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Don’t Even Think About It: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change by George Marshall is pretty darn depressing. Oh he tries to offer hope at the end but it is paltry compared to what comes before. And what is it that comes before? Page after page of psychology and human behavior detailing why this climate change thing is so hard for us to get together and do something about.
The problem is not just one thing, it’s a big prickly ball of things that is going to need to be attacked from all angles at once and not one thing at a time. Where to start? First, there is a disconnect between scientists and the public and the way they talk to us about climate change. They use words that mean something completely different to us. They say, we are almost certain that climate change is happening and that it is caused by humans. What they mean is they are sure but they can’t say that because in science-speak you can never ever be 100% certain about anything. So what we hear is there is room for doubt. If the scientists aren’t certain then they could be wrong. The scientists beat us over the head with statistics and numbers and logic. We say, wow last winter was so cold I wouldn’t mind if it were a few degrees warmer. They give us facts. We want compelling stories to engage our emotions and prompt us to care and they can’t be about drowning polar bears because, sad as it is, a drowning polar bear is too distant for me to really care about it. I need a story about how climate change is going to affect me personally, and not in 30 or 40 years, that’s a long time away, but five years, next year, now.
Also, climate change needs to be placed into a wider context. It has been boxed away as an environmental issue which makes it easy for people to dismiss. Climate change is not an environmental issue. It is about values, politics and lifestyle. It is about food and water and jobs. It’s about safety and security.
We are busy looking around for someone to blame. We want to blame the oil companies and the politicians while we fill up the gas tanks on our SUVs and fly to the Virgin Islands for a mid-winter getaway. We have convinced ourselves that we are doing everything we can, I’ve changed all my lightbulbs to LED, I recycle, I take my own reusable bags to the grocery store, someone else has to do something. When we are all at fault. Us, our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents. But to play the blame game will get us nowhere. We will all need to make sacrifices much more drastic than buying an electric car. We’ve gone about “fixing” the problem from the wrong end. Instead of attacking it at the source and limiting coal and oil extraction and use, we go at it from the tail which is like trying to put out a forest fire with a bottle of water.
We are attached to the status quo and will keep doing what we’ve been doing unless given a compelling reason to do something else. And if, or when, things do start to change, everyone needs to be affected just as much as everyone else. Humans are great at detecting inequities and if you are only allowed to drive your one car two days a week but I get to drive mine four, well that’s just not fair.
I could go on and on, this is a substantial little book. In the end Marshall suggests that all the things that keep us from recognizing climate change as a threat can also help up solve the problems climate change will bring us. It will not be simple to change the frames through which we view the problem, but it isn’t completely impossible. He offers numerous ideas of what needs to be done and how we can each contribute to changing the conversation.
Climate change is happening right now. It is going to continue to happen. Things will probably get bad. Really bad. Not tomorrow and probably not next year, but sooner than you think. So what are we going to do about it?
I think one of the problems is that people don’t sense climate change is occurring now. Individuals seem unable to respond to what has been called “ultimate aversive consequences.” That means the real danger is far in the future, not present now. Our responses are based on immediate situations, not those that will occur in distant situations, if we fail to respond now.
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Richard, yes, he talks about the problem of time, how we see climate change as happening in the distant future which allows us to ignore it now. We’ll worry about it later. We don’t perceive it as an immediate threat so as you say, we fail to respond. This is one of the things that has to change about the way we talk about the problem. Instead of saying by 2060 global temperatures will be four degrees warmer, we have to talk about how the climate is changing now and what the immediate effects of that is.
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It is a problem that seems to dwarf the individual and we live in times where people seem in many ways so frightenened of change and challenging power. There is also the awkward idea that a long overdue ice age may have been postponed by the human activity that causes global warming (is that for real?). The economic crash of 2008 also deflected awarenesss of the urgency of this problem. The book seems to suggest that when we finally get it about climate change we shall be able to manage more than simple abject denial.
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Ian, you are right, it is not something one person or even a small group of people can solve. Not even one or two countries can solve it. It has to be a collective global action which makes it really hard. People are afraid to challenge power, yes, but we are also afraid of what kinds of changes we will have to make especially in the developed world where fossil fuels have given us so much. We think it is our right to have big houses and big cars and tomatoes in the middle of winter and we think our lives will somehow be poorer without those things. Even the climate scientists who should know better are often in denial. But in spite of everything only one scientist Marshall talked to said he thought it was hopeless. Still, I suspect it is going to get worse before it gets better.
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I have never understood why parents and grandparents, who are major political shakers when it comes to better schools and more soccer fields and everything for the children, aren’t more up in arms about climate change and the future health of their children and grandchildren. Your review of this books helps me to understand.
It seems to me that a world that’s not toxic, a world where water and air are clean and are safe to drink and breathe, is more important and well worth sacrificing for. All you have to do is look around at all the destruction of the environment (a.k.a. progress) – more roads with more cars, more houses for more people, just more, more, more. Even if you deny climate change, you can’t deny the fact that our bodies are already polluted with plastics and poisons from the environment we’ve polluted.
I think today’s excess means that tomorrow’s people will have less. I’m just glad I’m not going to be around in 50 years!
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Joan, Marshall talks specifically about why solving the problem for our children is not a compelling thing even though you’d think it should be. We’ve gotten ourselves into quite a mess, haven’t we? And we are all guilty but we don’t like the way that makes us feel so we keep trying to blame someone else and when we find someone else we decide that because they are at fault, they have to fix it. Meanwhile we keep on doing the same things we always have , continuing to contribute to the problem. It will be really bad in 50 years, but it will start to be disruptive long before then. You won’t get out of it that easy 😉
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Great write-up Stefanie. I particularly like your (the book’s) comment that “It is about values, politics and lifestyle. It is about food and water and jobs. It’s about safety and security.” This is it, and it’s what makes getting people on board so hard as people have different values and politics for a start.
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whisperinggums, thanks! Yes, we all do have different values and politics but Marshall makes it clear that is something that can be overcome if we don’t insist climate change be talked about in one particular way only. He spent a lot of time with evangelicals and far right conservatives and suggests that if liberals and environmentalists would allow the issues to be talked about in a religious framework as well as in a personal rights framework that these groups can relate to and understand, it would make a huge difference. We have to allow different points of view and different messages to help us get to where we need to be and many of us are really uncomfortable with that.
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Oh yes, it makes a lot of sense … and I will try to remember next time I speak to a denier or non-believer.
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What coincidence as this book just crossed my desk at work today. I took a peek at it thinking it looked interesting, but I am not sure it is one I can tackle at the moment–the thing is someone definitely needs to start tackling it even though it it a controversial and highly uncomfortable situation. Must bring it home once it is processed. This isn’t a new idea by any means, but you do wonder what it will take for us to finally pay attention and do something about it. Of course by then it will likely be too late. Now there’s a happy thought….
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Danielle, that is a coincidence! It’s a good book. Most of the chapters are nice bite-sized and every third of the way through the book he takes time to sort of sum up all the different things he’s been talking about. It’s already too late to stop the planet from warming 2-3 degrees, probably 4, but we can work to keep it from getting warmer than that and of course we have to work together to solve the problems that will result from the warming.
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I remember talking about global warming/climate change years ago and meeting almost aggressive and certainly denigrating responses even from family members. Now, almost everyone realizes that it is happening, but argue about the causes. There is so much that could be done, but many towns and cities ignore the possibilities.
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jenclair, oh yes, there are still many people who respond that way, or who quickly change the subject because it is too depressing or who simply say nothing at all. Marshall talks about a huge silencing around the issue not only in the media but in our personal lives as well. I agree, there is a lot that can be done but most people, cities, countries are ignoring it as though that will make it all go away.
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It’s big industry and commerce that causes so many problems, and especially in regions where there is little regulation. But to regulate capitalist ambitions has for so long been completely verboten. I’m all for regulating them, myself, and would pay more for goods and services if it meant the environment was protected. I do worry about this issue a great deal. We’re going to be known as the generation who could have done something but were too selfish and attached to our way of life to do so – not a great way to be remembered.
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Litlove, Marshall calls it a multivalent wicked problem and a lot of the difficulty with solving it is that we don’t do well with those kinds of problems. We keep trying to find one or two entities to blame and then we oversimplify things like saying its all about greenhouse gases and carbon. We are definitely going to be known as the generation that could have done something but didn’t which makes me so very sad.
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