Thread by @SteB777

Hi @Guardian @guardianeco this is a straw man argument, there never was this battle of the generations your article implies. Yes, you might supposedly be reporting research, but you present it uncritically. It involves classic cherry-picking.
theguardian.com/environment/20…

The conflict is between certain members of the older generation i.e. the powerful, very wealthy, heads of vested interests, the 1% or a lots less, who obstruct action to address the climate and ecological crisis, because it is contrary to their vested interest.

By their very nature, the extremely wealthy, the powerful, the very influential in terms of the positions they hold, are usually older. Usually someone is not in that position until at least into their late 30s and usually much older.

Power, and wealth tend to be accumulated over time. Even if someone inherits wealth, it rarely happens when they are young, and if they do, often some sort of trust control it at first. It takes time to climb the career ladder to get to the top.

The 1% (or in reality more like the 0.01% or less) are called that, because 99% or more are not part of them. Forget the actual line, because whether it's 10%, 3%, 1% or 0.01% it is a fraction of the whole.

To conclude, the actual divide is between the powerful and influential and the rest of the public, not old and young.

Yes, there is a problem in that a significant proportion of the older generation keep voting for political leaders who are in the pockets of vested interests. But the reasons for this are complex and the public have a limited ability to control this with one vote every 4-5 years.

In reality, people cannot control this with one vote for scores of complex issues, when they are not really offered proper alternatives, and the candidates both parties and people offered to the public are very limited, with an agenda controlled largely by the media.

People feel powerless. Remember since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit older people have largely being voting for politicians who have been pledging to address the climate and ecological crisis. It's not their fault the politicians haven't done what they pledged.

https://twitter.com/SteB777/status/1438042426191536130

The reason people feel powerless is that they've tried voting for the various alternatives, all who largely promise to address the climate and ecological crisis, and they to doing nothing at all.

So yes it is all a complete mess. But it is largely a mess because media like yourself fail to properly hold those in power to account, and yes, you pushed the falsehood for years, that 2C of warming was safe.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1413564…

Stop trying to bamboozle people with straw man misrepresentation of the facts. Yes, this is a myth, but it is your and the other media's myth, not a public myth.