Identified Themes

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Identified Themes

• In the IPCC Reports and the Perception of Actual
  Risk

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• Health impacts
• Food supply impacts
• Impact on Poor
• Sea Level Rise
• Threats to Biodiversity

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• Third is what I call the "documentary effect."
  When a person is shown a documentary film on some
  topic, whether about climate change or fast food
  or slavery, they ponder that issue for a couple
  days. Yet then they slowly forget about the issue
  as their exposure to it decreases.

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• Unfortunately, a sentence like projected climate
  changes during the 21st century have the
  potential to lead to future large-scale and
  possibly irreversible changes in Earth systems
  resulting in impacts at continental and global
  scales, means nothing to most readers. It is
  only a projected theory, with the potential
  of possibly irreversible harm, resulting in
  nebulous impacts during the entire 21st
  century.

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• These reports will be ignored because of the
  apathy and selfishness of our culture of
  capitalism. We are more satisfied by the
  immediate gratification of a new iPhone, or
  ridiculing celebrities, than preserving mankind.

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• because these listed effects are not physically
  experienced by all people in developed nations
  today, climate change does not register in
  peoples minds as being a crucial area of concern
  to be dealt with immediately

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• Rising sea levels are a gradual problem that
  doesnt pose apparent immediate threats,
  especially when the regions that will be most
  affected have experienced regular flooding for
  centuries. Food shortages and human health
  problems are issues that will affect the poor for
  years before wealthy and developed nations feel
  the full impact. The decision making elite of the
  world, based in these developed regions, feel no
  real pressure to make difficult decisions that
  may affect them negatively politically and
  economically in the short term. 

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• Perhaps a way to get individuals to stop ignoring
  these warnings is through exposing people to
  photos and individual testaments of how climate
  change is currently having serious negative
  influences on people and communities.

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• These reports look too far into the future to be
  relevant to most humans and most simplified
  discussion of them involves summarizing concepts
  that seem to be in play incredibly far beyond our
  realm of action.

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• But perhaps the scariest response of the three
  reactions is apathy. Apathy occurs when the
  public has lost their interest in the world
  around them. As a part of the millennial
  generation, I can attest that this is true. As
  much as we brag of being a well-connected and
  well-informed generation, we are generally
  uninterested in our surroundings and are often
  self-focused (George Carlin)

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• However, it is easy for policy makers and the
  general public to ignore warnings of sea levels
  rising because they would either have to a) care
  about the long-term outcomes for other people, or
  b) they would need a more in-depth explanation of
  how something that appears so gradual can
  devastate entire communities.

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• . A second aspect of human behavior that is
  present throughout the article is societys
  obsession over tedious and irrelevant news. Each
  section ends with a portion of in other news
  that lists the news that society was more
  preoccupied with at the time.