Even as scientists become more confident that climate change is a serious hazard, public opinion is shifting the other way. This seems irrational and it's challenging the basic premise that we have of an enlightened, democratic, modern society.
I believe as people start to feel overwhelmed by the scope of the problem, they simply turn away from the topic. We just don't want to know about it, so we are actively distancing ourselves from it or trying to protect ourselves from it. It's a form of denial.
On top of this there's a small but active group of people who have decided that climate change is a phony issue, and they're pretty mobilized right now, and they're amplifying their message across the country, and having a field day with the e-mails stolen from climate scientists. Skeptics have taken some suspicious-sounding statements in those e-mails as proof that climate change is a hoax. That's certainly not the view of mainstream scientists, but again, the public doesn't necessarily listen to scientists.
People trying to stir up doubt about climate change aren't working in a vacuum. There's a large and well-funded effort to block legislation that could hurt the industries most responsible for carbon emissions.
We are fucked.
NASA data: Greenland, Antarctic ice melt worsening
And there is very little that we are doing to effectively rectify the situation.
All this "green" bullshit from carbon credits to hybrid cars to rich Arab nations building eco-cities of tomorrow, change nothing. We are like a 400 lb man ordering a diet Coke, while still ordering four Big Macs.
We can't deny the immediate economic advantages to the cheap energy that our CO2 civilization affords. I am dismayed by all this, but I will not, as others do, bury my head in the sand and pretend the issue does not exist or is a plot for world domination.
The ONLY meaningful hope is a sudden drop in the earth's population through contagious disease.
