alt Hacker NewsI'm middle aged and have no kids so I probably fall into your category, in the sense that as long as it doesn't bite hard before I go it's in my top 5 political priorities but not at #1.
However my friends who have kids and grandkids care a great deal about climate change and generally do what they can politically (i.e. vote for Greens and so on) within the constraints of life (i.e. they're not out there throwing soup at paintings or whatever).
Maybe that's what it will take. I expect ecoterrorism to become a serious thing in the next decade or two. Who knew the Amish were right all along?
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> Who knew the Amish were right all along?
When the Amish said that modern technology destroys the family they weren't envisioning a climate catastrophe being the thing that destroyed the family.
I recently travelled to the primary old-order region of my country, where I hadn't been in about a decade, and all the horses in the fields I remember have now been replaced by tractors. Let's be real: They don't fear climate change any more than the average Joe does, possibly less having less exposure to the science and messaging. All they have ever feared was families being broken apart by the kids leaving for the big city lights.
> However my friends who have kids and grandkids care a great deal about climate change and generally do what they can politically
As long as you got money, you can afford to "save on CO2" and buy a prius or whatnot. The thing is, we can't really avoid making things that are bad for the environment without making everything expensive. You can ban a product, like oil or fosil fuels, but you are banning the best solution - which is often also the cheapest. If it wasn't the best/cheapest, then why would you need to ban it, people would not be using it.
Climate politics eventually raises cost of living. If we could lower cost of living AND save the environment we would be already doing it.
So all the measures to save the climate will inevitable impact the lowest income households the most. Which is - and here we close the circle - the young, working population. The retired one have the wealth and assets, as established earlier.