Environmentalism as a political issue

Listening to NPR as I drove to work this AM and they did a teaser that Al Gore will be on their show today talking about how people are more receptive to 30 second soundbytes about the climate change topic than a year ago.

For some reason I thought of this analogy: The way politicians talk about climate change is like they were all in a house where the front door has just fallen off the hinges, the living room needs new paint, the kitchen faucet drips, and there is a pile of oily rags in the basement that are smoldering. Obviously the oily rags present the biggest threat to the entire house and if they become a fire, they have the potential to consume the entire house making all the other issues irrelevant. Yet the politicians spend their time talking about the other issues, especially the front door because it is so obvious when you walk in. Every now and then, one of them asks if anyone smells any smoke and then goes right back to arguing about how to fix the sink. That way, if any one asks later, once the house is on fire, the politician can say they tried to say something about the smoke.

That's is how climate change is dealt with in modern politics.