (motivated reasoning) would render correlation being treated as causation. Due to the applicable "authority professions" and establishment worshiping that guiding pre-condition so much that they couldn't critique it apart from token, shallow appearances or mock tribunals. A particularly vicious circle when any "independent reviewer" brought in is reciprocally scratching the other's back in return for similar services rendered to it; or is part of the very administrative hierarchy policing the other -- rewarding or penalizing its researchers for _X_ work. (Most scientists 'can't replicate studies by their peers' ... yet some of those results slash "discoveries" still propagate with biblical status.)
EXCERPTS: There are many dramatic contrasts between the Biden administration and its immediate predecessor, and climate policy is high on the list. After four years of promises to restore coal use and claims that windmills caused cancer, we have an administration that promises to cut emissions in half by the end of the decade.
What does the US public think of this change? The Pew Research Center has been tracking attitudes on climate issues for the past several years, and it has new polling data from early May. The polling shows a general weakening of support for climate policies, with most of the change coming from Republicans. But it also shows that the two parties may not even inhabit the same reality, as they largely disagree about whether the weather has changed.
[...] A large number of people now think they've experienced the reality of climate change. Over 40 percent say they've experienced extreme weather and/or extended heat waves, while 30 percent say their region has gone through drought and another 20 percent cite major wildfires. In all these cases, 80 percent of those who said they had experienced these problems suspect that climate change has contributed to them (as, in many cases, it has).
As you'd expect, these results show regional differences, with people in the Western United States far more likely to note heat waves, droughts, and wildfires; other areas of the country more likely to note severe storms.
The disturbing thing here is that partisanship is clearly skewing basic perceptions of reality. With a single exception, Democrats were more likely to say they've experienced these phenomena than Republicans—the lone exception being drought in the West. The gaps in these perceptions could be enormous, such as a 24-point difference between the parties in the Northeast when noticing severe storms and heat waves. Most gaps were smaller, but their consistency across regions and weather phenomena was striking.
There's a growing, bipartisan sense that environmental laws may not be worth it... (MORE - details)
- - - - - -
Since the early 20th-century, zombie acquiescence to expert-regulated authority has probably worked out positively more times than not for "free" countries; but in instances where their governments are centrally involved, one or more factions may opportunistically utilize _X_ to also implement their own narrower interests and agendas -- ranging the spectrum from political to business.
Obviously rival factions cognizant of that surreptitious exploitation (when applicable) are only grudgingly going to accommodate the other domain's quasi-bogus salvation or deliverance efforts when they have to (it's human nature to be obstinate in that way).
Climate change probably is contributing to the Western US's woes. But in this case, I'd trust intuition more than regard the various alarmed declarations themselves as literally being uncompromised conclusions. Artificially-caused climate change has picked-up so much momentum that it is ubiquitously applied to disastrous sequences of weather events (akin to how Marxist memes attribute all human social ills to systemic oppression, no tolerance for any other possibilities).
For instance, if the Establishment of a country had been hooting about artificially-caused climate change back in the 1850s (let's say, then counterfactually derived from accepting a popular hypothesis with the same ultimate worth as phlogiston), the conformist myrmidon portion of its population would be attributing the droughts, floods, and other weather tribulations of that decade to climate change, too.
In that retrospective "what-if" scenario, authority's already existing background theory for interpreting "what's going on" (motivated reasoning) would render correlation being treated as causation. Due to the applicable "authority professions" and establishment worshiping that guiding pre-condition so much that they couldn't critique it apart from token, shallow appearances or mock tribunals. A particularly vicious circle when any "independent reviewer" brought in is reciprocally scratching the other's back in return for similar services rendered to it; or is part of the very administrative hierarchy policing the other -- rewarding or penalizing its researchers for _X_ work. (Most scientists 'can't replicate studies by their peers' ... yet some of those results slash "discoveries" still propagate with biblical status.)