A lot will admit it’s real but then shift blame to China while overlooking the facts that chinas pollution is largely made by western countries outsourcing the dirtiest parts of their supply chain to China and that China is vastly outperforming and outspending literally every country in considerably bringing down their emissions
Sadly, most people are incapable (or unwilling) to think beyond maybe 2 links in the causal chain, the “in your face” immediatelly visible stuff and a simple explanation for it (generally of the “people I don’t like did it” kind).
Faced with “this is happening” (or, worse, “somebody is telling me this is happening”), they’ll generally accept whatever “explanation” they’re fed and can’t just keep asking themselves “Why?” (“Why are you telling me this (what’s in it for you)?”, “why would those people do this (what’s in it for them)?”, “is that the only reason?” and so on).
For example, if you dig down, in most countries in Europe the increase in immigration can be traced back to locals not having enough kids and thus the population is aging and you need to let in working age people to pay for retirement pensions of the locals, and that in turn digs down to massive realestate bubbles and stagnating salaries so that the profits of the fatcats are high (at the unspecialized level immigration does put downwards pressure on salaries, though the picture is less clear above that) making life way harder for young people so they have fewer children, and that in turn leads to how the parties in government (mainly the “mainstream” ones) have reliably enacted policies to favor very rich people (mainly making the income from Work be less and less whilst the income from Asset Ownership is more and more) and realestate investors and even the “fringe” “left” has just blindly parroted pro-immigration slogans from the American and British liberals (and ended up punished at the ballot for it, to the gain of the Far-Right), and that in turn leads us to just how many of those politicians have “realestate investestor” as their main source of wealth increase and to the massive levels of Corruption in the modern era (and on the “fringe” “left” parties we dig down to how those heading them grew up in the Neoliberal era, don’t really have coherent leftwing ideologies unlike in the old days and thus think the moral liberalism of the Neoliberals is what being “leftwing” is all about).
IMHO Populism works because it just points at some issue (or makes one up) and then provides a single-layer immediate explanation (generally of the “they’re bad people” kind), and all wrapped up in a nice bow and that totally satisfies many if not most people. The simplest way to disassemble that is just to ask “Why do you want me to believe that?”, but those people refuse to do it.
A lot will admit it’s real but then shift blame to China while overlooking the facts that chinas pollution is largely made by western countries outsourcing the dirtiest parts of their supply chain to China and that China is vastly outperforming and outspending literally every country in considerably bringing down their emissions
Sadly, most people are incapable (or unwilling) to think beyond maybe 2 links in the causal chain, the “in your face” immediatelly visible stuff and a simple explanation for it (generally of the “people I don’t like did it” kind).
Faced with “this is happening” (or, worse, “somebody is telling me this is happening”), they’ll generally accept whatever “explanation” they’re fed and can’t just keep asking themselves “Why?” (“Why are you telling me this (what’s in it for you)?”, “why would those people do this (what’s in it for them)?”, “is that the only reason?” and so on).
For example, if you dig down, in most countries in Europe the increase in immigration can be traced back to locals not having enough kids and thus the population is aging and you need to let in working age people to pay for retirement pensions of the locals, and that in turn digs down to massive realestate bubbles and stagnating salaries so that the profits of the fatcats are high (at the unspecialized level immigration does put downwards pressure on salaries, though the picture is less clear above that) making life way harder for young people so they have fewer children, and that in turn leads to how the parties in government (mainly the “mainstream” ones) have reliably enacted policies to favor very rich people (mainly making the income from Work be less and less whilst the income from Asset Ownership is more and more) and realestate investors and even the “fringe” “left” has just blindly parroted pro-immigration slogans from the American and British liberals (and ended up punished at the ballot for it, to the gain of the Far-Right), and that in turn leads us to just how many of those politicians have “realestate investestor” as their main source of wealth increase and to the massive levels of Corruption in the modern era (and on the “fringe” “left” parties we dig down to how those heading them grew up in the Neoliberal era, don’t really have coherent leftwing ideologies unlike in the old days and thus think the moral liberalism of the Neoliberals is what being “leftwing” is all about).
IMHO Populism works because it just points at some issue (or makes one up) and then provides a single-layer immediate explanation (generally of the “they’re bad people” kind), and all wrapped up in a nice bow and that totally satisfies many if not most people. The simplest way to disassemble that is just to ask “Why do you want me to believe that?”, but those people refuse to do it.