perception

"...nearly all academic studies, models, and prognoses regarding the phenomena and consequences of climate change have been in the natural sciences. in the social and cultural sciences, it is exactly as if such things as social breakdown, resource conflict, mass migration, safety threats, widespread fears, radicalization and militarized or violence-governed economies did not belong to their sphere of competence." "in reality there are billions of subjects from different cultural backgrounds, endowed with highly diverse economic opportunities and political resources, who act within a number of complex life communities. no socially identifiable 'we' links together a landless chinese farm laborer and the chairman of a multinational energy corporation; they inhabit completely different social worlds, each with its particular demands, and, above all, its particular rationality...the use of 'we' assumes a collective perception of reality that does not exist, even in relation to global problems such as climate change." harald welzer. "climate wars:why people will be killed in the 21st century." ____________________________________________________________________________ old harald has a point about the dearth of understanding of how different we are and how cultural world view will dictate the general thrust, if not the specifics of perception of what is a problem and how to deal with it...and i don't see a lot of academic work on the subject in social sciences ( yes i have looked...i am a university student with some resources at hand and access to people smarter than me...or, at least, better educated and with a somewhat different viewpoint ) beyond what thomas homer-dixon has done at the university of toronto on resource conflict...and until someone digs down and does the work ( and then there's the problem of getting people to pay attention to the findings ) to find some sort of universals that will generate some sort of consensus on what we face as a species we will continue to get deeply conservative assessments of the problem and the attendant deferrals of responsibility that are currently a staple in government and corporate thought on the matter...nascar and the national corn growers' association will continue to trumpet the benefits ( without the negative impacts like food prices or eroie ) of ethanol, american ingenuity, and horsepower and jared diamond, or worse yet al gore, will be telling us that we should address the issue by driving less and taking cold showers as of that will make any sort of difference when china brings another coal-fired generating plant on line every week...there doesn't seem to be a 'we'...just an 'us' and 'them'...we'd better get off our dead asses and find a way to bridge the gap...time to plant trees and learn to eat in season.