Coming home today my 12 year old asked me why do people in power deny climate change

[TEB]

I was not sure how to answer him but I said greed ignorance. We talked how trump ted Cruz do not believe in it. So I said let's toss it out there see what others think. So here you go all DU let's us know how you feel on this.

[Aviation Pro]

1. Money...

...it's the only reason.

[blm]

2. Greed - many of them know, but, don't care. It makes it easier to manipulate the votes of the truly

ignorant who they exploit.

So easy to do when you can also convince them that the worsening disasters are the prelude to End Times which many of them would actually like to see sooner than later. Like the many evangelicals who celebrated after 9-11, believing it was the beginning of the End Times era.

[mazzarro]

23. IOW - theer is also religious reason to deny climate change - n/a

[sharedvalues]

3. Important: Denial is funded by energy companies for business reasons

I think it's important to explain motivations.

Climate change denial is funded by big energy businesses, because tackling climate change would cost those companies a LOT of money.

So it's a business decision for energy companies to spend marketing dollars buying politicians and funding fringe scientists and fringe institutes.

Recent vox article explains why energy companies fund the GOP to deny climate change. It's not about science, it's about money. Follow the money.

http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/10/14871696/scott-pruitt-climate-denial

[nocalflea]

5. And real estate developers were more than happy to jump aboard .

[sharedvalues]

6. Yup. Now real estate developers make plans for rising seas

Cities, developers, and the military know climate change is happening. They spend money to make plans for rising seas. See Boston's planning. The Trump org certainly has internal planning docs for their big towers that consider effects of climate change.



The reason for denial is money.

[nocalflea]

10. In the Sacramento delta region developers built a sizeable community on a flood plain.

They didn't tell the homebuyers this.
Lot of doubling dealing going on . Southern coastal states are especially easy pickings for developers . Keeping an eye on Charleston - city leaders have their heads in the sand when it comes to rising sea levels .

[sharedvalues]

29. Boston city govt publishes plans for rising tides

[vlyons]

4. Climate change is real and it's here

The scientific data that's been collected for 20+ years shows it's real and is caused by human activity, most especially industrial processes, such as burning coal and oil products for energy. As to why people in power deny it - It's because they are funded by the fossil fuel industry that does not want to switch over to renewable, non-polluting energy sources like wind and solar power. These industries basically bribe politicians with campaign contributions to oppose addressing climate change. Yes our elected officials are corrupt. Sad but true.

There are also some fundamentalist Christians, who believe that climate change and the resulting severe weather is caused by God. They think that admitting that climate change is real somehow invalidates their belief in an all-powerful God.

Then there are some people, who go along with whatever the leaders of their party tell them - no matter what. These are the people, who put party above their country. They have been duped by the corrupt politicians that were bribed by the fossil fuel industry. That would be the Republican party.

Tell you son that he has a perfectly good and capable mind to read about climate change and find out what scientific evidence tells us. You don't say the age of your son, but I'm sure you can find climate change stuff online that is age appropriate for kids. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is a fantastic movie and easily understood by non-scientists. Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize and an Academy Award for this film.

[Calculating]

12. Before the flood is another great film

[MFM008]

7. This

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Skittles]

8. tell him the GREEDY OLD PIG PARTY

cares more about MONEY than they do about the WORLD

[shenmue]

9. Smart kid

[Calculating]

11. Self interest and ignorance

People are either just stupid and don't know any better, or they deny CC out of their own economic self interest.

[FreepFryer]

13. Crabs in a barrel. They can climb to the top, but they can't escape the barrel.

They want to be on top of the pile, and be the last ones to be affected. That requires them to take as much from everyone else as they can, as long as they can- and that requires denying our common predicament.

[Initech]

14. Easy answer: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

More money to be made in fossil fuels than scientific research into alternative fuels.

[Scruffy1]

15. It's the money. Period.

Without the energy companies support and propaganda the republican party would become extinct.

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

16. Because they are paid to

Probably, in many cases, not all that handsomely. Minds and souls seem quite cheap these days.

[LiberalLovinLug]

17. Its about the excuse to deregulate pollution standards in order for their big donors to make money

They may own some of these companies even. But either way they keep the cash flowing both ways. Everybody wins!!!!
....well other than the people that have to breathe that poisoned air.

but its sad to think of the examples that American children now have of the make up of Washington politicians and most especially that you can be a bully, and abusive, and intolerable, and racist, and cruel, and vile and become the POTUS.

[Nitram]

18. Kid must have a good teacher...

[Igel]

24. I've seen kids show incredible insight and wisdom.

At the same time, they only know the side of the story they've been told.

Partial knowledge is dubbed "critical thinking" when we agree with it.

My kid comes home from school with this kind of partial knowledge. I always muddy it up for him. The anti-HRC crap some kids told him, and some teachers hinted at? Background, empathy, history. And suddenly he realizes he's been mislead.

The anti-Trump crap some kids tell him and some teachers hint at? Background, empathy, and history. And suddenly he again realizes he's been mislead.

Climate deniers come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Some don't want to have to face the consequences.

Some don't like that the consequences are used to justify sometimes specious actions that they disapprove of. "Never let a crisis go to waste", even if the solution isn't really all that relevant to the crisis. "Let's stop global warming" by reducing emissions 5% while other countries increase theirs--so that we'll have no short-term effect on the problem and precious little long-term effect.

Some don't like the short-term effect reasonable responses would cause. This can be put under "greed," but less than we all yearn to believe. Esp. since those who could have this as a reason also could be suffering from any of the other reasons, and the only reason to assume otherwise is omniscience derived from contempt and suspicion. Those are crappy premises for any assertion.

Some just have old information. For quite a while the evidence was suggestive but not conclusive. In hindsight it's obvious that eventually they'd find that the deep ocean was a heat sink. Not. But that's what we say, the evidence was always there (just not known to any living human). It's hard for new info to break into the bubble, esp. when the old conclusion is simple and the argument against it complex.

Many just don't like being talked down to like they're imbeciles. That's a real problem with people--both those talking and those talked to. I continued to have arguments into the late '80s that the USSR had extensive labor camps and had purges in Stalin's time, and some die-hards refused to see it. Why? Because I was a condescending asshole and to lose to a condescending asshole is humiliating. I don't like humiliation, I get why others don't. Likewise some fail to see that a lot of terrorist rhetoric is based on religious thought, but we have to conclude that it's the reasons that we think important--even though there's a lot of research showing that value systems don't all have the same components, even within what looks like one culture.

[PatrickforO]

19. Well, denying climate change allows big oil to eke out every penny

of potential profit. Oh, the execs KNOW that we are in an existential crisis, but remember the old quote: A capitalist will sell you the very rope you're going to use to hang him.

Read a bit about neoliberal capitalism and the slow coup that has ended with Trump in office. That's what Grover Norquist wanted, you know, a dumb guy in the WH who is just a 'pen' to sign legislation the Republican controlled Congress sends him.

The whole 'privatize everything, deregulate everything and take away all social safety nets because they increase dependency' philosophy has been carefully crafted by big bankers, billionaires and the military industrial complex to rape the treasury.

Consider this: we pay a lot of taxes. I know I do. And I have a legitimate concern that those tax monies I pay into OUR government, that is supposed to be OF, BY and FOR us, the people, should be used for programs that actually benefit WE THE PEOPLE, like single payer healthcare and taxpayer subsidized postsecondary education.

Unfortunately, the big capitalist neoliberals don't see it that way. They want that money to line their own pockets. This is why we have:

1. Supply side, or trickle down economics - the idea that if we cut taxes on corporations and on the wealthy, it will actually create jobs and so increase revenue HAS BEEN PROVEN NOT TO WORK for decades. Decades. But tax cuts for corporations (these can take the form of loopholes, 'free' trade agreements allowing free movement of capital and just plain reductions) translate into higher net profits.

2. If we used the government as the neoliberals want, as merely a 'defense' provider, then the military industrial complex profits through billions in government contracts that could, in a society organized around social justice, be instead used to increase the standard of living for the American people.

In the end, all the evil that has ever been in the world is due to selfishness - the illusion that we can create some kind of security by depriving others so that we can have more. In the end, we will be FORCED by reality to begin organizing ourselves around human need rather than human greed, and this will, as Naomi Klein says, be the end of capitalism.

Or...we will become extinct and this earth a smoking cinder upon which no life can survive quietly circling the sun.

Either way is fine with the Universe. What, I wonder, will prove to be fine with us?

[n2doc]

20. Couple of useful quotes for your smart 12 year old

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”


― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. H. L. Mencken

[TEB]

21. We thank you on the responses so far friends

[Warpy]

22. They're terrified it will cost them money

since they prize money above everything else in the world.

People who aren't rich deny it because they fear the inconvenience of having to learn how to do things differently, although they already are when they buy energy star appliances and use CFL light bulbs.

A few are just plain stupid and resent anything scientists say because science is too hard for them.

I think that's covered all the bases.

[randome]

25. Mostly it's the older set that laments change.

They find it difficult to follow "science-y" problems and can't bear to show their ignorance so they talk themselves into believing that things like climate change are simply not real.

That's easier than trying to make their minds work harder.

[femmedem]

26. Because an extremely well-funded disinformation campaign was successful.

I don't know to what degree people in power know the truth but pretend they don't, vs. truly not knowing the science because people have been paid well to lie about the science to them.

Here's a slide show from the Union of Concerned Scientists which describes the disinformation tactics. Yeah, there's a fundraising pitch, but there's good info here whether you choose to donate or not.

[Carter Johnson girl]

27. Greed and ignorance,

Yeah, as well as what they perceive to be convenience in the moment.

It won't be as convenient when the ozone layer is destroyed, but Trump, Cruz, et al. don't care about the future generations. They only wanna cover their asses.

They don't care about the environment at all, they're only looking out for themselves, and to make some money. Honestly makes me sick.

[malaise]

28. Smart kid

Human arrogance is a major factor - the dominion over all creatures perpetuated by fundies and fools - oops same thing.