"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." ― Upton Sinclair
So it seems reasonable that despite the money the people who are receiving it might rationally support O&G regardless because it is great for their constituents.
It isn't because of what they were taught in school though, that much is pretty clear.
This makes sense. I assume they're expecting more out of this package than some stubborn climate change denialism.
Fossil fuel industries are spending large sums of money to promote backlash. Same as was with smoking and Freon.
Typically people stop updating their world views as they get older.
There were a bunch of articles in the 70s talking about the potential of an ice age. So much so that I remember my dad (69yo) talking to me and my brother about global cooling/ice age when we were kids in the 80s.
He bought the articles in his 20s but now can't be bothered by climate change, because "it was just cooling 40 years ago..."
It's more of a mix of anti-environmentalism (as environmentalism is closely associated in the public mind with the global warming denier's boogeymen -- liberals and the left), ignorance of climate science, anti-intellectualism, conspiracy theorizing that's rife on right-wing media, a desire to recklessly exploit natural resources, and a belief that counteracting global warming will harm businesses and cost taxpayer dollars, which they'd rather spend on the military or on handouts to corporations.
Even Al Gore's doomsday predictions in the late 90s turned out to be woefully inaccurate. I'm all for being a good steward of the planet, but I think it's reasonable to wait in order to:
- Make sure this is a serious risk, and not just something we can adapt to
- Let technology develop so we can combat climate change effectively and without bankrupting the world.
Furthermore, I see environmentalists who are anti-nuclear, anti-iron-fertilization, and anti-atmospheric-sulfur-injection. If global warming is truly an _existential_ threat, then why aren't these projects appreciated by the run-of-the-mill environmentalists?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-nucle...
If they were taught in school that the earth is cooling, and we know from research that people are very unlikely to change their mind about things after 35 ... well why would they believe it’s now warming?