Human Defenses to Climate Change (Week 9) - Post 2
Human Defenses to Climate Change
The mitigation actions that need to be taken by society surrounding climate change is an imposing issue, and action from everyone is required; unfortunately scientists face the problem that most of the population still denies climate change. There are are infinite reasons that a person could deny science, and each reason is unique to that person, however the general factors can be broken down into three categories: fear influenced defenses, misinformation, and conscious denial because of political pressure. When a person hears about climate change, general information distribution means they will either hear about it in apocalypse, end of the world language, or advanced scientific language that causes detachment from the general public. Both of these methods will cause any person to put up natural defenses, and there in lies the problem. There are five inner defenses that stop the general population from engaging in solving climate change. The first is distance. Climate change language is often said in terms of far away, detached terms. Far away in space, like arctic sea ice extent and polar bears. Then far away in time, like in 2100 or 100s of thousands of years, and even gigatons. People then believe climate change isn't here, it isn't now, so a person feels helpless. The next is doom. Jokingly titled apocalypse fatigue, the overuse of doom and disaster language causes people to be desensitized to apocalypse language. Climate change news has been using looming disaster headlines for thirty years, and still today, over eighty percent of media articles use disaster framings. This habitual doom language has made the climate change issue come off as less serious then it really is. Next, there is dissonance. Dissonance is an inner discomfort humans feel that is solved by comparison justifications. If a person knows that fossil fuel emissions contribute to global warming, everyday things like driving and flying conflict with that, and the person will then feel like a hypocrite, and cognitive dissonance will set in. To get rid of this feeling the brain will come up with justifications. "I drive a car everyday, but my neighbor drives a bigger car". These justifications make people feel better by dismissing what they know. Then there is denial. Denial is a way to find inner refuge from guilt and fear. Denial does not come from lack of intelligence or knowledge, it is this state of mind where a person knows a bad thing is happening but they live and act like it's not real. A lot of times this denial is further reinforced by others in a family or community, agreeing not to bring up the topic at a dinner table or ignoring the news all together. lastly there is identity. Norwegian physiologist and politician says it best "Consider what happens when people who hold conservative values hear from an activist that government ought to expand even further. Particularly in rich Western democracies, they are then less likely to believe that science. How is that? Well, if I hold conservative values, for instance, I probably prefer big proper cars and small government over tiny cars and huge government. And if climate science comes and then says government should expand further, then I will probably trust science less. In this way, cultural identity starts to override the facts. The values eat the facts, and my identity trumps truth any day." So these five defenses are the first thing that prevents the general public from engaging in climate change action. The next being misinformation. Students are exposed to nonfactual climate change information as early as elementary school. School textbooks treat climate change as a matter of opinion not as fact. Diego Roman, an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning in the SMU Simmons School did a study in 2015 on the climate change language used in textbooks across California. His team analyzed 6th grade textbooks published between 2007 and 2008 from different major published, and looked at 279 clauses containing 2,770 words on discussing climate change. "We found that climate change is presented as a controversial debate stemming from differing opinions. Climate skeptics and climate deniers are given equal time and treated with equal weight as scientists and scientific facts--even though scientists who refute global warming total a minuscule number [3% of all scientists]." The distribution of misinformation about climate change to young people who are still very impressionable is a dangerous thing. Especially with so much of the media either sharing climate change denial or sharing no information at all. 67% of the U.S. general public does not believe in climate change and that can largely be blamed upon misinformation in schools and the media. Finally, the third reason causing people to not engage in solving climate change: conscious denial because of influence and pressure within the political realm. According to the EPA The United States is the 2nd largest contributor of fossil fuels in the world, and 56% of those emissions come from transportation and electricity. The huge companies and corporations that sell the oil that makes gasoline and the coal that produces electricity then have major influence on the public. Much like the monopolies in the Industrial Revolution, companies like Shell and BP have control over parts of the government so regulations supporting mitigation are easily shut down. These companies have money and lobbying power in the political sector that influences an incredible number of politicians. Donald Trump, the current president of the United States has stake in the Dakota Access Pipeline, the current Director of the EPA, hired by President Trump, is a former lobbyist for Shell and other oil and coal companies. Having people in positions of power who are controlled by the companies who contribute most to emissions creates an public action problem. Of the priorities listed for the president and congress, global climate change is listed at the bottom every single time. It is because of this political corruption that the United States falls so far behind all other countries in sustainable resource technology. The three general reasons that prevent people from engaging in climate change solutions is, natural defenses to fear, misinformation, and political corruptions. In order to create enough mass mitigation to solve the climate change issue people will need to get past these issues. The ways to do that are not easy, but as Al Gore says "We have the capacity to put aside the distractions and rise to the challenge history has given us. We can be the ones to solve this crisis and lay the foundation for a bright and optimistic future".
Climate change is real, and massive mitigation actions need to be taken, but most of the population will not engage. Scientists can attempt to disseminate climate change information all they want, but until precise actions are taken to combat each of the things keeping people from engaging no improvement will be made. Actions like evidence based optimism, re-framing the way climate is viewed, and unbiased political action are all ways to get more people engaged. Because as much as climate change is a science issue, it is a human issue. It was humans who caused it, and it will be humans who solve, because otherwise millions will die and thousands of ecosystems will disapear.
What do you think is stopping people from embracing the need for change?
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