"The 2016 election laid bare how divided our country was, each side seemingly incapable of seeing the others' viewpoints. News reports were filled with stories about the raging poles of the political spectrum, no room any longer for the middle, on climate or anything else. The months leading up to the election and the time since had left me feeling beaten down, like a child of parents on the verge of divorce, everything steeped in rancor, the capacity for dialogue broken, the sides separated by an insurmountable barrier. When InsideClimate News came to me with an idea for a series about conservative perceptions of climate change, I thought it might give me a chance to attempt to climb that barrier, to cross over what sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild called the "empathy wall."" Meera Subramanian shares more in this thought-provoking piece.
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