Friends
did a month of rain that fall last night?
Did rivers flood in the Fall? Did you know 214 all-time heat records were set in the U.S.
September 24th. It was 30 degrees in
Toronto, feeling like 37 with the humidity - the heat of the human body. And just lately, Los Angeles hit an all-time
high of 113 degrees – in late September!
Worried
about your kids?
You might
have Post Climatic Stress Disorder.
PCSD is a serious condition. But
don't worry, professional help is on the way....
This week
on Radio Ecoshock, it’s Climate psychology 101 - with psychologists Robert
Griffin and Joseph Reser. Plus new film
on the grand-daddy of the double bind, Gregory Bateson.
How does
that make you feel?
What if
humans are not capable of conceiving a slow-moving global problem. Maybe, we do not have the mental equipment
to "see" climate change. If
that were so, we may go extinct, due to a disability in our minds - and
evolution works too slowly to fix such things.
Do we have what it takes? Are we
too stupid or psychologically challenged to survive?
BUT
FIRST, MY OWN PSYCHOLOGICAL WORK: ALEX GET'S PUBLISHED....
Before I
get into the debate and our guests - my own article on controversial
psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich was published this Summer in the literary journal
"The Centacle." Just click on the cover to
get an Adobe .pdf file of this issue. "Wilhelm Reich, The Life and Death
of a Social Pioneer" opens the issue.
My thanks
to Raymond and his wife - of SpiritPlants
Radio! - for patiently transcribing from my reading of this piece, buried
on the Radio Ecoshock web site. I wrote
it years ago, and then lost the printed version. Better to read it than listen, because as my first recording, I
sound like an answering machine. It
took me a while to find my radio voice.
Wilhelm Reich began the
sexual revolution, and worked for a woman's rights to her own body, decades
before the 1960's made it fashionable.
He was heir apparent to Sigmund Freud, until his radical views got him
kicked out of the Psychoanalytic Association, and Austria/Germany (thus saving
his life from Hitler's goons).
But free
thinking was no better loved in America, where Reich was among the first to
criticize the radiation from nuclear weapons testing. For that, his earlier Communism (it was the McCarthy witch-hunt
days), and his medical claims about “Orgone Energy” - the U.S. government
arrested Reich and jailed him. This
social pioneer died in American prison.
Worse, in an under-reported example of American book-burning - the
authorities burned all of his books- ironically including the classic "The
Mass Psychology of Fascism". Read
it and weep.
But on to
our show on the psychology of climate change.
Why don't
we do more to prevent catastrophic climate change? Why? Why?
For that,
we need to enter the puzzle of the human mind.
Our
guide is a world-recognized expert in the psychology of climate change.
Dr. Robert Gifford is a Professor
of Psychology and Environmental Studies, at the University of Victoria, in
British Columbia, Canada. He has taught
there since 1979. Gifford is a Fellow
of both the Canadian and American Psychological Associations. He helped found the Pacific Institute for Climate Change Solutions,
has written more than 90 refereed science publications, plus many book
chapters. He's the editor of the Journal
of Environmental Psychology.
Gifford
asks the question: what goes on in the
minds of humans when they think about climate change? More specifically, why do they fail to
react, or outright deny it?
When I
did my research, Gifford found 13 main psychological barriers to dealing with
climate change. For communication
purposes, he calls them "Dragons".
Now he's up to 29 different Dragons.
We
discuss a couple of examples, like "Social Norms and Equity". Apparently, people try to follow others that
they admire. If those others are
driving gas guzzlers and living in
monster houses - we want to do that too.
Then
there is "Reactance" - a rebellious unwillingness to be told
what to do - even if that action could save the person suffering or even their
lives.
Gifford
has done surveys of people in Canada and elsewhere. He finds the number of "Deniers" is relatively low
(somewhere between 12 and 20 percent of those surveyed) - but they are quite
vocal. We can see that in the number of
climate hostile You tube postings and blogs - which turn out to come from just
a few people.
Most of
the rest of the population knows climate change is happening - but even the
accepters have multiple reasons why they really can't make many changes. This may include a feeling of helplessness.
Not only
are we humans different and complex, but it turns out some psychological
approaches work better for certain types of problems. For example, Dr. Gifford found that people in denial were more
concerned with products, than with food.
He also
found: "Younger consumers think more about
Energy & Water as a climate-change problem, and older consumers think more
about Food as a climate-change problem."
I suppose that dates me, because I think food will be the key
destabilizing problem arising out of climate change, this century. But if I want to appeal to younger people,
should I be covering other issues more?
Most of
the rest of the population knows climate change is happening - but even the
accepters have multiple reasons why they really can't make many changes. This may include a feeling of helplessness.
Gifford
also have some solutions, which he calls "Dragon Slayers".
Here is a quick list of the first 13 "Dragons":
Not all barriers
to climate action are psychological, Gifford says. Some are "structural".
The "The 13 Dragons of Non-sustainability" are the
psychological barriers.
#1. Environmental Numbness
Pure ignorance or
tuning out; message overload
#2. Uncertainty
Scientific
integrity, lack of immediate salience
#3. Lack of Perceived
(Behavioral) Control
Personal
Societal
#4. Denial
20 percent
vocal group
#5. Conflicting Goals and
Aspirations
getting ahead
health, safety
etc.
#6. Social Norms, Equity
& Felt Justice
My peers...
It's industry or
Not Fair!
#7. Reactance
Lack of trust
You'll never make
me!
#8. (Lack of)
Identification with one's community
It's not my nest
YOU take care of
it
#9. Tokenism
I already recycle
I changed the lightbulbs,
I'm done
#10. Habit
The flywheel of
society
Behavioral
momentum
#11 Perceived Risks
Psychosocial
Financial,
Functional, Physical, Time
#12 Divine Determinism
Mother Nature
Father God
#13 Optimism Bias
Known to exist
for Health, Intelligence, Attractiveness
... environment
too.
And here is
a link to the new version of "The Dragons of Inaction: Why We Do Less Than
We Should, and How We Can Overcome" by Robert Gifford (with all 29 Dragons
present). (Adobe .pdf reader
required. That's a free download on the
Net, if you don't already have it).
Although my Google Chrome browser seems to show this document without
opening any other software...
By email, I asked about the growing number of barriers he was
discovering - but Gifford thinks the main ones are already on the list. More additions are possible, but they will
likely be fleeting and minor.
All climate activists and organizations should check out this
document to see why people don't react, and how they can be motivated.
You too! We are all faking
our way through this fossil disaster, including me. What
rationalizations are your favorites?
There will always be suspicion among some people, about being
manipulated by psychology. So far, we
have been abused by psychologists advising advertising agencies, and major
corporate polluters. Regarding climate
change, can psychologists really help the general public, average people like
ourselves? Definitely. Especially the psychologists who are trying
to help us understand the environmental workings of our minds.
The Radio Ecoshock Robert Gifford interview (18 minutes) can be
downloaded here. But I think you are better off listening to the whole
program.
I think
Greens and folks concerned we are wrecking the climate have to pay more
attention to what psychologists are saying.
Our next guest explains why.
Dr.
Joseph Reser is Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at
Griffith University, in Queensland, Australia.
He has written extensively on environmental psychology, and has an eye
for impacts in the tropics, and Asia.
I ask Dr.
Reser about the new
report from the American Psychology Association on climate change. It's good to see another professional health
body working on this. Environmentalists
might have to rethink some campaigns and approaches, once they read this
report.
The APA
report is called
"Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a multi-faceted phenomenon and set of challenges"
- Report
of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Interface Between
Psychology and Global Climate Change
Find the Executive
Summary here.
Both our
guests, Gifford and Reser, worked on this report.
And here
is a link to another report into the psychological barriers to accepting and
dealing with climate change - this time in Australia.
Speaking
of the psychology of denial, in the financial field pundits Ian Bremmer and Nouriel
Roubini have some interesting comments on why people allow themselves to
deny the financial crisis and the Wall St. Ponzi scheme. Writing at the site "Institutional
Investor" they say:
"Crises
breed denial. Whether a crisis concerns an individual’s health, career or
marriage, a company’s reputation or market share, or a nation’s place in the
global pecking order, powerful incentives exist within the stricken entity to
aspire to a return to normalcy — and to proceed as if that result represents
the only option. However, as we all know from human experience, some setbacks
are irreversible. We believe the recent meltdown suffered by the U.S. and its
partners on the liberal side of the global economy is one of them."
The same
can be said of the climate crisis. It
breeds denial. I suppose we can see all
the flustering about "climate-gate" and political
posturing as a sign that people do see the climate changing. Denial might be the first necessary step
along the road to kicking the fossil fuel addiction?
Dr. Reser
also tells us about new surveys on climate change attitudes in Australia, the
world's largest coal exporting country.
After the long-standing droughts which have driven many Australian
farmers to suicide, after the deadly bush fires and floods, public acceptance
has risen sharply in that country.
As an
aside, not all Australians want the dirty jobs and money from climate-killing
coal. A group called Rising
Tide Newcastle just shut down the operations of Australia's largest coal
shipping port. A sign of taking responsibility DownUnder.
Back with
Dr. Reser, I found it interesting that studies show most people think
climate change will happen somewhere else, and remain optimistic about
their own locality. All around the
world, humans think climate change is going to hurt people far away - but we'll
be all right Jack! We are crazed
monkeys....
Dr. Reser
points out that no psychologist, and few social scientists were involved in
writing the big climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change - the IPCC. That is a real
weakness, as we have seen. The hard
scientists, the ones measuring ice loss, ocean acidification, and so on - are
not always prepared to communicate well with the public, with the average
person. Communications has been a break
down point with the IPCC.
In the excellent
ABC National Radio Program called "All In the Mind" - Reser
pinpointed the difference between "adaptation," as understood by the
IPCC, and the way individuals experience it.
In fact, it seems the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was
entirely focused on government responses, as though individual citizens are not
part of this challenge.
It sounds
like we need a sweeping program, to reach and prepare common people for the
psychological shock and trauma, brought on by climate-driven fires,
drought, floods, and heat. There is no
government agency to do this, and I am unaware of any movement, even among
environmentalists, to help the individual.
Who can do this public outreach, and education?
I'm also
worried that millions of good people are not only blocked from action, by the
overwhelming fear of more chaos in the natural world - but they are suffering,
psychologically. We probably need a new
therapeutic field developing, to help people through climate anxiety?
But,
isn't anxiety or depression an appropriate reaction to the destruction of the
climate system, and much of the natural world?
Perhaps we shouldn't lull or heal people - but hope this personal pressure
finally drives them to change their lifestyles, and demand real change from
politicians and corporations. Can
people be frightened into making the right choices - and will they ever change
without some painful stimulus forcing it?
Dr. Reser
suggests we need the right balance of "fear appeal". And he suggests we need to add something to
the old slogan "Think Globally, Act Locally". Find all that in the
radio interview. (20 minutes).
It was a
real pleasure to talk with Nora Bateson about her new film "An Ecology of
Mind". It is an intellectual history of her father, the famed social
scientist Gregory
Bateson.
Gregory
Bateson was an innovator and founder in many fields. I learned of his ecological theories in the 1970's, partly due to
Stewart Brand, publisher of "The Whole Earth Catalog". Bateson quotes inspired and mystified me, at
the same time.
We start
with a quick look at the many fields where Gregory Bateson was a
co-inventor. He worked with his wife
Margaret Meade in New Guinea, making thousands of photos and early films of
life there. They were helping to create
the field of "Anthropology" - the study of humans and their origins.
As an
aside, not mentioned in the film, most intellectual historians credit Margaret
Mead (1901-1978) with beginning the dialog of sexuality in America. Her anthropological studies in the South
Pacific showed a much more natural and wide-open attitude toward sex - a
current that was picked up in the 1960's sexual revolution. (And back to Wilhelm Reich as a sex pioneer
as well....)
Bateson's work was interrupted by World War Two, where he served as both an intelligence officer and a teacher about Asia. After the War, Bateson joined an influential group of world intellectuals, called the Macy Conferences.
There
Bateson helped develop the field of "Cybernetics"
-"the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory
systems." All that led into our
world of computer today.
And
Bateson was among those who brought out the importance of the "double
bind" theory in psychology.
Although this was at first promoted by some as a "cause" of
schizophrenia - the double bind theory was much more useful in a lot of other
fields.
As a civilization, we are
in a double-bind right now.
In early
February 2010, I interviewed Dr. Tim Garrett from the University of Utah. He published a peer-reviewed paper showing
that only a severe economic crash could stabilize carbon dioxide emissions at
460 parts per million - a level still to high to maintain ice caps at the
Poles. Such a crash, or rapid
withdrawal from fossil fuels would kill hundreds of millions of people. But hundreds of millions, at the very least,
will die if Planet Earth re-arranges into a hot-house world. We can't win. Is there a solution to the
double bind?
Nora
Bateson says "Yes!". Her
father suggested that the impossible choices of the double bind actually
motivates evolution. A new change,
a third alternative had to be found to survive. In our radio interview, I add a wonderful description of the
double bind, as Gregory Bateson speaks to an audience. He uses the "bread and butterfly"
example from "Alice in Wonderland".
Don't miss that.
Stewart
Brand was attracted to Bateson's work, in part because of what it said to a
generation looking for answers, particularly a "Whole Earth"
solution. We talk about Gregory
Bateson and the new young crowd in the 1970's.
And about Nora's upbringing in a series of new age communities, from
Essalen in Big Sur to Lindisfarne. The whole New Age hippy trip!
Gregory
Bateson died of cancer in 1980, in a Zen institution in California.
Here is
another good page about him.
This film
has a subtext: Nora's learning relationship with her famous father. But there isn't much dirty laundry or sex
affairs in "The Ecology of Mind".
Instead, Nora kept the focus on the difficult but important ideas
Gregory launched into the world.
One of
the deepest, in my opinion, was his insistence on our
personal connections with the whole of Nature. After
watching the film (three times) - I realized none of us is ever really
separated from Nature. Even the Chilean
miner trapped deep underground, or the Astronauts on the Space Station, have to
get packages of nature delivered to them.
The
oxygen I breathe now may have been created by algae in the South Pacific. I may have Mongolian dust in my
nostrils. My food comes from Nature. We are all connected. In a way, it made me feel better. Even our life living in electronic screens
can never really disconnect us.....
Also...ARE WE INDIVIDUALS?
We could
say the whole project of the Enlightenment, starting with the dualism of Rene
Descartes, was to build the individual.
Perhaps Nietzsche was the peak of the movement. Then, in the early 1900's, people like
psychologist Carl Jung began to question.
The German philosopher Martin Heidegger even suggested there was more of
our glorious "self" deposited in other people, than in our own
cranium. It seems Gregory Bateson went
further still, insisting that we are all part of a grand being, which includes
at least everything living. What did he
mean, and how is that different from Eastern mysticism?
Nora
Bateson's film "An Ecology of Mind" played at the Vancouver
International Film Festival October 2nd and 3rd. She will take it for a showing and discussion at the upcoming
Bioneers conference in California, and then off to other film festivals in
Europe.
You can
find a trailer, and information on film showing here.
Or just
look for Nora Bateson's Face book page.
Our
interview with Nora Bateson was recorded on Skype by Vodburner. Check out our video page, at ecoshock.org,
and our You tube channel. I'll be
posting an extended version of that interview with Nora, in a couple of weeks
(when I have time for a little video editing.)
Feel free
to link to, or even repost the Radio Ecoshock interview with Nora Bateson,
found here. Remember, I don’t claim copyright on my
work, so it’s free to share as widely as possible (we have a planet to save.)
Don't
forget October 10th is the day to express all the climate frustration. Go to 350.org to find your local
action. It's now and forever. Get creative, get active, October 10th - all
at 350.org
Thanks
for caring enough to find out more!
Alex
Smith
host