De-polarizing contentious topics

southernbubby

Sun, Nov 17 2019, 7:41 am

I saw an interesting article in this week's FJJ (thefjj.com page 116) about climate change. The author was a frum Jewish forester who wanted to fairly show all sides of the climate change issue. Being that this had been his profession, he was in a position to say what reasonably could be done to reduce carbon dioxide, prevent wildfires, cool down cities, and prevent plastic islands in the ocean. OTOH, he acknowledged that humans could only do so much and then they must rely on Hashem.

What I wish that I could see more of in issues that have become very polarized are books and articles that can fairly represent both sides these issues. There is a vast middle between saying that climate change was discovered by the liberals as a way to get votes, and saying that the world only has a decade left to exist. If people are going to work together on this there needs to be a mutual understanding rather than a polarized political view such as anyone who oppose fast fashion or plastic must be a liberal follower of Jane Fonda and RFK Jr.

The same thing with the vaccine controversy is that there is a vast middle ground between never trusting big pharma and implicitly trustingly big pharma. Unfortunately most information out there is so heavily slanted in either direction, that it is readily dismissed by the opposing camp. It is hard to find neutral information. The result is a stalemate from which nobody benefits. In this case, following RFK Jr, probably marks you as a staunch conservative.