The Bottom Line
Despite widespread consensus on the reality of climate change, misinformation about both the causes and solutions for climate change took hold during the 2024 presidential election. As this type of misinformation continues to impact public discourse, the need for greater media literacy becomes crucial, particularly to counteract the influence of political leaders and foreign-backed campaigns on voter behavior.
It’s not that they don’t care I think. It’s more that the human brain is not very good at understanding and visualising massive things (be it numbers, space, complex systems, etc).
We’re really good at gathering and communicating information though, which helps us make sense of the world.
The big problem is that we allow people’s opinions to have as much weight as data and facts. So when you have data and facts about climate change presented at the same level as climate denialism, most people don’t really see the difference when it comes to the weight of the data vs the opinion of some guy.
It’s almost like some people benefit from withholding information, controlling the narrative, and having a public with low critical thinking.
My pastor growing up said we don’t need to worry about pollution and climate change, because Jesus is going to return any day and after he wins, god is going to renew the earth. Magically I guess.
It’s an excuse I always heard for not doing anything about it