Thoughtful commentary on this issue from Dick Meyer of CBSNews.com, includes:
Quote:
So what is it that makes some human brains dismiss or ignore global warming and others, far fewer, feel worried, threatened and called to action? Answering this question properly is probably far more important to future behavior and policy than endless arguments about how hot it will be in Cincinnati in 2077.
Charles Darwin explains a lot of this. Global warming simply does not present the kinds of stimuli that the human nervous system evolved to respond to in order to survive threats from bears, lightning, rolling boulders and mean cavemen.
Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist who wrote “Stumbling on Happiness,” summed up evolutionary psychology’s perspective by noting how global warming lacked four traits “the human brain evolved to respond to.”
– recalls, to me, the reported behaviour of frogs w hot water: toss them into hot water, they jump out; heat it gradually, they stay till boil to death.