Ignorance is bliss

As I travel throughout this country I am continually amazed by the incredible ignorance that is on display around the *climate change* problem.

Particularly in rural and regional Australia we find a collection of politicians, local functionaries, small business people and so-called community leaders who have more in common with Barney Rubble than with a modern and educated community. How did we ever get to this point? Ignorance seems to be the new black - and apparently they are proud of it?

I am now more convinced than ever that we won't be able to do anything about this problem before we experience serious and major disaster. Even then I am not sure it will be enough to wake up a population that is living in dreamland.

The nub of the problem is that a large subset of our population doesn’t have the education or the curiosity to discover for themselves what the issue is about. Many of them are flip-flopping around between alternative *numbnut* views - simply because they have no ability to "search for the truth". Don't mention science - that is as foreign a concept as travelling to mars.

Mostly these folk rely on their local newspaper, radio, commercial television or the test pattern for their news and information. Not to mention lapping up the disinformation campaign that is being pushed heavily by the ultra right wing conservatives and their fellow travelers’.

It's easy to see how they are misled - all you have to do is spend an hour or two looking at the Murdoch press, commercial television and the antics of the federal opposition.

And it's easy to understand why they are being misled - it's simply politics with the *numbnuts* trying to regain the treasury benches - after all they were "born to rule".

And as we all know Australian's are as well informed about politics as they are about science.

So we know why and how they are being misled - what I don't understand is why they won't make the effort to search out the truth - because there is plenty of information and many sources that are reliable and trustworthy.

My suspicion is that they don't care. And they won't care until they experience a personal physical impact - by which time it will be far too late. Frogs and boiling water - how apt.