Awakening From Your Anger

Category: Global Warming

  • Why We Ignore Climate Change, Part 2

    distrust04

    These posts explore a précis I did of George Marshall’s book Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change (2014), starting 20170122. In reading the book, I was surprised by some of the research that he encountered. Hence, I believe it important to disseminate his findings.

    Chapter 6. The jury of our peers. How we follow the people around us. We watch the behavior of others to identify an appropriate response to situations (the bystander effect or pluralistic ignorance). If no one is responding to a crisis, then it must not be a crisis! However, caution must be noted with the slippery we.

    Again — trust! But in attempting to generate inclusion and response (the ‘slippery we’), it is easy to alienate those who do trust the “message.”

    Chapter 7. The power of the mob. How bullies hide in the crowd. According to self-categorization theory, we seek to establish similarity with the groups that we identify with, and differences against the people who are not like us. This leads both sides to under-estimate the diversity of views within their own ranks and those of their opponents. One of the consequences is that the in-group often develops a sense of superiority. The advent of the Internet has produced entirely new areas of communication, and has allowed frequent outright bullying of the out-group because of the anonymity provided.

    The noise of our culture distracts from awareness. Here, for me, Marshall identifies one of the major complexities of modern living — we have too many people, many of whom are  formulating logical and ethical difficulties (of which a major one is global warming) as emotional issues. And in so doing, they add huge noise which confuses the system.

    Chapter 8. Through a glass darkly. The strange world of climate deniers. For conservatives, climate change has become an issue at just the right time to replace the Red Menace bogeyman that had so long been the mobilizing enemy.

    Disinformation! Marshall suggests that a major transition in the climate denial store occurred with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is a fascinating hypothesis, and one that is consistent with the emotional issues.

    Chapter 9. Inside the elephant. Why we keep searching for enemies. In the end, many struggles come down to there being identifiable vested interests; however, we usually forget that we are participants in those interests. The real difficulty is your own immaturity, especially our inability to deal with our own shadows.

    In a super-wicked difficulty, we are the participants. This is the central thesis of this blog — that the major issue is our acedia, our unwillingness to engage in the painful struggle to maturity. For me, Marshall correctly identifies that we “need to find narratives based on cooperation, mutual interests, and our common humanity.”

    Summary #1. Those who passionately accept or passionately deny climate change have one thing in common: they are regard each other as a major threat. However, in between these two conflicting groups, the vast majority of people find it difficult to give any importance to the issue at all; they happily identify that there is a problem, but otherwise, they give it a little  consideration.

    An accurate assessment of the complexity.

    Chapter 10. The two brains. Why we are so poorly evolved to deal with climate change. Our psychological evolution has prepared us to respond strongly to four key triggers (PAIN): personal, abrupt, immoral, now. Climate change triggers none of these. We can understand the difficulty of climate change with our rational brains, but this does not trigger the emotional brain into action. Climate activists maximize the data without impacting the emotional brain; climate deniers activate emotions, and minimize the data; whereas the group in the middle are aware of the data, and are waiting to see the emotional responses generated as social cues.

    Again, an accurate assessment of the complexity.

    Chapter 11. Familiar yet unimaginable. Why climate change does not feel dangerous. There are two main drivers of risk perception: 1) dread risk, intergenerational and irreversible, a sense of powerlessness in the face of involuntary and catastrophic impacts, and 2) unknown risk, invisible and unprecedented, an anxiety that comes from the uncertainty of new and unforeseen danger. Because climate change does not have the stigma of attack, and extreme weather events have a degree of familiarity, the uncertainty of climate change does not instill dread or danger. Rather, there is leeway to “believe what you want.” Climate change does not feel threatening, unless you choose to feel that it is.

    See the next comment.

    Chapter 12. Uncertain long-term costs. Why our cognitive biases line up against climate change. Climate change lacks salience: it is abstract, distant, invisible, and disputed. It requires the acceptance of short-term costs to mitigate higher but uncertain losses in the far future. In addition, disinformation has created uncertainty. To mobilize people, an issue needs to be emotional; it needs to have immediacy and salience — our decisions are directed by largely intuitive mental shortcuts (cognitive biases). It is possible that no amount of psychological awareness will overcome people’s reluctance to lower their standards of living.

    Sad! As I look around at this very moment on a cold but sunny day in Canadian winter, I do not feel threatened, and I can easily fall into the numbness of “what’s the big deal.” Yet, intellectually, the complexity of the issues overwhelms me, and I truly believe we are shortly destined for extinction. We do not seem capable of managing such complexity.

    To be continued.

  • Why We Ignore Climate Change, Part 1

    distrust02I’m going to spend the next few posts examining a précis I did of George Marshall’s book Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change (2014)[1]. Marshall has been a major figure in the international environmental movement, and his book seeks to answer the question of “why, when the evidence is so strong, and so many agree that this is our greatest problem, are we doing so little about climate change?[2]”

    I encountered his book last year when I was attempting to come to my own answers about this question, and I was surprised by some of the research that he himself encountered. Unfortunately, amongst other sources, the book has only added to my sense of how deeply we are stuck as a society.

    However, if we do not find a way through the morass of global warming, the outcome is less than desirable. Hence, I believe it important to disseminate his findings.

    I do it also because The Climate Mobilization group to which I belong is developing a process called Crisis Reading groups, providing reading to explore the morass. Although this book is likely too long for this process, a précis of the book might be useful to them.

    There are 42 short chapters in Marshall’s book; here in this blog I intend to cover 8-10 chapters per posting, and hence there are likely to be six or so posts on this topic. As format, I shall first list the notes I kept on a given chapter, and then follow each note with reflection as to what I believe to be its importance.

    So . . .

    Chapter 1. Questions. How is it possible, when presented with overwhelming evidence, that we deliberately choose to ignore something while being entirely aware that this is what we are doing?

    As a culture, we both demonstrate awareness of the problem, and ignore the necessary action. In spite of all the rhetoric and disinformation, I continue to believe that the evidence is overwhelming, and that the major problem is the complex nature of our acedia. But understanding is the booby prize. We are currently on a tightrope between disaster and response; I wonder when we will overcome the massive difficulties of response, as well as what environmental disaster will be needed to initiate this mobilization.

    Chapter 2. We’ll deal with that lofty stuff some other day. Why disaster victims do not want to talk about climate change. Following the survival of threat, people choose to emphasize the positive, and minimize the negative.

    Obviously a survival mechanism, and an useful one for acute issues. The fact that “we survived,” then means that we can feel good about our resilience and the likelihood that we can deal with the next issue. However, it makes it difficult to recognize that there is an underlying chronic problem — a narrative of recovery is more hopeful than impending doom.

    Chapter 3. Speaking as a layman. Why we think that extreme weather shows we were right all along. We interpret events in the light of our prior assumptions and prejudices (confirmation bias). We fail to recognize that weather (short-term experience) is different from climate (long-term pattern). Because we are familiar with weather, we tend to interpret climate in a manner that confirms the current weather. For example, cold weather means cold climate; however, periods of cold weather are simply part of the instability of global warming.

    Familiarity confuses us! The convincer for people is their own interpretation, confirmed by discussion with the group they trust. It is so difficult to create change because the need is to change the pattern of trust, not the kind or amount of information.

    Chapter 4. You never get to see the whole picture. How the Tea Party fails to notice the greatest threat to its values. For many Republicans, the nature of climate change fits perfectly into a set of pre-existing ideological grievances about the distribution of power. They are outsiders driven by their values, defending their rights, and deeply distrustful of government and corporations.

    They too want change! Marshall maintains that Republicans, even those as entrenched [my intentional wording] as members of the Tea Party, are seeking the same thing as staunch environmentalists [who, of course, are not entrenched] — they want good information in an age of information overload. Personally, despite having six university degrees, all of them in some kind of science, I do not trust modern science — for me, it is so entrenched in scientific materialism.

    Chapter 5. Polluting the message. How science becomes infected with social meaning. Attitudes on climate change have become a social clue as to which group the individual belongs. [NB: the TIC model.]

    Science, as imperfect as it is, is not a social issue — it is one of our best attempts at truth. I’ve previously written about Whom Do You Trust, and the TIC Process whereby people are entrenched in their own trust issues. One of the ways, then, of dealing with information overload is to use social cues to group (and assess) information, thus creating a bias of data based on the group presenting the data. Again, trust is the basic issue.

    To be continued.

    [1] Marshall, G. (2014). Don’t even think about it: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.

    [2] Marshall, G. http://climatedenial.org, accessed 20170121.

  • Civil Disobedience

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    One of the issues I am pondering these days is that of civil disobedience. The central issue is that of how to respond to a breach of law when the law goes along with the breach. As such, if we are to resolve our cultural dilemma of climate disruption, we must deal with the negative forces that are leading to global warming. In particular, we must recognize that these negative forces are currently poised in the dominator roles of our culture. These powers are in the position to mandate the continuance of:

    1. consumerism,
    2. the military-industrial complex, and
    3. the fossil fuel industry

    via legal means, imposed by government forces which are in alignment with these forces; it also means that to resist these forces often requires stepping outside the bounds of legality. To oppose these forces thus requires some form of civil disobedience.

    Such disobedience can be placed on a spectrum between sabotage and non-violent civil disobedience (NVCD). Much has been written on NVCD, the earliest being the play Antigone by Sophocles (5th century BCE). The modern writings on NVCD have mainly begun with Thoreau in [On the Duty of] Civil Disobedience, 1848. Thoreau was essentially questioning the distinction between legality and justice, wherein:

    It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do what I think right. . . . Law never made men a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

    There is much to be explored in Thoreau’s writing, but essentially he was an advocate of NVCD when government and legal systems were acting in ways that are unjust. His primary suggestions, as elucidated by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, were to:

    • use only moral or legal means to oppose unjust law
      • boycotting, picketing, blocking traffic, non-violent resistance, non-payment of taxes
    • first make an effort to bring about change through legal means
      • work within the system before and during
    • be open and public about actions
      • the disobedience must be fully revealed and public
    • be willing to accept the consequences of such actions
      • prison, fines, deportation, loss of job, social disapproval

    The intention behind NVCD is to induce shame in the dominator by highlighting the discordance between legality and justice. The difficulty is that these processes are slow to induce social change: witness the years required before the British Empire released India from colonialization (Gandhi), or the years of societal demonstration before significant reduction of racial inequality (Martin Luther King Jr). The major difficulty with NVCD in regard to global warming is that we probably do not have time for slow resolution; we are too close to the edge of irreversible global catastrophe.

    Sabotage, on the other hand, is usually illegal, likely violent or violating, action engaged in secretly, and often such that the perpetrators attempt to avoid the personal consequences of their actions. While sabotage might be somewhat satisfying to the perpetrators, I am not sure it does anything other than anger the recipients, and provide a justification on the part of the dominator for the suppression of any kind of civil disobedience.

    In this regard, I have been networking with a group of individuals who seek to offer protection services for groups that engage in civil demonstration, with the purpose being to maintain the principles of NVCD wherein these protest rallies occur. I believe that such protection service is very important, providing safety for all — but it is very easy for individuals to become provocative, or for spectators to provoke, which then leads to antagonistic responses. In particular in the Vancouver area, it appears that a number of neo-Nazi groups are now attempting to be provocative in just this fashion.

    Even for the people who offer such protection services, there is a range of responses. Some say that actions such as sabotage can be done without danger to those who simply practice of NVCD. I totally disagree with this — I doubt that the dominator society makes this distinction, and it is likely that if sabotage occurs at the same time as NVCD, repressive responses will be imposed on all, not just the saboteurs.

    So, what to do? I do not know. What is fundamentally needed is a massive mobilization of the general populous towards all types of civil disobedience, but forty years of attempting this on the part of many parties has been largely unsuccessful. Sooner or later, enough angst from environmental devastation will occur, but likely it will then be too late.

    Sad!

  • Climate Disruption Dispatches

    globalignitionFor those who want fairly accurate information concerning what is happening to our climate, I consider Dahr Jamail of Truthout to be one of the best sources. I highly recommend him.

    This link provides a summary of his monthly posts over the past two years — a vast amount of information, most of which scares me as to its consequences.

    I hesitate to say: Enjoy!

  • The Struggle To Engage

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    The Spanish Conquest of the New World was simply one example of power dynamics.

    I have not written in my blog now for over three months. For me, it has been a major struggle to engage, initially due to travel requirements but especially so after the American election. Since that time, I have been pondering my difficulty.

    My struggle has not been acedia per se (see previous posts beginning 20160802), although that was my immediate concern (given my studies of acedia) — it is more that I have felt traumatized by the election of Donald Trump, and the likely consequences thereby. For myself in particular, I know that I am strongly introverted, and that most of my life, I have defined myself as a poustinik, a hermit who is available when asked. From the past year or so, I have been attempting to engage in climate activism, but have found it to be exhausting. I don’t engage well in groups, and especially I flounder when I do not have a designated task to give me focus. And I am very sensitive to the pain of others.

    All that definitely is part of my personal pattern that predisposes me to acedia in response to climate change. I know for example that I have been avoiding writing (which often gives me clarity of my internal process). And I definitely experience a push-pull regarding global warming — more and more we are at risk of extinction as a species: I want to resolve it, and I want to avoid it. Yet, as noted, I am not at high risk of the profound avoidance that characterizes acedia.

    Regarding the precepts that counteract acedia (wisdom, discipline, hope and playfulness), I have been aware that I do not have the wisdom to know what to do, other than ponder. I am very disciplined (with daily yoga, meditation, and attention to health, amongst other resources). However, given the immensity of the negative forces creating climate change, I have little to no hope that we will survive.

    And I have difficulty being playful with the topic. If there is a God, I am quite willing to turn the issues over to him/her, but I find it difficult to be joyous or playful with this possibility. If there is no God, then humanity is clearly demonstrating its ineffectiveness as a species (and even if there is a God).

    It is this latter possibility, the ineffectiveness of our species, that is my current focus of pondering, especially in light of again encountering some of the writings of E. Richard Sorenson, a cultural anthropologist who has studied numerous isolates of human culture in various domains. In his work, Sorenson distinguished between “preconquest” consciousness, characteristic of many indigenous cultures, and “postconquest,” characteristic of modern life (conquest referring to the Spanish invasion of the New World). In particular, this quote from his writings about the primitive societies he explored has struck me as vital:

    For several years after I began contacting preconquest peoples like those described above, I considered their type of consciousness an oddity, a kind of naive primitive emotionality, one perhaps suitable only for small, isolated groups, but certainly for no one else. It took a long time for me to realize that they had evolved their own sophisticated type of cognition that was simply different from what I (or anyone I knew) was used to. And I came to realize that such mentality could not be considered primitively ignorant if only because it was so sensitively intelligent and beneficially responsive. It moved more facilely, more harmoniously, and more constructively than do the mentalities associated with today’s postconquest world. Furthermore, it provided for an astonishingly rewarding and zestful life [emphasis added].

    Sorenson in particular identified that the encounter between preconquest consciousness and postconquest invariably led to devastation of the richness of preconquest life. What I would add to this is that this devastation is the same process of power that I gleaned from The Parable of The Tribes, written about in earlier posts. Unfortunately, our 10,000 years of civilization are based upon the power dynamics of conquest, and as such are not compatible with effective living as human beings. We must find a way to what I would call transconquest consciousness, combining the richness of preconquest with the technological advances of postconquest.

    I first encountered Sorenson’s writings as a result of working with my PhD advisor Christian de Quincey, professor of consciousness studies at JFK University in California. Christian’s entire approach to living changed when he first encountered Sorenson’s work, realizing that his own conquistadorial approach was not compatible with effective living.

    In retrospect, I now recognize that the distinctions drawn by Sorenson are those that have devastated my life in many ways, ranging from early childhood experience to the defense of my PhD dissertation. They are also fully consistent with all I have learned of human dynamics in my 25 years of being a therapist. They form the basis of the traumas that underlie the mechanisms of cultural acedia (as developed in my dissertation and book Acedia, The Darkness Within, and the darkness of climate change). I feel fortunate that my intellect has allowed me to survive these traumas, although with considerable restrictions.

    Unfortunately this gives me little satisfaction or hope that we will survive as a species. However, I will continue to engage in whatever way I can.

    One of the ways I will do this is to post my email anger program to this blog. I have had good feedback, but limited sign-up. Rather than simply let the program die, I will post it for others to access if desired.

     

    For the interested reader, I have included two references on Sorenson’s and de Quincey’s writings. I recommend both highly.

    de Quincey, C. (2000). “Consciousness and Conquest.” From Maaber blog, http://www.maaber.org/sixth_issue/epistemology_2e.htm, accessed 2017 January 5th.

    Sorenson, E. R. (1998). “Preconquest Consciousness.” From Ran Prieur blog, http://ranprieur.com/readings/preconquest.html, accessed 2017 January 5th.

  • It Does Not Yet Appear What We Shall Be

    Acedia1
    It’s all too much.

    It is so difficult to coordinate my thoughts; I am still grieving the consequences of the election of Donald Trump as future President of the United States. It is so challenging, and unexpected (and yet so expected, given what I know about emotional process). It also is a disaster as regards the management of global warming.

    Pertinent responses by others include:

    The best metaphor I have encountered regarding this situation is that this is the Pearl Harbor of our times. And if I truly accept this, it ultimately means either civil war, military coup, or world war. Sooner or later, one of these is likely to be the outcome as the Trump Organization pushes its brand of tyranny.

    Alternatively, it might mean maturity of our species, if we can see beyond the struggle for power. Aside from the huge outcry that is occurring in the many other responses I have seen, I have always maintained that global warming is not a technological issue; it is a symptom of our immaturity as a species. As such, the long-term impact of this election and the consequences are yet to be determined.

    In any event, two things stand out for me:

    • tyranny is not responsive to rationality; the needed response is that of self-differentiation, and
    • in the tradition of the Chinese curse, we are living in interesting times.

    =========================

    I am currently reading George Marshall’s Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change (2014, New York, NY: Bloomsbury). It is offering me some fascinating insights into the difficulty of response to these kinds of issues. I will be commenting on it further in the next few posts.

     

     

  • The State Of The World

    sadness3
    Sadness, perhaps despair, perhaps giving up.

    I’ve been away a lot in the past six weeks, and have not been doing blog entries. And now that I am back, it is time to reflect on the state of the world.

    • First I am deeply saddened by the US election results — it almost certainly means the end of our civilization, if not the end for our species. Given the political situation, the likelihood for resolving global warming is poor.
      • As a result, I find it very difficult to write much at present. I’m still processing, mainly at an other-than-conscious level.
    • I encourage you to look at two YouTube videos, both rather dry and factual, but with up-to-date good data:

    To reiterate, although it seems a small change, the danger of exceeding 1.5°C is that of run-away positive feedback loops, the risk rising as the temperature rises. As Peter notes, we must start eliminating fossil fuels NOW — we have delayed too long already.

    And if the campaign promises of the US election hold true, the US will continue on a course of action that spells disaster, socially and environmentally (see Here’s Everything Donald Trump Has Promised to Do on His First Day as President, for example). Even the present Paris Accord is inadequate; for the US to exit from this (likely), we will have many more years of argument rather than moving in a safer direction — whether or not even that would actually be safe is very uncertain.

  • The Climate and The American Election

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    Another article worth reading: The Climate Emergency and the Election: A Pathway to WWII-Scale Mobilization in Common Dreams by Ezra Silk. Ezra is co-founder of The Climate Mobilization, and has spent the past year researching what is needed for management of climate change, and how it can be accomplished — by the equivalent of a world war II mobilization pattern. Achievable, yes; difficult, also yes; necessary, also yes.

    Although focused on the America election, it is likely that this election will determine the fate of our civilization. The policies of Donald Trump as President will almost certainly doom our civilization, if not our survival as a species. As President, Clinton will not likely be fully proactive, but will almost certainly be responsive to public outcry, eventually instituting the necessary mobilization.

    And if the Americans institute this mobilization, Canada is not likely to be far behind.

    At the moment, I am significantly disappointed in the Liberal stance. As mentioned in Living In Vancouver (20160916), the likely approval of three massive contributors (the Kinder-Morgan pipeline, a LNG plant, and a coal processing plant) to greenhouse gases in the Vancouver area is, for me, totally inconsistent with the Paris Accord. Similarly, the recent carbon pricing policy (Canada releases plans for a nationwide carbon tax, where 80% of Canadians already as subject to carbon pricing) is, for me, a form of tokenism — needed, but it will not accomplish much.

    Life goes on, for now!

  • The Current Status of Global Warming

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    We are at war, and we are losing.

    For a recent excellent review of the current status of global warming, go to Scientists Sound Alarm on Climate but US Still Toys With Skepticism. in Truthout by Dahr Jamail (20161003). I recommend it, but it is also very discouraging. Sad!

  • Climate Silence

    silence3
    The cost of silence!

    End climate silence: The most important thing you can do to fight global warming

    Although I am a Canadian, not an American, the statistics of this article and the recommendations of this article likely apply to my country also. Global warming is an international issue, and it is also a moral issue — our failure to respond is an insult to our intelligence, and a reflection on our immaturity as a species.

    Our hubris and our acedia are about to destroy us. We are so unwilling to step outside the cultural norm — that if we do not talk about an issue then it will go away — we are willing to destroy our species in consequence.

    We need to break the silence.

    This is the fundamental premise of The Climate Mobilization, one that I agree with. Again, it is an American organization, and it needs to be an international organization.