[elihu]

People vary, and some people are offended by things that others aren't.

I do wonder if there are lessons to be learned regarding climate change specifically. I'm thinking of my parents, but there are a lot of boomers who would never think of tossing a pop can or candy bar wrapper out their car window, and who regard that sort of thing as absolutely inexcusable. And yet they're now being told that burning gasoline is far worse than lowly littering. And it's a thing they've been doing most of their lives, thinking it's normal and doesn't cost anything beyond what it costs at the pump and maybe (if they're reasonably self-aware) the geopolitical issues around being dependent on a few major oil producers in the middle-east.

Accepting that climate change is a serious issue implies acknowledging their role in creating it, which is a kind of humiliation. Just saying "fine, get over it" may be satisfying, but in order to get them on board maybe we need a kind of messaging that isn't moralistic and doesn't assign blame. How would that even work, though? I don't know.

I think most younger people have grown up in a world where climate change is an acknowledged fact and that burning gasoline is known to be problematic even if there isn't a practical alternative if you need to get to work or whatever. So there's no mental transformation that has to happen.