News Forum - Report finds most Thais don’t understand climate change

[Thaiger]

A recent report by the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) has revealed that most Thais have a limited understanding of the impact of climate change on the planet. Only 35% of Thais believe that the use of fossil fuels should be reduced. This reflects a general lack of awareness about climate change and …

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[Ramanathan.P]

It is not about understanding the climate change for commoners who are struggling to make end meets in the day to day life. What most will be thinking is how they are going to bring food to the table the next day. That is the reality. And if we expect them to think beyond that it is not realistic from their living point of view. May be the entire world should openly declare and flare who are the main causes for this climatic change issues which has been going on for decades. It is the developed nations who are the major culprits.  

[Soidog]

The issue here as @Ramanathan.P has indicated, is about priorities. You are not going to get the attention of half the planets population who are struggling to make ends meet and have them worry about climate change. That is simply not going to happen. Equally, the idea that humans are going to stop demanding more electricity or flying in airplanes or driving their cars and powering their factories is also not going to happen. The only way out of this is through technology and wealthier nations offsetting costs for renewable energy development in poor nations (Thailand by the way would not be categorised as a poor nation.
 

On top of this of course is the still somewhat debatable question that global warming is entirely the fault of human activity. I’m never one for conspiracy theories and I nearly always put my trust in science. This issue of Climate change being a “man made” crisis leaves even me having too many questions to feel what we are doing is 100% to blame.
 

If it is man’s activity and logic, to a degree tells you drilling for oil and digging up coal and burning it isn’t sustainable anyway, then the 1 billion people who live in developed nations aren’t going to overcome what the other 7 billion are doing more of with each passing day.
 

As with the global response to Covid, the world has not come together to have a unified and consistent approach. I feel that the impact of global warming will need to become a lot more obvious before we do come together. By then, for many, it will be catastrophic and the global impact of what’s taking place in Ukraine and concerns over Taiwan, will look like a bump in the road.    
 

One other thing I would say, too often people conflate climate change with environmental damage. Plastic straws don’t cause global warming. They damage the ecosystem but they are not the same issue. All nations should be able to clean up their behaviour when it comes to plastic waste for example.  

[Skip]

I have experienced that many Thai people do not understand nor do they care about many things...

[MrStretch]

14 minutes ago, Skip said:

I have experienced that many Thai people do not understand nor do they care about many things...

Mai bpen rai

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

17 hours ago, Thaiger said:

that most Thais have a limited understanding of the impact of climate change on the planet.

And most Thais have a limited understanding of Thai Road Rules …. even if they have a license. Maybe limited understanding is a Thai thing in general.

[Nace]

What they need to understand is that it’s a scam to profit the world elites and that the Earth, which has survived comets, asteroids, tectonic plate shifts, volcanoes, pole shifts, ice ages etc, will be just fine and will be here long after us. We are nothing more than gnats to this planet. 

[Augratin]

Climate is a complex and technical issue. We have experts and professionals for a reason.  People go to college and university to become scientists and high technologists because the ordinary person on the street has neither the time nor the education to understand every complex matter that confronts humanity. A successful society is based upon some degree of trust. We should be able to trust that the majority of experts who tell us that, for example, smoking is bad for our health, are telling us what is currently known to be factually true and supported by the observable evidence.

You can either go to college yourself and spend a dozen years learning about climatology, atmospheric physics, stratigraphy, geology, ecology and scores of other related disciplines, or you can accept what other people (who have already put their time into studying these things) are telling you.

Did everyone fully comprehend the issue of the hole in the ozone layer and the role of chlorofluorocarbons in the early 80s?  Of course not. Governments got together and, with the input from the national science foundation, recognized the destructive potential of CFCs and drafted up the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a treaty phasing out the production of ozone-depleting chemicals.  As for the average person on the street, they were mostly annoyed that their hair sprays turned into "pump" bottles instead of aerosol-propelled ones. 

TLDR version: Thai people shouldn't need to fully comprehend climate change.  Government policy and programs should be informed by science with the goal of addressing matters that will negatively impact humans.

[Rose-tinted glasses off]

 

Now having said all that, I find that Thai people (at least my inlaws and their middle-aged offspring) have no understanding of how insulation can keep a house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. I'm not going to expect them to grasp the complexities of climate change.

[Augratin]

9 minutes ago, Nace said:

What they need to understand is that it’s a scam to profit the world elites and that the Earth, which has survived comets, asteroids, tectonic plate shifts, volcanoes, pole shifts, ice ages etc, will be just fine and will be here long after us. We are nothing more than gnats to this planet. 

 

Me: Oh no, my house is on fire!

 

Nace: don't worry, the Earth will be fine.

 

Gee, thanks.

[Pinetree]

This made me laugh.  In the vast majority of public schools here, they are not taught to any real practical degree:  science, geography, World history, social sciences. They spend their time at school having stupid irrelevant lessons on mythical religious nonsense, fairy tails, the very basic arithmetic, lining up outside to sing and dance and generally waste their time until its time to leave school and go to :  the Army, the Farm, drive a truck, or the maternity ward. Thai education is a National disgrace and its not as if they don't have excellent examples near by, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even Vietnam, unencumbered as they all are by the drag of terminally bad teachers. 

I will add one more thing.  Employing, English second language foreigners to teach English, employing barely qualified first language foreign English teachers ( ESOL,  etc. does not a teacher make, I know, I have one) and feckless failures in their own country, does not help.  

[Khunmark]

1 hour ago, Augratin said:

Climate is a complex and technical issue. We have experts and professionals for a reason.  People go to college and university to become scientists and high technologists because the ordinary person on the street has neither the time nor the education to understand every complex matter that confronts humanity. A successful society is based upon some degree of trust. We should be able to trust that the majority of experts who tell us that, for example, smoking is bad for our health, are telling us what is currently known to be factually true and supported by the observable evidence.

You can either go to college yourself and spend a dozen years learning about climatology, atmospheric physics, stratigraphy, geology, ecology and scores of other related disciplines, or you can accept what other people (who have already put their time into studying these things) are telling you.

Did everyone fully comprehend the issue of the hole in the ozone layer and the role of chlorofluorocarbons in the early 80s?  Of course not. Governments got together and, with the input from the national science foundation, recognized the destructive potential of CFCs and drafted up the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a treaty phasing out the production of ozone-depleting chemicals.  As for the average person on the street, they were mostly annoyed that their hair sprays turned into "pump" bottles instead of aerosol-propelled ones. 

TLDR version: Thai people shouldn't need to fully comprehend climate change.  Government policy and programs should be informed by science with the goal of addressing matters that will negatively impact humans.

[Rose-tinted glasses off]

Now having said all that, I find that Thai people (at least my inlaws and their middle-aged offspring) have no understanding of how insulation can keep a house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. I'm not going to expect them to grasp the complexities of climate change.

I agree with these sentiments. In a highly complex world we default to experts. Now that doesn’t necessarily deliver us the optimal outcome, because gaps exist in the knowledge of experts. But we do so out of good faith; the idea that most people, most of the time have a shared interest. With this thought, it is incumbent upon governments to be guided by these experts. The alternative is for them to follow their own gut instincts which doesn’t pass muster.

[Pinetree]

2 hours ago, Augratin said:

We have experts and professionals for a reason.

Always dangerous to listen to anyone who styles themselves that way.  Do your own research. Let the facts speak, not the person telling you what the facts are.  Remember the definition of an expert:

ex:  a has been

spurt:  a large drip

[Augratin]

45 minutes ago, Pinetree said:

This made me laugh.  In the vast majority of public schools here, they are not taught to any real practical degree:  science, geography, World history, social sciences.

This is why I stopped teaching here some years ago.  I tried to teach what I thought would be math appropriate for high school level, and after one term was told what I teach is too hard, and just give them some math that they can do.  When they struggle to learn, they feel bad and we mustn't make the students feel bad.  The diplomas here are little more than participation certificates.

So long as a good chunk of the curriculum spends time on things like morals, ethics and "social consciousness" (things they should be getting from their parents), there will never be enough time for practical learning.

[Augratin]

9 minutes ago, Pinetree said:

Always dangerous to listen to anyone who styles themselves that way.  Do your own research.

No one of any value "styles themselves" this way.  And we never listen to just one expert, we look for the expert consensus, or the scientific consensus, because there will always be a few loons (outliers) who consider themselves experts because they have "done their own research".

How am I supposed to "do my own research" on a new medicine?  Should I go to South America and solicit several thousand candidates to receive the medication and then wait six months to collect and analyze the findings and then do my own statistical analysis and submit my results to the community for peer review?  If not, then what did you mean by "do your own research"?  

[Pinetree]

24 minutes ago, Augratin said:

No one of any value "styles themselves" this way.  And we never listen to just one expert, we look for the expert consensus, or the scientific consensus, because there will always be a few loons (outliers) who consider themselves experts because they have "done their own research".

How am I supposed to "do my own research" on a new medicine?  Should I go to South America and solicit several thousand candidates to receive the medication and then wait six months to collect and analyze the findings and then do my own statistical analysis and submit my results to the community for peer review?  If not, then what did you mean by "do your own research"?  

Good question.  The first step is to read the academic papers, freely available on the internet, or by a simple registration process on all university websites.  30 years ago, this was not possible, now it is, so use it. If you don't have time to do that, then, like the vast population of people,  you are accepting, uncritically, all that you are told by the supposed professionals. As to medicines, I don't accept into my body drugs/ substances that I don't understand and on which I have not researched contra indications.  I have been nearly caught out here in LOS on too many occasions to accept what I am told and given by Doctors.   Admittedly, I may have a bit of a head start in this, as my first degree is in Biochemistry, but the argument for everyone still holds true. 

I teach aviation students piloting and aerodynamics and have done so for many years. As in all things, I challenge them to see and research  for themselves how things work and how things can go wrong and to not just blindly accept, uncritically and unthinkingly  many things they are told by people like me.  Cynical, yes, absolutely. but it aviation terms at least, it saves lives, theirs and those that they fly with. 'Expert' is a massively over used and over applied word in todays World. Supposed experts and 'influences' abound of FB and all ,over social media, many of them hardly out of school themselves, often spouting nonsense, (gender reassignment, beauty tips and treatments, Andrew Tate type rubbish),  packaged as 'facts' from an expert.  Treat them all with extreme caution if you don't want to be mislead. Too many are too lazy or unthinking to protect themselves from misinformation and manipulation. 

[Grumpish]

You would probably get the same result in just about any third world country - I can't see it, it is not in my backyard, it doesn't affect me, so it is not important. In Thailand this is likely to stay the same until the day after Bangkok sinks beneath the waves.