Climate Change is NO Chuck Norris

Published 24th October 2010 - 7 comments - 5219 views -

    Thanks for reading this post. You should also check out my declaration of love to nuclear power and learn why developing countries should be encouraged to pollute more.

     Background info: a google search on “climate change” returns 156.000.000 pages. A google search on “terrorism” returns 30.300.000 pages. Some people wear Superman pijamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pijamas. / When Chuck Norris crosses the street, the cars have to look both ways. Now let’s see why climate change is a marginal topic in ordinary people’s minds.

1. Think globally, act locally. Corporations are hungry for profit so they exploit developing countries, where we have a lack of power and of organisation. (child labour, taking natural resources without thinking about the environment, externalisation of pollution eg. Concrete factories moved from western Europe to Romania and so on)

2. Think locally, act locally. People from developing countries think like this. As we know from economics man is regarded as homo economicus. That’s to say if one shop sales a bar of soap for 1 dollar and another shop sells it for .99 cents then any man will buy the .99 cents one. To make it catchy and give an example at the same time here’s how a „developing” man thinks: I want money -> I have trees -> they want trees -> I cut trees -> I sell trees -> I have money.

     From 1. and 2. we must deduce that the extremly rich and the extremly poor generally don’t care about climate change. Now a look at the rest of the world.

3. Climate change is too vague, too scientifical, too far away.

    Too vague because climate change means: cutting down trees, building a concrete factory, buying a V12 muscle car or a sunny day in December ! Similar to quality of food: fast-food is bad for you, food with E-s is bad for you, food grown with chemicals/fertilisers is bad for you and so on. At one point you have 2 choices: just starve  or spend a fortune on organic food. Which grows in polluted air and is watered by rain that falls from the polluted sky. So you just ignore it all and go out for a burger.

    Too scientifical because it’s about the ozone layer, carbon emissions and full of studies that contradict one another. Why can’t it be like pop science ? Then everyone will watch. You must know the „british scientists have discovered that ...” or MythBusters or How It’s Made and co. Climate change should be presented like that ! 

    Too far away because climate change is gonna make living on Earth suck in 2050. Or 2062 or 2078 or maybe never. Depends which research paper you read. Or what documentary you watch. My finance teacher stated the first rule of finance: 1$ today is always worth more than 1$ tommorow. Paraphrase: Dying it the near future is always more worrying than dying in the far far away future. If we compare climate change and terrorism we find out why. Terrorism is simple: bad guy – bomb – you die. Climate change might do some things (everyone guesses on what they might be) in a certain period of time (generally one that people regard as long term).

     These are the reasons why climate change is NO Chuck Norris. More like a Steven Seagal. And you won’t find how-cool-is-Steven-Seagal facts on the web.

 

Category: Climate History, | Tags:

Dragos-Andrei Irimia
Romania
Freelance journalist / blogger / debate trainer

Degree in Economics, Masters Degree in Geopolitics and International Business and Economics. Freelance journalist. Debate trainer/coach, contributor to my former highschool magasine, social media enthusiast. Love sport, especially football, snooker and cycling.

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