Why Politicians Don't Give A Shit About Global Warming - Is It Because They're Old?

[hatrack]

EDIT

Even with all of this going on under my nose, just one year ago I wouldn’t have considered myself politically or historically aware. Adults don’t always realize this, but today’s students have only a foggy idea of what happened between the years 1960 and 2010 — American history curriculum ends with World War II, and we weren’t exercising much civic responsibility at age 9. To my younger self, the word “president” was synonymous with the word “Obama,” and “checks and balances” were the extent of my political knowledge.

But after taking AP US history, a class that finally taught me about our nation’s more recent past — the Cuban Missile Crisis, Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and other things I’d never heard of — I started to pay attention to what was going on in the world of politics. I found myself getting more and more frustrated as our leaders denounced climate change and took actions in favor of corporate sloppiness. As all of these things kept happening, I wondered: Why don’t our politicians care?

My answer to this question came last fall, when I realized that the average senator is 62 years old, and the average House member is 57. And there it was — the answer to my question, hiding in plain sight. The people who lead our country won’t be alive 60 years from now to reap the consequences of their actions. It’s much easier to improve areas that they can measure and use for reelection, like unemployment and health care. Environmental issues, on the other hand, pose a measure of success that they won’t be able to experience or quantify. And because of this, when forced to choose between funding an oil pipeline and cutting back on fossil fuels, the majority of our current leaders would choose the environmentally detrimental option for the sake of jobs and industry.

The effects of these decisions will be costly for my generation and those who come after. NASA predicts that by 2090, when my grandkids are in high school, the entire southwestern region of the United States could be stuck in a 35-year megadrought that causes a massive famine. If greenhouse gas emissions stop increasing by the middle of the century, the likelihood of this devastation is 60 percent. If we continue down our current path of nonrenewable energy, the likelihood rises to 80 percent.

EDIT

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/7/14/15959968/climate-change-teenager

[pscot]

1. old in greed and corruption

[RazzleCat]

2. I disagree

I am going to disagree with this idea. I can only speak for myself, family and friends. I am 58, and the “baby” of my family. My friends are in the same age range, none of us believe that global warming is hoax, or not an emergency issue. I look at my circle, I see fuel efficient cars, extra insulation, looking at solar panels (we live in the mid west, so not as quick of a return on investment as other regions). We vote, rally, donate, and speak out in support of efforts to fight global warning. We have children, we don’t want to leave things worse for them, we want to leave a better world for them. We understand that just having a “ton of cash” will not protect our children from a world wide catastrophe that global warming is. I know that I am closer to death, and I hate the idea that I will leave behind a world in worse shape than the one I grew up in.

[hatrack]

7. True, but you're not a politician, thus not hooked up to the money-drip as they are . . .

I'm not much younger than you, and my worries only grow deeper each year.

Hell, we don't even have kids, and the feeling of shame at what my friends' kids will inherit is paralyzing.

[wasupaloopa]

3. This ageism here is bull shit. We old folks hold the same feelings and beliefs as people younger

than us.

Believing in climate change or not is divided along conservative vs progressive lines not young vs old.

We have kids and grand kids who will live on after we die. We care about them as much as we do our selves.

In my home town we used to fish in the local rivers until they were so polluted nothing could live in them. Now they are clean again.

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1982 the air was so full of smog you could not see the surrounding mountains. Now they are visible again. We have cleaner cars, solar and wind power everywhere.

I only hope the next generation keeps up our legacy of working to clean up our environment.

And I won't lump all of them into one bunch like this writer does,

[enough]

4. I agree. In any given place, it's the old-timers who really understand

the reality and the magnitude of what's happening. And they (we) care and are active.

It's not because the politicians are old, it's because they are addicted to their donors and also to personal wealth.

[CanonRay]

5. Sorry, it's not age, it's $$$$$$$$$$

Big oil, big pharma, big war, these industries fuel re-election campaigns and PACs. They provide incomes for representatives leaving office in the "private sector" and for "think tanks" to keep the bullshit flowing to the people. Increasingly it is individual mega-donors who seek to buy the means to project their own sick philosophies on the rest of us. See DeVos, Betsy et al.

[StevieM]

9. I agree it is not age, but I don't think it is primarily about money either.

I think it is ideologically driven. Any position that is identified as conservative is seen as holding truth to it. Anything regarded as liberal is an evil lie.

Too many Americans decide what to believe based on what feels liberal or conservative to them.

[CanonRay]

10. Most professional GOP politicians are not ideological

They are driven by the desire to get re-elected and enhance their earning potential, hence donations.

[sue4e3]

6. I'm 43 and I agree it is partly age. The offended people here is because of their age. If you are

over 50 and environmentally aware , my first question would be were you liberal minded in your 30s? because of course not all who are over 50 refuse to look at the future we are creating. I mean the earth loving hippies came from the 60s. I am old enough to remember quite a few of them very well. I do think that for the majority of older folks that are resistant to change and are in climate change denial, one of the weapons in their psychological arsenals is that even if they are wrong they won't be here to worry about it. I even see it in people who know that climate change is real and use it to just not talk about it. What won't effect them , isn't important enough to be afraid of

[DavidDvorkin]

8. What an embarrassingly silly argument.