Fear grief and lack of talk on climate change

The answer to the question posed by Canadian climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe “What's the big deal about a few degrees anyway?”

includes exploration of our possible fear and denial even as expert scientists, economists, and psychologists present their study of the effect of the climate emergency on people and our planet.

the effect of the climate emergency on people and our planet1

Annette Dubreuil explores the question of why we stop talking about climate change.

 This “spiral of silence” is itself a big problem: “People concerned about the climate avoid voicing their worry because they rarely hear others discussing the topic, and thus the spiral continues.” But collective silence is dangerous, especially for a problem as large and urgent as climate change. How do we pull out of this spiral? According to Hayhoe, we have to talk about it. But that can be hard to do. Humans are social creatures. Belonging is a fundamental and universal human need, and as a result, we often choose to conform to our group. That’s why our friends and family have far more influence on our view than do experts. Research suggests that the silencing effect is most powerful when talking to family, friends, or neighbours about obtrusive issues. So, the need for belonging makes overcoming the spiral of silence with friends and family even harder. But in fact, we have much more common ground on climate change than expected: in a research project using dialogue between people of opposing views, participants agreed on key points, and in each case there was at least one topic where the two took positions contrary to what they predicted of the other.Even when we do talk about climate change, our instinct on what to talk about is typically unhelpful. Rather than starting with the science and facts as we’re apt to do, Hayhoe suggests that we find that common ground by looking for shared values. For example, maybe you’re both parents, or maybe you both have the same hobby. Second, don’t use fear, but rather rational hope. Talk about solutions that are “practical, viable, accessible and attractive”.2

Katherine Hayhoe recently gave a TED talk titled “The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it.”

In it, she cites the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, which finds that two-thirds of Americans never talk about climate change even though 70% believe it is a real problem.

Jennifer A Dlouhy comments that an all-star lineup of economists, from Alan Greenspan to Paul Volcker, is endorsing a plan to combat climate change

Common ground on Climate

by slapping a tax on greenhouse gas emissions and then distributing the revenue to American households.

All living former Federal Reserve chairs, several Nobel Prize winners and previous leaders of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers have signed on to a statement asserting that a robust, gradually rising carbon tax is “the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed that is necessary.”
“A carbon tax will send a powerful price signal that harnesses the invisible hand of the marketplace to steer economic actors towards a low-carbon future,” the 45 economists say in the opinion piece, published by the Wall Street Journal late Wednesday.3 

Olivia Goldhill asks if therapists have a duty to confront climate change denial. The research of Dr. Renee Lertzman, an expert in the psychosocial aspects of climate change communications has inspired a video. There are various psychoanalytical theories as to why we might be psychologically resistant to addressing climate change, notes philosopher and psychoanalyst Donna Orange, an adjunct professor at New York University. Social scientist Renee Lertzman, who works on the psychology of environmental communications, believes that people are suffering from “environmental melancholia.”

Freud believed that melancholia reflected a sense of loss that is not fully conscious and so cannot be fully mourned, and Lertzman argues this state describes our response to climate change. That many are aware of the effects of climate change but do little about it suggests dissociation, the Freudian concept explaining how we bury traumatic memories in the unconscious, and regression, Freud’s explanation for why people show childlike rather than adult behavior as a defense mechanism for coping with stress, argues Orange.4 

Sara E. Gorman, PhD, MPH, a public health specialist working on mental health and Jack M. Gorman, MD, former Professor and Chair of Psychiatry and Professor of Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, faculty of Columbia University's Department of Psychiatry for 25 years, find there are at least two psychological reasons that encouraging people to adopt climate protection activities in their daily lives may help promote action on the larger scale.

First, denial is a response to something we fear, and we know from animal and human studies that fear induces freezing and passivity. But studies also demonstrate that giving a fearful animal or human a task that even symbolically addresses what is feared can minimize freezing and promote action. Thus, recommending tasks that we can perform in our daily lives may help us overcome our feeling that mitigating climate change is a hopeless enterprise and motivate us join the voices insisting on ending burning fossil fuels.
Second, these quotidian activities can be the basis for the formation of committees and communities that bring people together with the common goal of addressing climate change. Being part of a group with a common goal may help people overcome denial and have the courage to face the realities of climate change, however grim they may be. It may be easier and more effective for groups of people to demand that countries impose carbon taxes and spend heavily on sustainable energy than it is for individuals.5 

Being frozen in fear and presenting symptoms of grief

Climate stages of grief

at our loss are delaying the relief we will find in beginning to seek common ground with others as we speak about our concerns.

References

1	(n.d.). Global Weirding with Katharine Hayhoe - YouTube. Retrieved February 22, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi6RkdaEqgRVKi3AzidF4ow
2	(n.d.). Annette Dubreuil, Author at Canada's Ecofiscal Commission. Retrieved September 7, 2019, from https://ecofiscal.ca/author/adubreuil/
3	(2019, January 16). From Greenspan to Yellen, Economic Brain Trust Backs .... Retrieved September 7, 2019, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-17/from-greenspan-to-yellen-economic-brain-trust-backs-carbon-tax
4	(2019, February 21). Do therapists have a duty to confront climate change denial. Retrieved September 7, 2019, from https://qz.com/1554808/fighting-climate-change-with-psychoanalysis/
5	(2019, January 12). Climate Change Denial | Psychology Today. Retrieved September 7, 2019, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/denying-the-grave/201901/climate-change-denial

Denial Grief and Denialism

A segment of the CBC “The Sunday Edition” program, broadcast on August 19, 2018, introduced Keith Kahn-Harris, a lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London and at Leo Baeck College, and an associate fellow at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, who offered ideas from his latest book, called Denial: The Unspeakable Truth.

Coastal erosion

Keith Kahn-Harris has a theory about why so many people reject scientific consensus and documented historical fact. He calls it denialism and argues that it is making the practice of politics and public policy more difficult and divisive. Statements that are backed by denialism include:

The Holocaust never happened.The planet isn’t warming.Vaccines cause autism. There is no such thing as AIDS.

The Earth is flat.1

Flat here

Keith Kahn-Harris was a quest on CBC Ideas produced by Naheed Mustafa.

https://i.cbc.ca/1.5140297.1558107042!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/671581886.jpg

The discussion defined Denial as when someone avoids acknowledging something they know to be true. A good example of this is when someone is addicted to shopping but avoids acknowledging that addiction by never looking at their credit card statements. They watch the debt mount but still claim their shopping isn't a problem.

Denialism, on the other hand, is an effort to build an alternative truth because the verifiable truth built on scientific consensus threatens something the person holds dear. The denialist lacks the language to express socially that they actually value something that is being blocked by the efforts of others. Holocaust deniers actually want to express something they hold of value from the Nazi reign.

"I think there are plenty of people within the climate change denialist world who are preserving a particular vision of the way humans can ideally act without any kind of restraint, that we can change the world without any kind of negative consequences," says Kahn-Harris.2

To help us with our psychological state in dealing with the climate emergency Dr. Steve Running recently took a fresh look at the widely recognized concepts on the "5 stages of grief" that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross defined back in the 1970s to summarize how people deal differentially with shocking news, such as being informed that they have terminal cancer.

Climate grief

It seems that these stages of grief provide a very good analogy to how people are now reacting to the global warming topic, so I have formulated my "5 Stages of Climate Grief" as follows…

STAGE	The "5 stages of grief" that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross defined in the 70’s
1	The first stage DENIAL, are the people that simply do not believe the science that the earth is warming, or secondarily that humans are the cause. Despite seeing a 50 year record of global atmospheric CO2 rising every year since 1957, and global air temperatures of the last dozen years in a row being the warmest in a millennium, they dismiss these trends as natural variability. These people see no reason to disturb the status quo. Most people rightfully started at this stage, until presented with convincing evidence. That convincing scientific evidence recently summarized in the 4th IPCC report has, according to opinion polls, dramatically reduced the number of people in Stage 1.
2	Many people jump directly from DENIAL to Stage 4, but for others, the next Stage 2, is ANGER, and is manifested by wild comments like "I refuse to live in a treehouse in the dark and eat nuts and berries." Because of my public speeches, I receive my share of hate mail, including being labeled a "bloviating idiot," from individuals that clearly are incensed at the thought of substantially altering their lifestyle. My local newspaper has frequent letters to the editor from people angry to the point of irrational statements hinting darkly about the potential end of modern civilization.
3	Stage 3 is BARGAINING. When they reach this stage many people (such as self-righteous radio talk show hosts) who used to be very public deniers of global warming begin making statements that warming won"t be all that bad, it might make a place like Montana "more comfortable." It is true that the building heating requirements for my hometown Missoula have decreased by about 9% since 1950 due to milder winters. At this stage people grasp for the positive news about climate change, such as longer growing seasons, and scrupulously ignore the negative news, more intense droughts and wildfires, and no glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2030. Most importantly, at this stage people are still not willing to change lifestyle, or explore energy solutions that are less carbon intensive. They seem willing to ride out this grand global experiment and cope with whatever happens.
4	Many people at my lectures have now moved to Stage 4, DEPRESSION. They consider the acceleration of annual greenhouse gas emissions, the unprecedented speed of warming, and the necessity for international cooperation for a solution, and see the task ahead to be impossible. On my tougher days I confess to sinking back to Stage 4 myself.
5	The final stage ACCEPTANCE, are people that acknowledge the scientific facts calmly, and are now exploring solutions to drive down greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, and find non-carbon intensive energy sources. Two factors are important in moving the public from DEPRESSION to this ACCEPTANCE stage.

Dr. Steve Running "5 Stages of Climate Grief" 3

References

1

(2018, August 17). Why so many people practice 'denialism' | CBC Radio - CBC.ca. Retrieved May 27, 2019, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/the-sunday-edition-august-19-2018-1.4784795/why-so-many-people-practice-denialism-1.4788057

2

(2019, May 17). The Dangers of Denialism | CBC Radio - CBC.ca. Retrieved May 27, 2019, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-dangers-of-denialism-1.5140231  

3

(n.d.). Five Stages of Climate Grief - Friends of Two Rivers. Retrieved May 27, 2019, from https://www.friendsof2rivers.org/dr.-steve-running-5-stages-of-climate-grief.html