Time dampens the urgency of climate change
(Third of the Climate Change Conundrum papers)
Pew research from 2019 found over 80% of Americans see climate change as a threat — 60% see it as a significant threat to their way of life, and two-thirds of U.S. adults say the government is not doing enough to mitigate climate change. But voting priorities don’t reflect this concern because, as of late 2019, climate change rated as the 11th most important voting priority among registered American voters. So, we have another climate change conundrum. Why does a recognized existential threat draw such low attention as a worthy voting issue? The answer is: time dampens the urgency of climate change. Climate change is a long-term concern, and its position on the voting priority list reflects a range of other problems seen as more immediate.
We are aware of global warming because of scientific research. However, without a long-term perspective, individuals are hard-pressed to recognize the world’s average temperature has risen a bit since their birth. A one-degree long-term change gets lost in our daily experience where the temperature between breakfast and dinner commonly changes by ten degrees. Intellectual acknowledgment of the crisis is not enough because the time scale on which climate change unfolds dampens the urgency. Issues such as rising healthcare expenses take on more emotional…
