The quicker the Arctic ice melts, the sooner Russia can dominate it.
I wonder how long it will be until the US starts caring.
I wonder how long it will be until the US starts caring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Political_Map_of_the_Arct...
I think it's due to the way most maps are still drawn - Mercator projection with the equator on a horizontal line.
If maps had polar perspective maybe our politics would be different.
- russia will extract the oil of the (now ice-free) arctic ocean
- consumerism will convert that oil into CO2
- temperature will continue to rise
- antarctica will eventually become ice-free
- the US will extract the oil of antarctica
- consumerism will convert that oil into CO2
- russia will eventually become ice-free
- russia will extract the oil of the (now ice-free) russia
- consumerism will convert that oil into CO2
- temperature will continue to rise
- shareholders of air conditionning companies are now rich enough to leave the earth and live in suborbital stations
- the other humans live like mad max
- ...?
The incuriousity of U.S. media really is remarkably repellant. None of the presidential debates brought up climate change at all. No one asks whether the politician believes the ozone hole problem was real, and whether it was set on a course of self repair by global political agreement, and local legal enforcement. Whether there was a free market fix for this in any sane time frame. No questions. That's holding people too accountable somehow.
Asking if people understand the ozone hole is maybe like asking whether 2+2=4 or some other value. Sure they'd say 4 (ozone problem was real) but somehow global warming is some 6+6!=12 but no one is ever held accountable for such absurdity. And why? The general population doesn't count that high. So the answer is in fact debatable. There's no common frame of reference with a huge percent of the American population.
Meanwhile in California, it is pretty much widely accepted. But they have "socialist" education and infrastructure investment; not this free market starve the beast strategy being used in bum fuck Kansas and Texas where people are getting dumber than rocks by the day, and like it, because their taxes are lower and Jesus isn't questioned. But they wonder why business won't move there.
Anyway this can't be treated as a problem only majoritatian democracy can solve. Leave it up to the majority and it's hopeless. This is a consensual problem, work the system just like this is a minority right, even though in the end the majority benefits.