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Tamaska-gl t1_ivttkz9 wrote

Reply to comment by PanOfCakes in [OC] Who Targets You? Top Contested Facebook & Instagram Ad Audiences in US 2022 midterms by fabiofavusmaximus

If that’s true why don’t conservatives care about climate change? It’s easily the biggest factor in the lives of the next generation.

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lupadim t1_ivwa857 wrote

  1. Unlike what reddit loves to say, politics are not as simple as "conservatives want to keep things frozen in time, progressives want to advance society". Both sides want to advance, and I'd say the main difference is that conservatives tend to prefer cautious bottom-up changes while the progressives love radical top-down changes when it is for what they consider a good cause.

  2. It's not true that conservatives don't care about climate change. It's just that on a political level in North America the left has dominated that field for so long that the right can't even set a foot in it.

But if you look at global conservatism (in Europe for example), they do care about climate change, they just disagree with the left about how to approach it. The left usually poses that capitalism and consumerism are the problem, and propose global treaties that attack it on a global scale. Conservatives disagree that capitalism/consumerism are to blame and propose that instead of letting the problem rest on the hands of international committees, you approach it on a community level, fostering local sovereignty, holding ordinary people accountable while also empowering them to act better and protect the environment in their own neighborhood. See "Green Philosophy" by Roger Scruton. He explains that sometimes we are stuck thinking about global co2 emissions while not realizing that we are destroying our own homes.

Conservatives are also rarely fans of solar energy and the likes. They usually push for nuclear energy.

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Joe_Baker_bakealot t1_ivwet0d wrote

As far as American conservatism goes, I never see conservatives arguing for change unless it's tax breaks for the rich. Otherwise it's always about either stopping change or undoing change that's already been done. Repealing laws that make guns harder to get, undoing precedents allowing women to receive abortions, undoing legislation that keeps corporations in check.

If you want to be super generous I see American conservatives argue for better veteran protections sometimes, but they often vote against it when given the chance.

Maybe it's different in other countries, and maybe it was different before I was an adult and paying attention to politics, but from my observation I don't ever see conservatives tryingto advance things in either direction, just undo or stop change.

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kweer t1_ivvnpsy wrote

>If that’s true why don’t conservatives care about climate change? It’s easily the biggest factor in the lives of the next generation.

Likely true in the long run, but still that is a much longer timeline than, say, a labor revolution, which historically happens in a few years. That is the sort of drastic change that terrifies parents.

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SleestakJones t1_ivug9lp wrote

I think its because they see it as something that wont effect current kids WHEN they are kids. When they get older they can deal with it but right now they value the paycheck that keeps their kids fed over a shift in our energy economy. That is the argument anyway.

There are lots of idiosyncratic issues that ended up on one side of the political spectrum with little direct correlation to the advertised philosophy of the group. In the case of Climate this is due to heavy investment by fossil fuel within the media right leaning people consume.

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PanOfCakes t1_ivtwqsk wrote

I’m not going to speak for everyone who is a conservative. But I personally see the link between population and climate change but I also don’t see it as a contingent link. As in, increasing population doesn’t necessarily mean more climate change, due to adoption of things like nuclear energy, wind, solar, etc.

One could also see the US heavy adoption of natural gas and subsequently being in the lead of dropping CO2 emissions in 2019 by absolute numbers and the western world in general as positive steps on climate change.

You could also look at statements on the climate on the past hundred years and it goes back and forth between the earth is heating up and cooling down. And question why this current statement is any different.

There’s a myriad of reasons.

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mean11while t1_ivugqtg wrote

What? The question isn't "does population cause climate change?" The question is "why wouldn't you do everything in your power to prevent climate change since you know your kids are going to have to deal with it?" If parents are change-averse, preventing massive environmental shifts should be near the top of their priorities.

But we already know why there's a disconnect: the disinformation is myriad. For example, someone has lied to you about what science said about the climate over the past hundred years. There has been no "back and forth" in the scientific literature. If you don't believe me, go read the literature - it's right there. You wouldn't be making this argument if you were familiar with the literature. Even during the 1970s, when the idea of global cooling was most prominent, the vast majority (>90%) of climate studies, as well as the broad consensus, identified a broad and continuing trend of warming.

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PanOfCakes t1_ivukmrj wrote

> What? The question isn’t “does population cause climate change?” The question is “why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to prevent climate change since you know your kids are going to have to deal with it?” If parents are change-averse, preventing massive environmental shifts should be near the top of their priorities.

That was one of the several potential reasons, I gave several….

Dude, you’re coming after me like these are my beliefs the only one I stated was mine was the first one, all I was doing was giving potential reasons that someone asked me for.

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mean11while t1_ivvd7ze wrote

I don't care whether you believe the lies or not. Stop repeating them.

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PanOfCakes t1_ivvz59o wrote

So what? I don’t give the potential reasons when asked? I just say “well I would tell you but u/mean11while told me not to.” And because they’re in charge of me I can’t because they don’t believe that people can hear them without instantly believing them.

If you’d been less of an instant dickhole then I may feel more inclined to do as you demand, but currently I do not.

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mean11while t1_ivyq1el wrote

In general, yes: you don't have to respond, even if you assume the question isn't rhetorical and the person is actually looking for an answer that they don't already know. Those answers are very easy to find and the major online resources do a decent job of debunking them.

But if you do decide that you really have to answer it, you need to be careful to clearly and systematically undermine each aspect of mis/disinformation that your response includes.

First, distance yourself from each incorrect belief: "they might think that...". I would even be inclined to add "but that doesn't make sense, because...". This addresses the faulty arguments.

Second, point out each individual factual inaccuracy as it's mentioned: "they might have been told that Earth has gone back and forth between heating up and cooling down in the last hundred years, but that's not true. Climate scientists have consistently been discussing global warming since at least the 1950s." This addresses the faulty factual claims behind those faulty arguments.

Science communicators and scientific skeptics have wrestled with this problem for decades: even the process of debunking an idea can help cement it in people's minds - and that's when it's clearly being debunked. Your intentions may have been good, but your comment didn't clearly distance the ideas and it made no effort at all to point out the inaccuracies buried under the argument.

Don't do anything because some random person online told you to - do things because you don't want to spread lies about the climate. I'm sorry that I was excessively terse. It seemed clear that all three of those statements were your opinions, especially since you said you were not going to speak for everyone who is conservative. That's a disclaimer that I only add before I present my opinions.

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