Comment by abound
17 hours ago
I've been mentally tabulating a list of reasons rich (and/or older) people should care about climate change, even if you're only looking out for your own interests:
- Your children and younger family members will have to deal with this
- Climate change is causing increasingly worse turbulence for airplanes
- It will disproportionately affect your favorite vacation spots
- Probably something about stock markets and pensions - a world constantly wracked with increasingly severe natural disasters isn't the most economically productive one
"Your children and younger family members will have to deal with this."
If my 50 years on the planet has taught me anything, it's that this is not a sufficient motivation the current generation in power.
Yeah, they’ll just close their eyes and say our kids will figure something out.
- The availability of food that you use often to get through your day, such as Arabica coffee and chocolate.
Wildfires have to be a big one as well, the time range and geographic range is growing on a seemingly yearly basis.
Related, home insurance cost increases (and, in places, unavailability) from wildfires & worsening storms hits the pocketbook directly.
You should consider it's much easier rich people to deal with the fallout from climate change (or living in a failed/failing state for that matter) than for poor people. Plus they often have interests in the things that are causing the issue(s) in the first place. Additionally, the children argument is probably the most powerful, but they would probably expect their children to be rich too. All in all I'm doubtful the arguments you are providing have any effect.
I think there is a level of working class poor where it hardly makes a difference what goes on to the world around your life as you are working paycheck to paycheck with much of your available time regardless. How worse it could get doesn’t look appreciably different than how bad it can get already.
A little higher up the economic pole is who stands to lose the most. Those are the people who will see actual quality of life reductions and not be able to afford to return to old norms.
> - Climate change is causing increasingly worse turbulence for airplanes
Cutting out air travel is the single most accessible and impactful thing an individual can do with respect to climate change. You can stop turbulence from getting worse, but since you won't be flying in the first place...
None of that would matter. Farmers are going bankrupt and losing family land and yet...
There are a certain number of people who just cannot change. There are large numbers of diabetics who die despite an enormous number of warnings.
Climate change is not the main cause for turbulence.
In an indirect way it kind of is though. At the end of the day there’s more energy trapped in the atmosphere (stronger jet streams, more frequent and stronger frontal weather)
As you are probably aware, the op didn't say that it was
And since perhaps a source would be helpful, here's the research saying climate change is having a significant effect:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023gl10...
BBC reporting:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240524-severe-turbulenc...