Thursday, February 08, 2007

Baby boomers' lifestyle is being blamed for climate change

So reads they headlines. The article then goes on to say: “Yet‚ as governmental initiatives try to make people aware of the problem‚ the over 50s do not feel threatened by global warming”.

A bunch of academics have set up a research project (the Climate Talk project) to research the attitudes of the 50-plus towards ‘global warming’.

For US readers of this blog, the UK is currently convulsed in a period of self flagellation about the climate change and how everything from air travel to eating meat is destroying the planet.

I wonder why the 50-plus are taking this gung-ho attitude. Let me think aloud for a moment. Maybe it is that this age group has lived through other mega-scares, things like CJD (mad cow disease) that was supposed to be sending great swathes of the population bonkers yet failed to materialize.

Maybe, it is an instinctive reaction to the mob like reaction of the UK chattering class to climate change that is projecting the subject to religious like proportions. Or maybe, just maybe it is the knowledge that easiest way for academics to get funding these days it to tag “climate change” in front of their research. The Climate Talk project picked up £60,000 of cash I am sure could have been put to better use.

I had to laugh at the reporting of the item on theboomerblog (I blog I thoroughly recommend). The news item appeared between “Hefty cost no object for good night's sleep” and “Too young to retire...but (apparently) too old to be hired”. Maybe that says it all – who cares about global warming if you are an 50-year old unemployed insomniac? Dick Stroud

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