Neglecting climate change

Summary: The article I read discussed climate change as a "neglected topic". The author initially points out the incredibly surprising fact that 77% of Americans believe that aliens have visited earth as opposed to a 44% who acknowledge a possible global climate change.  Since 1977 there has been an obvious change in the influence a persons political affiliation has on their belief or disbelief of climate change. The oceans are rising, carbon dioxide levels are at an all time high  and ice caps are melting. Kristof touches on the idea of preparation for destruction and how civilizations prepare heavily for things they do not know will occur . "In politics and the military, we routinely deal with uncertainty. We’re not sure that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, but we still invest in technologies and policies to reduce the risks. We can’t be sure that someone is going to hijack a plane, but we still screen passengers." To sum it up, he thinks the topic has been greatly neglected if not ignored .
Analysis:   All over the world we see evidences of complete disregard for the environment and the obviously changing climate. America is only one example of a nation that prefers to turn their head to  something uncomfortable and dangerous. I read an article by Freud a couple of weeks back which spoke about an idea called the "fetishist split".  The idea is that people tend to ignore or disregard things, no matter how pressing the matter, that make them uncomfortable or cause pain to hear about. It seems as if either people don't believe that our climate is changing or they choose not to acknowledge it, both of which are dangerous. In the article, Kristof observes the correlation between political affiliation and belief in climate change. I thought this was interesting because that suggests that belief in climate change is not only driven by facts but also by party. Republicans tend to dismiss the idea of climate change much more than democrats. The scary thought is that those people who are dismissing the idea may not understand exactly what they are dismissing but rather are doing so because this is what they assume to be a general "opinion" of their party of choice. All the while, our oceans are rising and CO2 levels are increasing and we like to assume that Mother Nature will correct it and we should just let the earth cycle or just ignore the changes completely and hope that no one criticizes us for it.  One reader, Daria, mentioned how the topic isn't "sexy" but we should be aware of what is going on in our climate. This is a direct reflection of the way social media portrays the happenings in the world every day. If it is not sexy it won't sell. Well, climate change is the farthest thing from sexy, it's absolutely ugly and I believe that the "ugliness" of it is a large contributor to the obvious neglect of the topic. No one wants to give thought to issues which are upsetting or disturbing or worse, something that could potentially be a morality issue. Ignore it and you won't be a part of it, right? You can't be considered part of the problem if you don't believe it's actually a problem. The question is, how long will it take for enough people to realize we are impacting our environment negatively and make a conscious effort to protect it? In my opinion, we are going to get an awfully rude awakening  and until that happens we will most likely continue in the same direction. Ignorance is bliss.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/kristof-neglected-topic-winner-climate-change.html