Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t strativarius – Apparently we have adapted to the daily horror of the climate crisis, just like people surviving in a war zone get used to all the death and destruction around them.
Why aren’t we more scared of the climate crisis? It’s complicated
Despite extreme heat and weather in the US, most Americans aren’t cowering in fear. There’s a psychological reason for it
Maggie Mertens
Sat 22 Jul 2023 23.00 AESTThis summer in the United States, millions of people have experienced the intense effects of the climate crisis. The “heat dome” that has gripped the south-west for the past three weeks is expanding into the south-eastern states. Catastrophic flooding in the north-east has claimed lives and wiped out farmers’ crops. And the worst wildfire season in Canadian history has not only caused tens of thousands of Indigenous people to be displaced, but the accompanying smoke has also billowed over into the north-eastern and midwest US, setting records for poor air quality. In many cases, these events have caused irreparable damage and trauma to those directly affected, and can certainly feel like they’re encroaching on those people on the periphery. And yet despite the fact that we’re living through a climate disaster, most Americans aren’t cowering in fear every day about the future of our planet. There’s a psychological reason for that.
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The emotional response to the climate crisis – even if we feel fearful during an episode of wildfire smoke or flooding – is similar to what many people who live in war zones may experience, Lickel said. While at first, the threat of bombs and attacks are imminent and extremely frightening, eventually those who remain in these areas adapt somewhat to a life in which the threat becomes just another thing to deal with daily. “If they’re not escalating or the nature of the threat’s not changing,” Lickel said, “it is to be expected that the felt emotion is going to go down.”
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Instead, humans tend to adapt to our stressors, which happens in one of two ways, according to Susan Clayton, a psychologist who studies the relationship between humans and nature. When faced with a fear, for instance, Clayton told me that there are two things we can address: the situation or our reaction to the situation. Since the climate crisis is not something we can deal with in the moment, and most people don’t even understand it fully, we often choose to ignore it as a way to protect our emotional selves. “We’re really, really good at avoiding things that bother us in many cases,” she said. “It’s denial.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/22/climate-crisis-fear-psychology
The article goes on to explain if you are feeling the fear, you can mitigate your distress by installing a heat pump.
The interesting thing is the article appears to suggest they may have already lost, that no level of climate catastrophe will motivate people to act. “I’m skeptical that there is going to be an event that’s going to catalyze us more than any of the things that have already happened,”.
If any future historian ever bothers to look back at when the fake climate crisis failed, I think the turning point will be the failed attempt to convince everyone the crisis is upon us. The fake Covid crisis likely also helped weaken trust in authority. A few big forest fires in poorly managed Canadian forests and a heatwave in Summer is not a global climate catastrophe, regardless of how much alarmists would like us to believe their hype.
For more background on climate change alarmism click here.