Guest contribution by Eric Worrall
Because “Older people can be rich”.
Why the climate movement needs to do more to mobilize older people
June 3, 2021 2:34 AM AEST
Aled Jones Professor & Director, Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University
Bradley Hiller Visiting Fellow, Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University
Some say age is just a number. Others associate age with wisdom. Or maybe it’s a state of mind. Whatever it is, age is a factor in climate progress, and the renewed climate dynamics in 2021 must mobilize the often overlooked elderly population.
To date, the global climate movement has engaged young people on a massive scale. Prior to COVID-19, the world saw a series of student-led climate protests, resulting in wider public debate and increased youth representation in key international forums.
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Older people are relatively invisible in climate debates compared to demographic youth, but they are arguably the most critical for broader climate action. Here are five reasons to expand the youth dynamic to engage and empower older people:
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5. Older people can be rich
Older people collectively control an increasing proportion of global wealth, spending and wealth. For example, the US population over 55 already spends twice as much as the highly regarded millennial market. It is estimated that by 2030 only 11% of investable wealth in the US will be held by those under the age of 45. Although older investors hold most of the voting rights of shareholders, older investors tend to be less sensitive to environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors than younger investors.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/why-the-climate-movement-must-do-more-to-mobilise-older-people-161732
Top marks for honesty, at least in terms of wanting older people to contribute more to the cause.
Why are old people so uninterested? Lots of old people have children and grandchildren who love them, so I’ve seen suggestions that old people just don’t care what they don’t wash. Elderly people are usually (though not always) very well informed, so they are unlikely to be unfamiliar with the claims about the climate crisis.
One possible explanation is that old age gives old people the experience and perspective to realize that the climate crisis narrative is a bunch of cops.
Everyone over 50 remembers the global cooling crisis because we’ve all watched the hugely popular “In Search of” documentary about the coming Ice Age.
I remember seeing “In Search of … the Coming Ice Age” as a kid. Everyone believed the documentary because the moderator was actor Leonard Nimoy, who was Dr. Spock played in the original Star Trek series. The Ice Age documentary also featured an impressive line-up of scientists including Chester Langway, James Hayes, Gifford Miller (who described how the descent into the next Ice Age began 3,000 years ago) and Stephen Schneider, who discussed the use of nuclear energy for smelting speculated the ice caps to stop the great frost.
Stephen Schneider hilariously turned around a few years after the documentary and began advancing theories about global warming with as much sincerity as he had previously advanced global cooling fear.
My point is that we all believed in Nimoy’s strip at the time, just as young people today believe all the global warming nonsense they force-fed because young people just aren’t old enough to personally witness a big one scientific setback. After seeing a few abrupt changes of direction (fat good? Fat bad? Pritikin diet? Atkins diet?), Often with the same people pushing the new line forward with just as much sincerity as the opposite position before, you have to be stupid not to wonder at least a little whether the so-called experts made it up.
But it seems that most people have to witness this kind of shameless scientific setback for themselves to lose their automatic belief in authority.
Fortunately, we’ve had a number of what I believe to be shameless public scientific setbacks lately which, with luck, will do permanent damage to the climate crisis narrative.
Dr. Fauci’s public setbacks on Covid (lab leak? Of course? Kids need masks? Kids don’t need masks?) Have long-termed more damage to young people’s willingness to take scientific authority at face value than anything I’ve ever written.
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