The Politics of Climate

There are few concepts in science that I can think of that are more politically polarizing than climate. The story behind why this has occurred in some places (the US and the UK) and why it has never been the same kind of political issue in others (the rest of the world) is complicated. Most science focusing on the environment, in has some type of public policy element to it because people have an enormous impact (collectively and individually) on the world around us.

Climate is different. It has been elevated to the same level of political partisanship as the theory of evolution during the monkey trial of 1925. Though most scientists cringe at the notion that anything as complicated as a changing climate should be distilled down to simple binaries, it is nevertheless interesting to see how perceptions among Americans change over time. The Pew Research Center has been survey populations about the issue for years and their latest polling (released Dec. 1) shows some interesting results.

White noise

One of the things I remember as so striking when I lived abroad was the realization of just how insular the U.S. really is. Despite the fact that we are constantly inundated with news stories twenty-four hours a day and there are few respites from some sort of media, most Americans know shockingly little about the rest of the world. When we do happen to pay attention to international issues, you can be sure that there is some reason that can be traced back to how it affects us. Wars in the middle east, financial crises in Europe, Arab spring, we know about them to the extent that they affect us. It would be easy to dismiss this because every nation does the same thing. Maybe to a certain extent that is right but it seems fair to say that here in the U.S. we live in our own little bubble and are further removed from international engagement than other nations can afford to be.