We’ve been conditioned to see the debate over climate change as a battle over extremes.
On one hand, there are those who dismiss the notion of climate change outright. These people believe that it’s junk science or a hoax.
On the other side of the argument are the climate activists who tell us the sky is falling and that we must act now to reverse the damage – actions that usually include draconian governmental policy.
Here’s the thing: both sides of this debate can’t rightly claim majority status. In an era of heated rhetoric, many people see climate change as an important but not urgent issue or at least don’t buy into the vitriol and hyperbole from either side.
(Full disclosure: I see differences in the climate, but I’m skeptical that manmade climate change is such a drastic issue or that we can really do that much about it. At the same time, I believe we should pursue free-market innovations that help us take care of the environment.)
It turns out that swing voters occupy a middle ground between the climate hoaxers and the environmental alarmists.
Axios has detailed a series of focus groups that reveal how swing voters view the climate change debate.
Amy Harder reports about the findings:
The participants were asked the following fill-in-the-blank exercise: Climate change is a ____. Of the more than 2 dozen responses, most (14) chose words that somehow described climate change as a problem, with “concern” being the most common word.
• Just 4 people chose words that made it clear they roundly dismissed climate change as a problem at all (like Trump), with one Obama-Trump voter calling it a joke and another saying it was “scientifically unproven.”
• Nobody described climate change as an emergency.
• Other words mentioned: “big issue,” “addressable issue” and “something scary.”
Harder draws these conclusions:
• Scientists are increasingly sounding the alarm about the mostly negative, and at times catastrophic, impacts that climate change is already having and is likely to have in the decades to come.
• But to people who are worried about paying big health care bills or losing their jobs in a matter of months due to a slowing economy, any problem playing out over decades will inevitably not rise to the top. Or, if it does make it to the top, it doesn’t stay there long.
At the end of the day, while the rhetoric over climate change has heated up to the extreme on both sides of the debate, swing voters – and arguably plenty of others among us – hold a more reasonable view on the issue.
It may behoove politicians of all stripes to remember that not everyone sees climate change either as a hoax or a hair-on-fire emergency.
And politicians could benefit from remembering that, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the government isn’t the solution to solving environmental issues.
Read more at The Resurgent
We are looking at the creation of a dangerous pagan new age cult that is just a throw back to the days of Human Sacrifice carried by by the pagans
“(Full disclosure: I see differences in the climate, but I’m skeptical that manmade climate change is such a drastic issue or that we can really do that much about it. At the same time, I believe we should pursue free-market innovations that help us take care of the environment.)”
“but I’m skeptical”… well NOT ONE PREDICTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE or RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST NIGHTMARISH CLAIMS HAS COME TRUE. NOT ONE. You should be more than “skeptical”.
“Manmade climate change” and taking care of the “environment” are two wholly independent issues that are now conflated through radical progressive political ideological indoctrination coming from progressive governments and media around the world aimed at achieving their ultimate goal of global progressive governance.
Radical environmentalism is the politicization of environmental resource management. Taking care of the “environment” is not carbon centric. Taking care of the “environment” is just a common sense responsibility that has been radicalized.
Manmade climate change has morphed politically, not scientifically, from the early days of “Global Cooling” to the Climate Hysteria meme we are now witnessing. Manmade climate change has no scientific basis in fact. Manmade climate change is not tied to a hypothesis. Manmade climate change is a political artifact of radical environmentalism presented as settled science where NO REAL science exists.
“We’ve been conditioned to see the debate over climate change as a battle over extremes.“ NO!!
Full disclosure Chris, THEY ARE LYING!
oh oh, let me answer: “Climate Change is a ______”: Constant. it is constantly changing.
Good one, Dave
“But to people who are worried about paying big health care bills or losing their jobs”, so Boxorox, this is the key. In the 2020 the Republicans need to drive home how the Democrats’ agenda will cost the average family a great deal and result in job loss. If these two things can be driven home, the swing voters won’t care about what is supposed to happen with the climate.
The typical swing voter is also typically someone who does not study earth science, is not closely atuned to atmospheric physics and has very little knowledge of geologic/atmospheric history that preceeds 1900. They occupy themselves with topics of more general and personal interest that serves the needs of their unrelated professions and avocations. As such, the rely upon “experts” to keep them informed on matters which may be important to them, but they lack the background to know whom to trust as experts except by the credentials they present. In so many cases, these days, the so-called “scientists” are not but they know how to talk the talk and use this skill to push their political agenda, such as to cause alarmism about human-caused climate disruption to incite fear that will lead to political action to “correct” the problem but in reality only promote the liberal campaign. The is the usual method of liberals: they create an emergency, invent all kinds of seemingly plausible evidence to support the “truth” of this emergency, then present themselves as the power players who know how to solve the problem. The only thing the voters have to do is listed, believe, trust and vote accordingly. Add in the element of decades of banging the drum on such high-profile issues, and swing voters have almost no choice but to begin believing the propaganda which seems to be indistinguishable from absolute science-tested truth. We must find a way to counter-balance this action. The passage of time is not on our side. This election period demonstrates that we have only draconian practicioners to choose from on the democratic side.
Overheard in a bar:
First American, “Would you say ignorance and apathy are the two biggest problems in the country today?”
Second American, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
Look at the idiot with their face painted half blue whats he suppost to be? On other news some of those Just Stinks Rebellion were kicked kicked out of IN and OUT BURGER Place when they started pestering the customers about going vegan and this Climate Change nonsense. I wish they would do that to those idiots from PETA
Here is a video exposing the AGW backers and their methods…
https://www.pipelinenews.ca/news/local-news/vivian-krause-documentary-now-available-for-free-1.23979764
Global warming/Climate Change is the biggist scam in this entire history of all Mankind the Back to Nature Freaks just want to use t his as a excuse to take us back to anchent times have us all living in grass huts and making that seasonal human sacrifice to the sun god or the pagan Aztecs The Eco-Nazis/Watermelons demand their false gods be worshiped and be given their seasonal sacrifice
My riding is rural and solidly Conservative. Something has changed, this election. There’s still lots of Conservative lawn signs, but the Liberals have been replaced by Greens. Seriously, ten to one. I think this is the result of the exodus of liberals from the cities to the country. It’s a political distillation, between socialists and environmentalists.
Given the constant drumbeat by the MSM that the climate is in an extreme emergency that only drastic solutions like a complete decarbonization must be done now it’s somewhat surprising that most are at least skeptical that immediate actions must be undertaken. If the media were to actually report what scientists who are not beholden to the climate alamism positions and also reported on historical weather/climate data (such as what Tony Heller is constantly putting out) then more people would also say that the climate alarmists are hoaxers. Alas the media are a large part of the problem.
The media is complicit in the greatest hoax perpetuated since “communism is for the people”.
But when it comes time for an accounting, they nimbly change the discourse so that the majority forget what they said a year or two ago (anyone taking the media into account for the Russian interference fake news?).