It's difficult to care about long-term problems like climate change, when you are struggling to provide for your family in the present.
That's some of it, although some others seem to emotionally reject any information about climate change, which is more concerning (especially when those people end up in positions of political power).
This year has proven that climate change isn't just a long term problem.
Manhattan was engulfed in smoke from the west coast. People were flooded out of their homes in Western Europe. And heat waves across the west coast lead to dozens of deaths.
I'm probably missing things happening in Asian countries due to consuming western media.
We can look at our response to Covid as a model for how we might respond to climate change slapping us in the face. If that is a fair comparison, I am worried.
>I'm probably missing things happening in Asian countries due to consuming western media.
Tokyo Olympics, specifically the heat has been getting tons of coverage in western media. As a Tokyo resident I can't recall a summer this hot over the six years I've lived here. Floods in China have likewise received a fair bit of coverage. A few media outlets have managed to join the dots but they appear to be in a minority.
I don’t think our responses to COVID was only disaster. Big parts of them was disorganised and inconsistent. But in the whole they were also forceful, creating not only one, but several effective vaccines in a fraction of the time it usually takes, and making them available to billions of people. Also, suddenly, there are trillions of dollars made available to keep the economy afloat and reduce personal sufferings.
If the same scale of efforts were used to fight climate change, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Right now I’m just waiting for the natural disasters being big and frequent enough so people can’t deny what they see with their own eyes. After that I expect things to happen relatively fast. Maybe some oil and coal executives that have spend billions spewing lies will be found dangling from lamppost too, when people finally understand what happened. (I in no way condone the last part, it is merely meant as a way to express that some people probably will be very angry.)
That's some of it, although some others seem to emotionally reject any information about climate change, which is more concerning (especially when those people end up in positions of political power).