Human-Caused Global Warming Is Here But Denied, Just Like LTC Odds

According to an article in the September-October issue of Audubon Magazine by Elizabeth Kolbert, who’s written the recently released “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” 97% of all climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening.

According to a Pew Research Center Study done earlier this year asking Americans about their own beliefs in global warming, only 45% of us believe human activity was the main cause. And only 58% of us know that carbon dioxide is the gas most scientists believe causes temperatures in the atmosphere to rise.

I am pretty fascinated by this denial of climate change. It parallels denial of the need for responsible long-term care planning in so many ways. I believe the psychological denial mechanism used to avoid believing in global warming is nearly identical to denial of the high probability of needing long-term care. Both are about avoidance of the most unpleasant facts. Both issues mandate discussion and education in order to understand them properly and to do something constructive about them.

Global warming has been in the press a lot lately and is now being given the credibility it deserves. Still, important discussions about it in Washington and most states is not occurring.

For most of the 25 years I’ve been selling long-term care insurance (LTCi), the press has often misrepresented the facts and typically led articles with a negative, inflammatory bias even when some truth follows. And financial pundits have often pooh-poohed the need for LTCi.

Recently, however, the press and pundits have begun to report affirmatively on the need for LTCi and  responsible LTC planning. Still, not enough of us are following their lead. In coming years, there will be a lot of Baby Boomers and their families in turmoil and crisis due to unplanned needs for LTC.

Here’s a cool website called What We Know. Its purpose is to educate the public, which hopefully, will create better public policy concerning global warming. This site is produced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The long-term care insurance (LTCi) industry has comparable, highly reputable sites with outstanding LTCi content and education. Here’s one: www.aaltci.org. Find links to several more, here.

No one seems to read these sites. Or perhaps they read them and there is some type of emotional disconnect, an inability to assimilate such inconvenient truths.