If you believe the race to cut climate pollution requires a strong mandate from the public, the latest polling makes for grim reading.

4 comments

1. Yeah but in Micheal Mann’s new book, ‘Hopium and the Hockey Stick’, he says all we need is ‘urgency and agency’ and we’ll be fine.

   /s obviously.

2. >You probably know that climate action has dropped down the list of public priorities, mostly displaced by affordability and, to a lesser extent, housing and health care. But there’s also a disturbing gap between the public’s desire for action in principle and support for climate actions when they come into practice. And the gaps appear to be widening.

   This is, unfortunately, completely expected. If today is uncertain, you don’t have the extra capacity to care about tomorrow, or ten, twenty, a hundred years in the future.

   There’s also the fact that the average person is not well informed on the details of the issues. For example, 87% say Canada needs more electricity, and 67% say they support gas power plants. Are they informed that both wind and solar [have better LCOE than even combined-cycle gas](https://cleantechnica.com/2023/04/15/wind-solar-power-now-the-clear-champions-on-cost/) (though, admittedly, storage costs bump them just a little higher)?

   And how much of people’s perceptions are shaped by industry’s media push portraying natural gas as “cheap” and “clean”, while solar and wind are “expensive” and “unreliable”?

   As the article itself notes, further down:

   >There are a few major drivers behind the softening of public opinion. The impacts of inflation and the cost of living have knocked climate change down the list of priorities. While these legitimate anxieties occupy our attention, they also make unstable beliefs vulnerable to disruption.

   >Comeau says that climate advocates, journalists and communicators of all types have been too quick to move on from instilling the basics — the scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels creates a thickening blanket of heat-trapping pollution. “It’s real, it’s human-caused and it’s affecting us today — we’ve forgotten that those three points need to be in every communication.”

   >Unstable beliefs are susceptible to counter-campaigning. And the axe-the-facts campaign has been relentless. Canadians are also exposed to well-funded greenwashing about “solutions” along with claims designed to sow doubt and undermine confidence in fossil fuel alternatives.

3. Capitalism has made normal people too poor to be able to shoulder the financial burden of creating a sustainable world.

   I understand that people are upset when green initiatives are put into place. It is not easy to buy a new electric vehicle or renovate your house so it is up to standard, especially in this 21st century economy.

   The money should come from the numerous companies who are responsible for the destruction of the climate and who have become obscenely rich because of it, not the taxpayers.

4. Reddit is a good indicator. Climate change topics do not get that much discussion or feedback. Big corporations are the ones who could do something, the little guy, not so much.