How to Reach the Last 20 Percent

truthdig.com — There’s a big reason climate change differs from so many public policy challenges: unlike other crises, addressing the planet’s major environmental crisis truly requires mass consensus. Indeed, because fixing the problem involves so many different societal changes—reducing carbon emissions, conserving energy, retrofitting infrastructure, altering a meat-centric diet, to name a few—we all need to at least agree on the basic fact that we are facing an emergency. That’s why as encouraging as it is to see a new Associated Press-GfK poll showing that 4 in 5 Americans now see climate change as a serious problem. Unfortunately, that 1 in 5 may be enough to prevent us from forging the all-hands-on-deck attitude necessary to halt a planetary disaster. America desperately needs a serious public education campaign. The good news is that with such education, many of those who don’t yet believe climate change is a serious problem can, in fact, be reached—and convinced to accept obvious reality.

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