…notice how they have to keep changing the name, by the way? Modern demonology is a very, very fast-paced field indeed. – Anyway, a new poll suggests that global concerns about global warming are fading:
Public concern about environmental issues including climate change has slumped to a 20-year low since the financial crisis, a global study reveals.
Fewer people now consider issues such as CO2 emissions, air and water pollution, animal species loss, and water shortages to be “very serious” than at any time in the last two decades, according to the poll of 22,812 people in 22 countries including Britain and the US.
Yeah, I think that the poll’s methodology is dubious, too – but presumably it’s as dubious as the last few polls’ methodologies, and in the same way, so at least we can see the trend. Besides, it ‘confirms’ an opinion that I’ve long had: environmentalism is a luxury of the rich. Rich people and cultures can afford the efficiency needed to transform resources with a minimum of fuss; poorer ones put a higher priority on eating than on, say, clean floors. Or water sources. So when a culture gets poorer, then suddenly all of those little Greenie enthusiasms that didn’t seem too onerous when we had plenty of money and resources to spare become a good deal more onerous, and a good deal less tolerable.
Moral of the story? If the Greenies want to reverse any hypothetical trend showing decreased support for their policies, then they need to figure out some way to increase wealth across the board. Oh, wait, we know the answer to that one: it’s called ‘full industrialization’ coupled with ‘free market democracy.’
…Awkward, that.
Via the Daily Caller and Instapundit.
Moe Lane
Don’t worry about them, they will convert back to their original communist agitation state.
I’ve had that discussion with a few liberal acquaintances of mine. Well, actually one claims to be a libertarian, except when it comes to government force for his priorities. I just couldn’t make them understand that when I say, “Environmentalism is a luxury good”, I’m not making a value judgement, but stating a fact of life. A man who needs to feed his family isn’t going to think twice about killing that pesky endangered species that’s destroying his crops or preying on his herd. If it’s a choice between keeping that rainforest pristine or clear-cutting it to put in a crop to feed his kids, the kids win.
If – and I say this knowing they’ll ignore me – the Greenies could grok “the perfect is the enemy of the good” and work to increase efficiency, they would be successful beyond their wildest Gaian dreams…
.
For one simple example, if they’d started agitating for incremental improvements in oil refinery efficiency back in the ’70s, rather than agitating for shutting them down, we’d have the cleanest refineries in the world by now….
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Mew
I don’t hate the environment. I do, however, hate environmentalists.
Sometimes I call them ‘watermelons’. Green on the outside, red on the inside.