Climate Truth/Flickr. Some rights reserved.Despite the fact that climate scientists are in near total agreement that climate change is real, manmade, and harmful, about 40 percent of the US population rejects the scientific consensus. This is not necessarily a big deal in and of itself. Lots of people reject scientific consensuses – evolution and the age of the earth come immediately to mind – and this denialism does not seem to have any appreciable impact on our daily lives. What makes climate change different from these other issues is that the current skepticism of climate change has stymied attempts to address its potentially deleterious effects with public policy.
Democratic governments rely on popular support to craft, pass, and enforce policy. Given that the US public can’t even seem to agree if climate change is real or not – it seems impossible for legislative bodies to make public policy that could address it. At best, the president can act unilaterally around the edges, but comprehensive and long-standing policies – whatever those would entail – will have to wait.
