In my voting lifetime, I have only seen Democrats put environmental and health issues at the forefront of their political platforms. Meanwhile Republicans, who consistently tout family and moral values, prefer to challenge environmentalists to support their single priority of maintaining the wealth (and ultimately political power) of people in their strata.
Politicians have always understood the science. Climate science has certainly been studied and published enough. Gore made a good point when he said that if politicians acknowledge and recognize it, then they have to do something about it. Legislate, allocate funding and spend money on it. I was really amazed, but not surprised, at the efforts made in suppressing the truth about climate change, efforts that prevented solving the problem in the last century, and that have continued in this one. When Gore lost the presidential election, his political environmental fight was sidelined.
At the root of their unwillingness to address climate change, the politicians who scoff at preventing and correcting environmental damage value their wealth more than they value the health of the Earth. They are short-term thinkers, the same as the corporate leaders who focus on showing quarterly profits, focusing much less on the long-term well-being of the business, and the people who work for them. Politicians focus on the current fiscal year and the contributions they can sweep in, and about the next fiscal year when they need to spend those campaign funds to get reelected. They do grasp the connection that trees, plants, animals, and insects to our survival but to act on it would be to jeopardize their positions if they upset their donors—primarily the wealthy owners and managers of the corporations (the aforementioned short-term thinkers).
Unfortunately, the 50% will only begin to care enough to do something when it affects them personally—and by personally, I really mean financially. Others, the less wealthy, are feeling the effects through disasters. The video mentioned Japan’s typhoons in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Hurricane Katrina was frightening because of the number of people that were displaced and the delay of the Republican-led administration to mount a FEMA response. It was particularly upsetting to see American people---primarily Black American people---suffering in New Orleans. Prior to that year, I was accustomed to seeing victims of natural disasters only in other countries.
