Why are people so ignorant about geography?

Earlier I asked why everyone thought Texas was all desert. I then explained that it's mostly prairie land. One of my contacts added people believe Africa is all jungle. I know that it's also desert, savanna, steppe. In fact, the Sahara Desert in North Africa is the world's largest desert. I'm sure most people ume Canada is all frozen tundra with permafrost, and the Canadians live in igloos. I know the majority of Canada is dominated by the Canadian Shield which is mostly boreal coniferous forests. That's what 80 percent of the landscape is there. When I was a kid, I thought Australia was all outback. After I did some reading, I realize there are actually steppe regions and tropical rain forests there. Most people think all deserts are hot and sandy. Antarctica is a desert. So is Greenland. Most deserts are actually rocky deserts. The true definition of a desert is any region where there is less than 10 inches of rain per year and vegetation is sparse. It never said anything about annual temperature. I know this because I majored in geography. Most people I've met on the East Coast thought that California was the only place west of the Appalachians that had any civilization. They called everywhere else between The Great American desert. The settlers umed because it wasn't dense forest, the land was infertile. Little did they know, that region is one of the most arable locales on the continent. It's actually prairie land like Texas. The real American Desert is actually west of the Rocky Mountains. My question is why are people so clueless about geography? That was one of the first things I learned in my major.