I think this is key: "People need personal autonomy and power over their own lives, even if they’re not educated to postgraduate levels. They have to be onboarded to plans that involve them, without manipulation or coercion, and facts aren’t persuasive, so that can be a challenge."
Most people want what's good. They want a livable world for themselves, their kids, and grandkids. They don't even want to hurt strangers, endangered species, etc. But your article makes a great point that when human beings are just told to do something that requires accommodation/sacrifice/change, we're likely to resist. I think one area where climate justice movements have a lot of room to grow is including everyday people traditionally dismissed as opponents or idiots.
By analogy, one my classes this past term chose gun violence in the US as a topic. A significant proportion of the students came from rural, gun-owning families, and were raised with hunting, target practice, and narratives about self-protection: people I'd expect to be adamantly anti-regulation. When engaged in respectful conversation, not one of them was. In fact, their intimate knowledge of gun culture and gun safety allowed them to make precise recommendations for what regulations would be most useful (ex. banning assault weapons, mandatory safety training). This is just one tiny example, but I do have faith that if people are sincerely asked to be co-creators of solutions, many will choose to be.
Sincerity is a big problem with top-down political change. And people can be sensitive to that. I thought it was interesting that this type of quiet resistance has so often been seen as ignorance and lack of knowledge, because there seems to be a tendency to patronise the public, to underestimate them. Yet when there's an emergency, the media is often full of stories of how everyone pulled together. When everyone is on the same level of the problem (or the finding of a solution?) perhaps there's a better chance of success?
"No amount of intellectualising is going to change the fact that our climate is thermodynamically fucked.
That humans are economic toast.
Soon-to-be energetic dust on a barren planet."
You want to know why people don't change? It is because of statements like these which leave no room for hope. If I am "soon-to-be energetic dust on a barren planet" why the AF would I get on board with anything which could bring about meaningful change? What would the point be? You have committed the sin of certainty, as if you know the future. Poppycock. We, in all likelihood, will not continue in the West as we have, but absolutist certainty is just clickbait for your little SubStack. Writing shite like this only confirms that YOU fit the demographic of people resistant to change or you are a fool working against your own desires. (Queue the response that I must be a "climate change denier")
Scientists have been demonstrably understating the problem for decades and no-one listened then, either. There must be a sweet spot between upsetting people's emotional equilibrium and conveying the importance of behaviour change. When I find that, I'll write it :)
I think this is key: "People need personal autonomy and power over their own lives, even if they’re not educated to postgraduate levels. They have to be onboarded to plans that involve them, without manipulation or coercion, and facts aren’t persuasive, so that can be a challenge."
Most people want what's good. They want a livable world for themselves, their kids, and grandkids. They don't even want to hurt strangers, endangered species, etc. But your article makes a great point that when human beings are just told to do something that requires accommodation/sacrifice/change, we're likely to resist. I think one area where climate justice movements have a lot of room to grow is including everyday people traditionally dismissed as opponents or idiots.
By analogy, one my classes this past term chose gun violence in the US as a topic. A significant proportion of the students came from rural, gun-owning families, and were raised with hunting, target practice, and narratives about self-protection: people I'd expect to be adamantly anti-regulation. When engaged in respectful conversation, not one of them was. In fact, their intimate knowledge of gun culture and gun safety allowed them to make precise recommendations for what regulations would be most useful (ex. banning assault weapons, mandatory safety training). This is just one tiny example, but I do have faith that if people are sincerely asked to be co-creators of solutions, many will choose to be.
Sincerity is a big problem with top-down political change. And people can be sensitive to that. I thought it was interesting that this type of quiet resistance has so often been seen as ignorance and lack of knowledge, because there seems to be a tendency to patronise the public, to underestimate them. Yet when there's an emergency, the media is often full of stories of how everyone pulled together. When everyone is on the same level of the problem (or the finding of a solution?) perhaps there's a better chance of success?
"No amount of intellectualising is going to change the fact that our climate is thermodynamically fucked.
That humans are economic toast.
Soon-to-be energetic dust on a barren planet."
You want to know why people don't change? It is because of statements like these which leave no room for hope. If I am "soon-to-be energetic dust on a barren planet" why the AF would I get on board with anything which could bring about meaningful change? What would the point be? You have committed the sin of certainty, as if you know the future. Poppycock. We, in all likelihood, will not continue in the West as we have, but absolutist certainty is just clickbait for your little SubStack. Writing shite like this only confirms that YOU fit the demographic of people resistant to change or you are a fool working against your own desires. (Queue the response that I must be a "climate change denier")
Scientists have been demonstrably understating the problem for decades and no-one listened then, either. There must be a sweet spot between upsetting people's emotional equilibrium and conveying the importance of behaviour change. When I find that, I'll write it :)