[Newfie]

Recently I heard or read an opinion piece stating that the Green Parties are loosing their influence. Not that they ever had much in the US to start with. I tried to check it out but could not find much.

I did find that US nvironmental groups out $100 million into the 2014 races and got soundly trounced.

http://www.earthisland.org/journal/inde ... _election/

Then I found this long term report from Gallup. It seems that Americans are statistically convienced our environment is getting better and better and is not a much of a concern as it was.

Ironically more folks now believe that global warming has already kicked in, but are less concerned by it.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx

I find that all rather amusing and yet deeply disturbing. One would like to think we are an intelligent species, capable of observing and learning, but the evidence does not look good.

Perhaps what we are seeing is a shift in the normalcy bias. Younger folks are more and more disengaged with and concerned with the environment. They never knew a natural world so they don't miss what they never had?

[dohboi]

What pstarr said, especially the last bit.

Enviro groups have to either lie about the state of things and prospects for improvement or they have to tell people pretty depressing, unhopeful news.

Many think that E-groups are always exaggerating threats. That may happen some times. But these days there is no lack of real extreme threats. The problem now is that they can no longer offer realistic solutions. So they are much more likely to downplay the severity of issues, and also downplay the magnitude of changes needed to even minimally address them. That's been my experience, anyway.

We are in post-hope environmentalism, and that just doesn't garner the kind of enthusiasm that the more hopeful brand used to.

[Tanada]

The environment does not exist for most younger folks. Private ownership of lands have stolen the environment. Folks who live in Eureka see less trees on a daily basis then people in Manhattan. The forests are owned and protected by the timber companies. Same with the prairies and ranchlands. Folks are sick of concession stands and long lines of cars in the big parks.

Suburban folks don't have the gas money or time to drive out of the suburban sprawl to explore real wilderness. A city beach is not the same thing. Environmental news has become too depressing. No one wants to read it anymore. They know what is coming. People are not stupid, just busy.

People are now Borg, they so rarely look up from their electronic devices that the world around them has faded in importance. Until they start missing meals they won't notice climate change. When they do start missing meals it will be much easier to scapegoat some minority than to actually take action to change things.

[onlooker]

Yes I think we have witnessing psychological disengagement. People are busy and they prefer not to dwell on negative outcomes. Also, as we have discussed humans have evolved to perceive with more clarity short terms dangers than further off ones. On top of that the sources of easily accessible information either downplay threats or offer cornucopian solutions. Unless one is like us who have stared at the abyss squarely in the eye and then go drink some hot chocolate haha.

[Tanada]

I used to read the New York Times (until I started hating it). I'd look for signs of hope in the Environment Section and then get depressed when I couldn't find any. It must have been bad for advertising sales. So they dropped the Section. But I still hate the NYT lol

Tanada, after they dispose of the minority "threat" the masses will wake up to their real circumstance: trapped in a consumer ghetto with no hope but bags of grain and reruns of Rachel Maddow. Then the fun begins lol

Perhaps, it all depends on the speed of the slide from where we are to where we will be 50 years from now. If we go like a Bakken Well it will be a lot of chaos and death, if we go like a golden parachute the Borg will hardly notice the slide.

[ennui2]

Environmental news has become too depressing. No one wants to read it anymore. They know what is coming. People are not stupid, just busy.

That is the real issue. The rest of it is just blame-game on your part.

[Newfie]

It strikes me that is true of everything.

I understand that Windoews 10 default screen comes with 18 tiles, 10 of which are sales oriented.

Roadside billboards are annoying. Does anyone else remember Lady Bird Johnson and her plan to remove the damn things?

At my last job we would get solicitations in our corporate email and at home directed to xxxx employees, such a deal I have for you! Clearly the company was selling our names and addresses.

We started counting advertisements on NPR, it's really now as bad as commercial radio.

We don't watch TV, but the internet is crawling with eyeball traps.

[C8]

People don't even want the best of nature it seems

http://www.perc.org/articles/are-nation ... pular-ever

Last year, America’s national parks received more visits than ever before. A record-setting 292.8 million people visited national parks in 2014, breaking the earlier park attendance record set back in 1987.

But a lot has changed since 1987. Population has increased considerably, and so have the number of parks. How do the new visitation numbers compare once we consider these other factors?

The chart above shows national park visitation as a share of the overall U.S. population. Since 1987, U.S. population has increased by approximately 75 million people. Measured on a per capita basis, national park visitation is about 20 percent less than it was in 1987. As a share of the population, park visitation has gradually declined almost ever since.

This decline is even more pronounced once we consider the growth of the National Park System. Since 1980, more than 70 national park units have been added to the National Park System. Yet these additional parks do not seem to be attracting more overall visits per capita.

[Shaved Monkey]

In a traditional 2 party system the Greens get about 10 to 12% of the vote in Australia
They usually have a fair bit of influence over the control of the Senate.
They currently hold the seat of Melbourne second biggest city in Australia

[AdTheNad]

I have a feeling as immigration ramps up more and more people will be voting hard right and there will be a decline in green votes. Knee jerk attempts to treat the symptoms instead of the cause.

[clif]

internet is crawling with eyeball traps.

Google "ghostery" does a really good job stopping tons of ads.

Makes the internet a much better viewing environment, for me.

[Shaved Monkey]

I use both

[clif]

Is ghostery better than adblocker?

ghostery works for me,

I'm running firefox on an ubuntu based system, (I assemble my own systems)

blocks all ads as far as I can tell,

[Shaved Monkey]

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=ghos ... 0gSh4o2QBw