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@goodoldcatchy This response combined three pieces written in 2017:
Despite the fact there wasn’t a single question presented to either candidate at any of the three 2016 presidential debates (or the VP debate), Climate Change is one of the most contentiously debated topics of our lifetime. 1/
Despite the fact there wasn’t a single question presented to either candidate at any of the three 2016 presidential debates (or the VP debate), Climate Change is one of the most contentiously debated topics of our lifetime. 1/
@goodoldcatchy Climate change is inherently a scientific problem requiring a scientific solution. Unfortunately, the climate change problem has been politically hijacked. And despite the inexplicable lack of emphasis in the presidential debates,…2/
@goodoldcatchy …climate change has become a battleground issue in the cultural civil war that divides the country & gridlocks the political system. It comes as no surprise that in a “post-truth era”, where overt pathological dishonesty was positively reinforced at the voting booths (2016),…3/
@goodoldcatchy ….that climate science, and the facts that it’s based upon, would become casualties of this war. One especially relevant statistical analysis of the climate change problem is a graph that demonstrates the changes in global temperatures over the last 1000-2000 years. 4/
@goodoldcatchy This graph is known as the “hockey stick” because the charting of global temperatures resembles that of a hockey stick lying on its side, with the “handle” starting on the left side of the graph and continuing relatively horizontal across the graph until about the year 1900….5/
@goodoldcatchy .…when global temperatures start to spike, thereby resembling the “blade” of the stick. The temperature readings are calculated using analysis of tree rings, ice cores, coral, stalagmites, bore holes, as well as other data sources. 6/ 
@goodoldcatchy A relatively recent analysis of peer-reviewed literature, where the scientists took a position on the Climate Change issue, revealed that a consensus of over 97% believe that it is the result of human behavior. 7/
@goodoldcatchy However, a 2016 Pew Research Poll showed that only 27% of Americans agree that “almost all” climate scientists believe that human behavior is responsible, and only 35% of Americans agree that more than half of climate scientists believe that human behavior is the cause. 8/
@goodoldcatchy Furthermore, only 28% of those polled said they believe that climate scientists understand the causes of climate change “very well”. Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)…. 9/
@goodoldcatchy ….stated in its 2013 report that “the science now shows with 95 percent certainty that human activity is the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century”. 10/
@goodoldcatchy The main reason for this disparity of understanding is because the Right has found it politically (as well as financially) expedient to demonize intelligence, education, experience, preparation, & intellectual honesty in an attempt to equate expertise with “elitism”. 11/
@goodoldcatchy When taken together w/studies showing that people dismiss credentialed authorities, opinions, and evidence that contradicts their pre-existing beliefs….this contrived, anti-elitist, populist sentiment has resulted in a collectively dumb-downed and bias-confirmed electorate. 12/
@goodoldcatchy Further compounding the problem, news networks have gone beyond reporting from a Right/Left-leaning perspective, to what can be described as a consumer-driven, demand-and-supply practice of misinforming, and in some cases, intentionally deceiving their audiences. 13/
@goodoldcatchy For example, one analysis revealed that in 2013, FOX NEWS’ coverage of the climate change issue was misleading 72% of the time. And this was an improvement over 2012 when it was misleading 93% of the time. 14/
@goodoldcatchy To contrast this against the other two major cable news networks, CNN was misleading 30% of the time, and MSNBC’s coverage was misleading 8% of the time. 15/
@goodoldcatchy In the case of climate change data, it’s a combination of agendas, personal and financial interests, emotional subjectivity, willful ignorance, and intellectual dishonesty that all contribute to a lack of confidence/belief (real, imagined, or feigned) in the data. 16/
@goodoldcatchy As is often the case with governmental policies, especially when rigid conservative ideology is driving the policy making, we often make decisions that will cost ten dollars down the road, in order to save two or three dollars now. Climate change is the most glaring example. 17/
@goodoldcatchy The collective unwillingness to bite a small financial bullet in the early in this century is going to be exponentially more costly in the mid-late part of this century, if not catastrophic, as rising sea levels create as many as 2 billion climate change refugees. 18/
@goodoldcatchy To put that in context, 2-3 million Syrian refugees created/contributed to a chain reaction of geo-political upheaval that included Brexit, and arguably even contributed to the Trump debacle as economic and right wing national populism swept over the world’s countries. 19/
@goodoldcatchy Just imagine what type of chaos the displacement of one-quarter of the world’s population will cause. And that doesn’t even take into account dozens of other issues. 20/
@goodoldcatchy The climate change issue is relevant to @DMRDynamics observation of the pathology of living in an "immortal, eternal 'now'". Although he speaking specifically of Trump, as the thread below analyzes, it endemic to the Republican party:
@goodoldcatchy @DMRDynamics @threadreaderapp please unroll
