Think the left-wing dogma on global warming is a load of horse crap? Have a little trouble scrounging up spending money for vacation this year? If you’re one of millions of Americans who can safely say “yes” to both these questions, get ready to test your blood pressure.
Congratulations, American taxpayer – you just shelled out $12,000 to a couple of researchers over at the University of Kansas to fund their doctoral dissertation researching the causes -- and solutions -- for “socially organized denial” of climate change in rural communities.
Thanks to the National Science Foundation, Eric Hanley and Jacob Lipsman are reportedly heading to the Louisiana parishes of Plaquemines and St. Bernard, which sit at the mouth of the Mississippi River, to observe how residents’ collective “climate denial” may be impacting local environmental policies and keeping them from getting on the U.S.S. Al Gore to Crazytown.
“Residents of southeast Louisiana regularly experience environmental harm yet remain bound economically to industries that exploit the local environment,” investigators alleged in their (taxpayer-subsidized) grant description. “While environmental awareness is common, climate change denial is persistent in the community.”
Translation: “Those idiot country people care about the planet, but they don’t do it OUR way!”
And oh, it gets even more brazen. Check out this friendly little excerpt:
This region is of specific interest due to the unique configuration of social and environmental factors that impact the community, including environmental risk, economic dependence on extractive industry, high rates of climate change denial, and high concentration of oil and gas employment.
This study will challenge dominant perspectives on climate skepticism by incorporating economic, cultural, and emotional factors into the discourse on climate change denial. By contributing to a more complete and nuanced understanding of climate change denial, this study will have potentially transformative impacts on the future of climate discourse and policy by providing new tools for climate advocates to address climate denial in the political arena.
This study might as well be entitled “How To Convince Stupid Oil-Guzzling Hicks to Buy Into Our Elitist Climate Agenda and Forfeit Their Well-Paying Jobs To Set Up Eagle-Killing Wind Farms."