The Analog Blind

Why Most Humans Avoid The Subject Of Climate Change

Max Rottersman
4 min readSep 5

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They didn’t want to know then, they don’t want to know now.

Here on Medium, B, Richard Crim, Mitch, Alan Urban and others write about the affects of greenhouse gases and other changes to our environment. Their audience remains miniscule. Why?

Sure, there are star-writers with 100,000+ followers who cover climate change, but their focus is political. New Englanders vs Texans. No science involved.

I believe we have a myopia, those of us who try to wrap our heads around the science of climate change.

We underestimate how much everyone around us avoids the basic math or science required to determine, for themselves, if climate change is man-made. How much it will affect then. And when.

Almost avoids at all costs.

Avoids even the barest-bone statistics — like the fact that every year more fossil fuels are burned than the year before (2020 a small exception of 5% less), despite all the wind farms, solar panels and EVs on the road.

I’m going to call these people “analog blind”. I believe it’s a condition that especially affects most people born after 1990. (I’ll write more about the chronology of this later).

I was born in 1961 and I had a good head for math and science. If you’re analog blind you’re probably saying to yourself, “of course.”

Some of you will feel envy, because though you got ‘“A’s” in high school math and physics, it never came easy for you. I understand you. It’s okay to hate on me.

Except I just lied.

Whenever it was that someone tried to teach me math, no one felt dumber. I suspect that is also the experience of many who write about climate change. (Hopefully they’ll leave a comment.)

In school, I felt everyone understood math but me. When we’re young we have a strong drive to fit in. So I developed a strong drive to understand math. I know that sounds ludicrous (though probably not you if you’re still reading).

While most kids learned the procedures of math necessary to repeat them on tests. I got hung up on the why of it. That certainly didn’t help me to fit in any better — haha!

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Max Rottersman

Trying to connect what hasn't been connected.