Week Five: Climate Skeptics

I’ve spent part of this week just not understanding why we even have to waste time and energy trying to convince those who are climate change skeptics or contrarians what is happening is real. I feel like spending time strategizing how to convince them somehow validates their opinions. But then I hear a story on NPR that partially gives me hope, about a republican businessman who is putting a lot of money behind lobbying the Republican party to change their view on climate change. A poll done by his organization ClearPath found that 56% of Republicans believe in climate change and that humans play a role in it. But then as the story reports, while most of the Republican candidates for president agree that climate change is happening, few have explicitly said they will combat it if elected and a few still deny it is happening. I just don’t understand why people will take a position on something simply because of their political affiliation and not on its own merits.

But seeing in the same story that almost 75% of young Republicans feel the government should limit greenhouse gases makes me feel like the message is getting out to those need it most. I also was a firsthand witness to the power of educating youth about climate change this week, as I helped to organize the Youth Energy Summit (YES!) Fall Summit this week at SJU. Our theme was ‘Say YES to youth-led solutions to climate change’ and Climate Generation gave a wonderful keynote about climate change. One of the coaches who brought a group of high school students sent us this quote from one of the students who attended, "My view was drastically changed from the beginning to the end of this presentation.  My parents have always said this is a hoax.  This is really important!" That is our audience we need to focus on!!

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/30/444457034/the-republican-businessman-who-wants-the-gop-to-address-climate-change