What we think about when we try not to think about global warming

Book Summary

Duncan NobleJuly 2016

What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming

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Book Summary The Climate Paradox: Knowing more; Doing

less Thinking: The 5 Psychological Barriers to

Climate Action Doing: If it Doesn’t Work, Do Something Else Being: Towards a New Way of Being Summing Up


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The Climate Paradox We know that climate

science facts are getting more solidly documented and disturbing year by year

We also know that most people either don’t believe in or do not act upon those facts

The greatest science communication failure in history: The more facts, the less concern

http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/a-psychologist-explains-why-people-dont-give-a-shit-about-climate-change/


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5 Psychological Barriers to Climate Action


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Distance The climate issue remains remote for the majority of

us We can’t see climate change Melting glaciers are usually far away, as are the spots

on earth now experiencing sea level rise, more severe floods, droughts, fires, and other climate disruptions

It may hit foreign others, not me or my kin The heaviest impacts are far off in time – in the

coming century or farther Despite some people stating that global warming is

here now, it still feels distant from everyday concerns.


6Image: Wikimedia


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When climate change is framed as an encroaching disaster that can only be addressed by loss, cost, and sacrifice, it creates a wish to avoid the topic

We’re predictably averse to losses With a lack of practical solutions, helplessness

grows and the fear message backfires We’ve heard that “the end is nigh” so many

times, it no longer really registers

Doom

Image: Brownsburg Public Library


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Dissonance If what we know (e.g., our fossil energy use

contributes to global warming), conflicts with what we do (drive, fly, eat beef, or heat with fossil fuels), then dissonance sets in

The same happens if my attitudes conflict with those of people important to me

In both cases, the lack of convenient behaviors and social support weaken climate attitudes over time

But by doubting or downplaying what we know (the facts), we can feel better about how we live

Thus, actual behavior and social relations determine attitudes in the long run


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Denial When we negate, ignore, or otherwise avoid

acknowledging the unsettling facts about climate change, we find refuge from fear and guilt

By joining outspoken denialism and mockery, we can get back at those whom we feel criticize our lifestyles, think they know better, and try to tell us how to live

Denial is based in self-defence, not ignorance, intelligence, or lack of information

Example: Read the comments section of any article about climate change


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iDentity We filter news through our professional and cultural

identity We look for information that confirms our existing

values and notions, and filter away what challenges them

If people who hold conservative values, for instance, hear from a liberal that the climate is changing, they are less likely to believe the message

Cultural identity overrides the facts If new information requires us to change our selves,

then the information is likely to lose We experience resistance to calls for change in self-

identity


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Overcoming Barriers to Climate Action


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Principles for New Climate Strategies Upending the Barriers

Make the issue feel near, human, personal, and urgent Use supportive framings that do not backfire by

creating negative feelings Reduce dissonance by providing opportunities for

consistent and visible action. Avoid triggering the emotional need for denial through

fear, guilt, self-protection Reduce cultural and political polarization on the issue

Sticking to Positive Strategies Acting as Social Citizens


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Crafting Climate Messages that Work1. Harness The Power of Social Networks2. Reframe Climate Messages3. Make it Simple to Choose Right (Nudges)4. Use the Power of Stories to Re-Story Climate5. Create New Signals of Progress


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Use the Power of Social Networks Use social norms to motivate others

Reduce power and water consumption Spread social norms through green products and services (rooftop

solar, eco-apps) Improve recycling efforts

Use groups and word of mouth from trusted peer messengers Clarify the scientific consensus Join Earth Hour and similar initiatives Set up home parties; solar panel buying clubs; local-patriotism

climate conversations Introduce the topic of climate in existing networks (churches, clubs,

sports, and the like) Join Carbon Conversations and Transition Town efforts

Set up funding for social network climate initiatives.

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Use Positive Climate Framing Insurance against risk Health and well-being Preparedness and resilience Values and a common cause Opportunities for innovation and job growth


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Make the Low Carbon Choice Simple Use Green Nudges to Make It Simpler to Act

Make life-cycle costs salient on all appliance price tags Make smaller plates in restaurant buffets the default Make non-meat special dishes a restaurant’s default Make double-sided printing the default Include voluntary CO2 price fees in plane tickets as the

default Increase the frequency and speed of buses and biking while

reducing car parking and access to city centers Bundle home re-insulation with attic cleaning and renovation Make recycling fun with painted green steps, big-belly bins,

and the like Host local free pizza parties as a reward for community

energy conservation


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The Most Famous Nudge?


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Individual Actions and Systemic Change Like all simple and painless behavioral

changes, the value of simple behavior changes like reusing shopping bags hangs on whether they can act as a catalyst for other, more impactful activities – such as truly green purchases and more vocal support for greener policies.

Individual solutions are insufficient or even counterproductive unless they contribute to structural changes, too.


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Use the Power of Better Climate Stories Avoid apocalypse narratives, and instead tell

stories about: Green growth Happiness and the good life Stewardship and ethics Re-wilding and ecological restoration

When telling stories, make them: Personal and concrete Vivid and extraordinary Visual: “Show, don’t Tell” Humorous and witty, with strong plot and drama


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Better Climate Stories"We [should] tell new stories of the dream, not the nightmares. We must describe where we want to go, such as happier lives, and better cities.”

Image: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating

Currents of Electricity and Hope


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Better Climate Stories


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New Signals/Indicators of ProgressTo support new stories, we need new indicators to see and give feedback on progress: Greenhouse emissions per value added (green

growth story) Happiness, well-being, and integrated wealth

(vision story) Kantian ethics planetary boundaries (ethical

story) Ecosystem health and nature index (re-wilding

story)

26 What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming


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Towards a New Way of Being


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Embracing Your DepressionIt is the destruction of the worldin our own lives that drives us

half insane, and more than half.To destroy that which we were given

in trust: how will we bear it? . . . To have lost, wantonly,

the ancient forests, the vast grasslandsis our madness, the presencein our very bodies of our grief.

Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir


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Climate Disruption as Symptom: What Is It Trying to Tell Us? A Symptom Is Not Just a Problem to Be Fixed

It can also have a deeper symbolic meaning What Climate Symptoms Say About Our

Worldview Humans vs. Nature/Environment Humans fully Immersed in Nature

What Climate Symptoms Say About Our Values Values explain What we care about and Why We all have Egoistic, Altruistic and Biospheric

Values in difference mixes Understanding the Limitations of Science and

Psychology Moving from the mirror to the window


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Re-Imagining Climate as the Living Air

The Air’s Poiesis: It Is Actively Bringing-into-Being Poiesis: Knowing by Creating

Air and Psyche: We’re Inside Air’s Awareness

Historic Roots to a Sense of the Living Air

Indigenous Traditions and the Holy Wind

Reframing air as something enchanted, beautiful, and sacred


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Rewilding of Ecosystems and Humans


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Towards a New Way of Being There are too many good reasons why we humans resist the

many sad facts of climate disruption, the "global weirding." It finally boils down to the question Why bother? That one question reveals a simple fact: The most fundamental obstacles to averting dangerous climate disruption are not mainly physical or technological or even institutional – they have to do with how we align our thinking and doing with our being. This missing alignment shows clearly in the current lack of courage, determination, and imagination to carry through the necessary actions to combat climate disruption. But these human capacities are, luckily, as renewable as the wind and the sunshine. Humans will act for the long-term when conducive conditions are in place.

Therefore, all climate communicators need to assist building the necessary social norms, supportive frames, simple actions, new stories, and better signals.


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It’s Hopeless and I’ll Give It My All Varieties of Hope

Passive Optimism: things will turn out well Active Optimism: Heroic – Yes we can! Just do

it! Beyond Optimism and Pessimism The Revitalization of Citizen Community Expanding Our Sense of Self and the Reversal

of Agency Flowing with the Winds of Change


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Chris Hedges on RevolutionI do not know if we can build a better society. I do not even know if we will survive as a species. But I do know that these corporate forces have us by the throat. And they have my children by the throat. I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists. And this is a fight that in the face of the overwhelming forces against us requires that we follow those possessed by sublime madness, that we become stone catchers and find in acts of rebellion the sparks of life, an intrinsic meaning that lies outside the possibility of success. We must grasp the harshness of reality at the same time as we refuse to allow this reality to paralyze us. People of all creeds and people of no creeds must make an absurd leap of faith to believe, despite all the empirical evidence around us, that the good draws to it the good. The fight for life goes somewhere — the Buddhists call it karma — and in these acts we make possible a better world, even if we cannot see one emerging around us.

Chris Hedges, Wages of Rebellion


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Summing Up Grounded in the way that people actually think and

behave Makes a lot of sense Final section on “Being” is perhaps the most

challenging, and the most important Much talk about climate assumes myth of “information

deficit” Provides insights to allow you to be more empathetic

towards climate science denial Some good advice on crafting climate messages that

might actually get through Provides hope that we can design climate messages

that make a difference


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Contact Information Duncan Noble [email protected] about.me/canoedunk www.duncannoble.com Twitter: @carbonexplorer

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.about.me/canoedunk

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