Your stance on climate change

[Middle-aged Europe]

I checked off:
- 1 through 6
- 8 through 10
- 12
- 15
- 19 and 20
- 22
- 24


7: Unsure, I guess we'll have to find out whether this is true.

11: While nuclear power generates less harmful emissions than fossil fuels, it's probably also more trouble than it is worth it. Public opinion in a number of countries is steadfastly against it. It costs a lot of money and ressources to build them and to keep them running (nuclear power is often heavily subsidized by governments, so we may just as well put these subsidies into renewables). And finally, the mining, processing, and eventually disposal of uranium also produces a lot of CO2 emissions, just as building and operating nuclear power plants does. That being said, shutting down the many nuclear power plants in places like France wouldn't really my main priority right now.

13: Probably unneccessary, since the population in Western countries is shrinking anyway.

14: Probably neccessary, but also unfeasible in the way the question seems framed. The most feasible and desirable way to do it is to learn from previous experiences that population growth often declines as soon as a society becomes on average wealthier and more educated. For instance, having a lot of children are often a subsitute for a non-existing social safety net like a lack of pensions. So at the end of the day, this can only be solved by more and better development aid IMO. (Although this also a bit of a dilemma: Empiricial evidence shows that the wealthier a society becomes the more CO2 emissions it produces. So the real challenge is to raise the standard of living in a way that doesn't worsen the carbon footprint too much. So, development aid must also go into renewables for instance.)

16: I have a problem with the first part of the sentence, since it sounds to much like forced relocation. In any case, we should help people leave areas severely affected by climate change if they have to or want to.

17/18: While certainly desirable as a goal, this wouldn't be feasible because it would probably cause the breakdown of our current civilization.

20: Checked this off, although it would already help A LOT if every person on the planet would only consume red meat once or twice a week at most.

21: GROSS! Well, because of that anticipated reaction I'm uncertain with regards to its feasibility. But it should be at least tried out.

23: A complete phase-out is probably not feasible (particularly in rural areas), but a reduction in the number of automobiles should be a goal (particularly in cities).

[Middle-aged Europe]

Why is this issue political?

I think at one point I've read an assassment along the lines of "leftists got there first in adopting it as cause which made it harder for the conservative movement to jump on the bandwaggon, due to political tribalism".

The reason why leftists beat conservatives to it is because strict measures to combat climate change usually hurts (or at least forces them to adopt radical change) traditional industries like fossil fuels or automobiles and since conservatives tend to be pro-business they're at the very least reluctant not to protect these businesses. Strictly speaking, climate change measures also leads to subsidization and protection of certain industries like renewable energies, emission free automobiles, or public transport. But since those industries either didn"t exist in the beginning of the climate change debate or were not as poqerful as the other ones, the priority for pro-business conservatives lay on "protecting" the former. So, it also played a role that maintaining the status quo appeared as the safer and easier route compared to transformation, particularly since conservatives are believers in the free market as opposed to government intervention.

That being said, the ideological split between conservatives and leftists on climate change is much more severe in America than it is in Europe. Mainstream conservatives in Europe tend not not question the existence of human-made climate change and they also support implementing measures to halt climate change, although usually not to the same wide-ranging extent as leftists. Outright climate change denial is more the domain of right-wing populists and the far-right in Europe.

Why this difference to America? Maybe because European conservatives are by nature less pro-free market and more interventionist than their American counterparts due to the existence of the European welfare state. And it's also possible that the fossil fuel and automobile industry has been slightly less powerful in Europe due to America being a more automobile-centered culture with less emphasis on public transportation (which in turn is probably a result of America being a much bigger country with more areas which have a rather low population density).

And last but not least, the two-party system in America means that basically all right-of-center movements and ideologies were lumped together into single political party (with the climate change denial faction then growing and taking over that party), while im Europe these camps are segregated im mainstrem conservative and right-wing populiat parties which lead to a containment of climate change denial ideologies.