A new powerful spring uprising
How can being Useful and Kind help us to solve the world’s biggest problem?
‘Our house is on fire’.
Why when we know so much are we not springing into action? How best do I urge and impel you to pause, reflect and act? Do I cajole, inform, harangue, complain, campaign, lead, model or show solutions? What approach might convince and galvanise you into action
We have known about Climate Change (UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 13) Climate Action) since the C19th., there has been a growing consensus around the impacts of CO2 since the 60s and Paul Crutzen, the Dutch chemist coined the term anthropocene in 2000. And yet …we are still failing to persuade ourselves and others to make the necessary changes to avoid climate disaster.
Why is this and how can using our psychological understanding and U&K’s Self, Others, World (SOW) model help?
Our growing separation from nature in the ‘developed world’ is, in the great history of the planet, relatively recent. Agriculture, industrialisation, population increase and urbanisation have all played their part over the last 200 years. Not only have we lost connection with seasonality but we have seen nature as a ‘free’ resource to be plundered for short-term gain. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystems assessed changes over the past five decades based on the systematic review of around 15,000 scientific and government sources. It finds:
Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history.
One million species are threatened with extinction with ‘grave impacts on people around the world now likely’.
Three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66% of the marine environment has been significantly altered by human actions.
Plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980.
Human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before. (1)
At the same time that we are wrecking the planet there is a growing awareness of how important our connection to nature really is and the effects of that loss are considerable and we have particularly seen this during the pandemic. Richard Louv described ‘Nature-Deficit Disorder’ in ‘Last Child In The Woods’ as ‘not the presence of an anomaly in the brain; it is the loss of connection of humans to their natural environment’ (2)
Madhuleena Roy Chowdhury (3) lists many of the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual benefits of the connection with nature and there are now many initiatives to enable us to reconnect, from Forest School initiative (4) to the UK Green Social Prescribing for Nature scheme. (5)
We all know the benefits of the open air, the joy of planting and growing, the change of light through the day, the ever changing colours of the seasons and the delight of natural diversity.
Why then when we know this are we so slow to save it, to do what we know needs to be done and how can psychology and the SOW model help us to pause, reflect and act differently?
Our old reptilian limbic brains are programmed to respond to immediate threat with the fight, flight, freeze responses. The problem with the climate emergency is that is hasn’t been experienced as ‘immediate’ and it has been too easy for some to characterise the many catastrophes as one offs. We know from prosocial psychology that proximity is a significant factor in our decisions about whether to act. Only when there is an imminent danger, a flood in my back yard - might I do so.
It is important to look at:
the myth of materialism and happiness
who benefits from climate denial?
why would they perpetuate these denials? (the classic Donald Trump ‘science sometimes lies’)
what is there of the denier in ourselves?
how can we persuade ourselves and others to make a better world.
In the ‘developed’ world, we have worked under the now well proven myth, that stuff, things, products, bring us happiness, when all the evidence shows us that Subjective Wellbeing or happiness comes not from purchases, which give us only an ever-diminishing short-lived hedonic thrill, but rather the longer-lasting eudaimonic happiness that comes from strong meaningful relationships, a sense of connection, a purpose greater than ourselves and experiences. Why has this myth become so persistent and pernicious?
What have Attachment and Loss got to do with it?
Psychology shows us that secure attachment comes from the spontaneous, empathic, attuned attention of a primary caregiver where we can find a sense of self, discover that another is different to us and yet we can still be secure and we can begin to have a sense of whether the world is safe or scary and what we need to feel, think and do in order to get our needs met. When we have a sense of ourselves as less than perfect, unloveable, unworthy we need to create a ‘false self’ to present to the world and to protect us from intense internal pain. We get a quick release from this pain with both the anticipation and achievement of a gift: chocolate, new job, new car, holiday, money. But it is short-lived. We need ever increasing amounts. We then get the kick from the anticipation. But we feel we have to have it in order to be alive, to be safe and secure.
As Liz Dunn showed in her elegant experiment we actually get more pleasure from giving than receiving (6). But the power of the short-term drives us towards far more than we need - all to feed the false self. The Easterlin Paradox posited that above a certain basic level of income ($8k-$25k) it was only by comparison that our Subjective Wellbeing was improved - 'I earn £5/week more than my neighbour’. Stevenson and Wolfers have cast doubt on this (7) but show that there is a law of diminishing returns the more you have. We know too that in spite of increased income that happiness has not increased proportionately.
So what has all of this to do with climate change?
Well the false drive to have more, to protect a sense of self has been exponential. A dissatisfaction, an unmet hunger and a move away from community, has led us to want to protect ourselves with ever increasing numbers of things, many of which depend on fossil fuels for their manufacture and transport. Tim de Chant produced a famous infographic (8) in 2013 which showed that if the population of the world lived like the average American, we would need 4.1 planets to meet those ‘needs’ (France 2.5, Arab Emirates 5.4).
The political and press systems of the world have colluded in this myth, being, in the vast majority of cases, part of the privileged minority, which has led to an ever increasing divide between rich and poor. This coupled with the ‘rentier’ economy where vast sums are simply accrued from ownership means that colossal wealth has been consolidated by the few.
So the profound question is how do we change this?
Many great women and men have used myriad statistics to show that climate change is upon us. Now. And that we have about 15 years to get to real zero carbon emissions and not the green-washed and false ‘net zero’ figures. Behavioural economists and psychologists have shown that hard facts aren’t enough, most famously in the Prof Brian Cox attempt to persuade a climate denier with a graph (9). Much more hopeful is the appeal to the intuitive emotional brain, the one that actually makes the decisions (Thaler and Sunstein, (10,) Kahneman, (11) Ross & Mahmoud, (12)). The use of narrative can be powerful (Marshall, (13): as in Greta’s invocation to us to notice that ‘Our house is on fire’. Visual imagery too has played its part from Attenborough (14), to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (15)
What helps and hinders us in acting?
We know from the Bystander effect that it is critical that we first notice the event and then interpret it as an emergency. The conditions which need to be met for us to intervene in an emergency are:
notice the event (and we are more likely to notice if we have seen someone else noticing and helping first)
interpret the event as an emergency
assume responsibility - the more people around the less likely we are to help, assuming someone else will step up
know the appropriate form of assistance - what can I do?
act - considering if it is dangerous to help or asking ‘will I appear foolish if I do the ‘wrong’ thing?’
What we need is the equivalent action of the inspirational Mamoudou Gassama who scaled four storeys to save the dangling boy (16). There was no stopping to answer any of these questions for him, he simply reacted instinctively in the moment and it is that kind of response that Greta urges us towards (17).
Near or far…
We know our genetic predisposition favours those in our group who are close (through geography, genes or affection), family and friends, yet we also know that is the most prosocial who survive best. So are we only going to help those close to us? Where will that lead? Gated communities? The rich get all the food?
We have seen of late a continuation of the powerful demonising of the ‘other’ in order to make ourselves feel better. We have to realise and passionately celebrate that since the famous 1967 picture of the earth from space we have the evidence, if we ever needed it, that we are one people: brothers and sisters all. The division of nations, the subdivisions of creed, gender, sexuality, class are all borne of a fear of difference.
Change or sacrifice?
Change, in this case, requires sacrifice - giving up what gives us apparent comfort. We tend to think again in the immediate. Think of the sacrifices we make for our children and grandchildren
The Iroquois Indians (along with many other traditional societies) urge us: “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”
Imagine the world of your great, great, great, great, great grandparents. Allowing for averages, that’s possibly 1730 (60 years before the French Revolution)
Can you even picture your great, great, great, great, great-grandchildren? What kind of world will they be living in? Allowing for averages that will be 2170!
On current figures, the impact on each of these successive generations could be catastrophic. Melbourne-based think tank the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration argues that there is a ‘high likelihood of human civilisation coming to end’ by 2050 (18)
Loss and Grief
Just as the Attachment process is so central to this idea of security and safety, then the corollaries of separation, loss and mourning, are bound to be experienced when such profound change, sacrifice is required:
loss of attachment to nature (see above)
loss of security from ownership of material things and wealth (maybe unearned)
loss of a sense of who we are as boundless explorers of the world
loss of identity
loss of some freedoms
There are different component parts to the grieving process, all of which are relevant, Kübler-Ross (19):
shock, denial - just as we can initially deny the death of a loved one, so climate deniers want to hold on to their old life, their wealth. Funded by those with a vested interest, we deny that it can be as bad as we fear in spite of the evidence, we can’t ‘see it’, ‘it’s not a pattern, just a series of coincidences’, ‘it’s not up to me - what can I do'? We deny and avoid the facts, we seek ‘alternate facts’ and can characterise inconvenient truths as ‘fake news’
anger - anger from those with most to lose, anger at those with most to lose, anger at those with most to lose who have knowingly carried on, anger that we have all let it get to this advanced state of emergency, anger at inaction
guilt - at my part in the emergency, shame that we haven’t done more, the very word anthropocene blames humanity
bargaining - passing attention/blame to the elite without taking personal responsibility for our part
depression - the freezing futility - it’s all too much, sense of being overwhelmed - I’m too sad
acceptance - the process or recognition
The first time we were aware of this collective existential threat was with nuclear proliferation in the 60s and it was only through protest and political co-operation that a tentative peace was forged, using it as a deterrent, mindful that if anyone starts it, we will all end it.
The climate challenge is bigger and its effects even more devastating.
We are not all in it together…
Given the divided nature of our political systems there are inevitable intersectional aspects to the Climate emergency:
It will affect those in poor countries the most
women are disproportionately impacted, they are more likely to live in poverty than men and have less access to basic human rights. (Alam et al Women and Climate Change (2015), Global Citizen, McCarthy (2020), SHE Changes climate.org (2021)
in many rural communities, women are responsible for food, water and energy resources. As climate change intensifies women will have further distances to travel to acquire these resources and will have less time to pursue outside sources of income, preventing them from becoming economically independent, UNFPA (@009) State of the World Population
in 2015 80% of the 244 million people displaced as a result of climate change were women
white middle-class nature of the green movement
Race - Beth Collier ‘Black dismissiveness of nature isn’t just simple dislike, it belies a legacy of trauma and the interference of white supremacy’ (20)
What will it take for the big change?
The real change will only come when there is an acknowledgment that:
money and stuff doesn’t bring long term happiness
love, connection, purpose, do
this is about all of us and not just the rich
that Climate Change disproportionately affects the poor and women
it is a measure of who we are as a people as to how we solve it
we will have fulfilled our function as humans at this point in the earth’s history if we do rise to the challenge
it is humanity we are trying to survive as the planet will certainly survive and probably breathe a sigh of relief without humanity, gently waiting to see if the next evolution can produce a more sensible co-operative species
we have to act collectively
Who will lead us? Will You?
So where is the leadership that understands both the underlying psychology of how we got here and what it will take to change minds and create the kind of fast, effective, sustainable action? Do we model it? Campaign for it? Legislate for it? Break the law for it?
Rather than being seen as the crusading visionaries the Green movement has often been characterised, not wholly unjustifiably, as a fringe, white, middle class, tree-hugging fraternity. With new joined-up economic thinking (Raworth, (21), Trebeck (22)), there are many notable examples around the world of nascent Wellbeing economies, predicated on the balance between Healthy People, Healthy Planet, Healthy Economy and the Green New Deal (Pettifor, (23)) shows how this might be achieved but it requires huge shifts from those in power and in the absence of an appetite for revolution may seem too Utopian. Buckminster Fuller says: ‘You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’
The democratic nature of many movements (Make Poverty History, Occupy, Extinction Rebellion) paradoxically often leads to their splintering and in spite of a huge increase in awareness of the issues, it appears to be a lack of final traction past the tipping point.
Then there are the young ones. Greta Thunberg has achieved attention around the world and stays authentic to her campaign without being sidelined, but, alone, as she would be the first to admit, she too cannot bring about the huge changes needed.
Prevent or Adapt?
People argue about the merits and costs of Prevention, Adaptation, Mitigation, Remediation. The political system rewards the ‘heroes’ giving out beds after the disaster as against the long slow rebuilding flood defences that we really need. This plays to the ego - not the eco. How does the budget holder prioritise even the medium term over the short term? When we live with short-term political cycles it is only too easy to boot the eco-can on the waste tip in another land.
It is estimated that the total global economic cost would be €200-350 billion per year by 2030. This is less than one percent of the forecasted global GDP in 2030.8) and it is considered to be the number one emerging risk.
Get technical…
Cole (25), and Diamandis and Kotler (26), in their respective books, consider many of the possible technological solutions from hydrogen, populating other planets, and AI, to growing meat! We can see in this race a possibility of a continuing and ever-widening gap between rich and poor. As Ralph Abernathy (successor to Martin Luther King Jr) said when protesting the Apollo 11 Moon mission, ‘We may go on from this day to Mars and Jupiter and even to the heavens beyond, but as long as racism, poverty and hunger and war prevail on earth, we as a civilised nation have failed’. (Quoted in Cole 2020)
The power of denial
Let us not underestimate the power of both the resistors and the deniers. If something has given your false self an inauthentic sense of security then you are going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming from it - or, using the U&K way, shown the unconditional love that was missing in the first place, whilst gently lifting their hands away from the damage. The tobacco situation gives us a salutary reminder of the lengths people will go to: selling cigarettes as a health aid, and then, even when they knew they caused cancer, funding think tanks, lobby and research groups to fight every step of the way.
The Energy Charter Treaty (27) has led to the ridiculous situation where German energy giant RWE is attempting to sue ‘the Dutch Government for proposing to phase out coal from the country’s energy. The company, which is Europe’s biggest emitter of carbon, is demanding €1.4bn in ‘compensation’ from the country for loss of potential earnings, because the Dutch government has banned the burning of coal for electricity from 2030’. This is reminiscent of the Slavery Abolition Act (1833) where slave owners were still being ‘repaid’ for their lost ‘assets’ in the UK in 2015.
Similar games are being played with carbon trading too. And the rise of a post-truth world, the notion of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternate facts’ are all the desperate acts of those unwilling to recognise the changes needed for fear of loss.
Why might we not act?
It doesn’t affect me (yet)
I don’t live nearby
It’s too big for me
it’s up to the politicians
I might have to sacrifice something
I’ve worked hard for what I have
it’s too hard
Why might we act?
it’s the right thing to do
we owe it to future generations
there is a possibility for discovery of real self
increased subjective wellbeing from experience
greater connection to nature
sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves
How can we persuade ourselves to change and make sacrifices?
just imagine how it would impact us
see the ‘other' as in-group or neighbour
know that the sacrifices won’t be that great - we more quickly adapt to loss than we think
actually doing something will contribute to our happiness
there has been a point and meaning to our lives
appeal to the 7 generations hence
challenge each other
model the behaviours we want to see
buddy up with someone
The call to uprising…some questions…
So how can the SOW model help? How can being useful and kind to Self, Others and world really help? Consider the following then make your own list of answers and actions.
Self
how can I research the most effective ways to reduce my own carbon footprint?
what can I do to lead a healthy life that is better in balance with the climate?
what can I do in the short, medium and longer terms?
who can help me to get going? A friend, family member, buddy, mentor, coach
what are the quick wins that I could change? (travel, food, spending, recycling)
what am I really interested in campaigning for?
what action, individual and collective can I take?
how far am I willing to go to save the planet from changing your browser to Ecosia (the tree planting search engine) to being arrested on an XR demonstration?
what more research do I need to do?
what are the challenges to myself?
how can I make these changes sustainable?
how can I spend my money wisely?
Others
how can I model to others that this is important to me, them and the world?
how can I lovingly help them to change?
how can working with others help me, them and the world?
how can I find out how to work with others?
which organisations/campaigns can I join?
who will the challengers be? How can I hold my ground?
how far am I willing to go? (suggesting a loved one turns the engine off in the car park to chaining myself to a building)
how can empathic listening and compassion help them to change?
how can I lovingly share my own experience?
how can we spend our money wisely?
World
how can I keep up to date with the issues that I feel most connected to?
how can I make a difference to the world nearby? Neighbours, street, community, local campaigns
how can I link to similar projects around the world? (twin your school or organisation with a similar one somewhere else in the world)
what are the most urgent campaigns that I can get involved with?
how far will I go? (signing a petition, donating to a cause, stopping flying)
how can we invest in the future?
Call to Rise
As with the relief of poverty, it is only in the myriad, minute, incremental progress with people, organisations and nations working in partnership, that we can make the real changes we need. The question is do we have time? How can we get this done and what is it we want done?
What difference would love make. Love of yourself in balance with others. Love of others, the similar and the diverse. Those who agree and those who disagree. The love of nature and the earth. The love of living things. The love of a purpose and a cause.
We can’t wait. Already the touch paper is alight. If we don’t act our children will likely be involved in water and food wars, we won’t have planned for mass migration, we will be too late to prepare.
So just as Suzanne Simard’s (27) wonderful research has shown that all trees are connected (the wood-wide-web) so too are we humans connected to each other and to the natural world, we must all do what we can, however small it feels, to restore the balance between ourselves, others and the natural world. We need to harness the earth-shattering power of the spring, the tender shoots that burst forth with power, ready to grow and bloom. We must join that energy and spring forward, together.
Duncan Fraser©
Afterword
Those who are rising up are too many to mention but personal thanks to:
Black Girls Hike https://www.bghuk.com
Green New Deal https://www.greennewdealuk.org
Friends of the Earth https://friendsoftheearth.uk
MakeWay https://makeway.org
Network of wellbeing https://networkofwellbeing.org
Resources
1 IPBES report https://findingnature.org.uk/2019/05/12/ipbes-nature-loss-nature-connectedness/ (2019)
2 Richard Louv , Last Child In The Woods, Atlantic Books (2010)
3 Madhuleena Roy Chowdhury, https://positivepsychology.com/positive-effects-of-nature/
4 Forest School https://www.forestschoolassociation.org/what-is-forest-school/
6 Liz Dunn https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/generosity-might-keep-us-healthy-10-10-26/
7 Stevenson, Wolfers, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/subjective-well-being-income.pdf
8 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Tim-De-Chants-infographic-illustrating-how-much-land-would-be-required-if-seven_fig1_308983792
9 Brian Cox https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2016/aug/16/i-brought-the-graph-brian-cox-and-malcolm-roberts-debate-climate-change-on-qa-video
10 Nudge, Thaler and Sunstein, Penguin, (2009)
11 Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, Penguin (2012)
12 Change for Good, Using Behavioural Economics For A Better World, Ross & Mahmoud, The Management Centre, 2018
13 George Marshall, Don’t Even Think About It, Bloomsbury (2015)
14 Attenborough Blue Planet II (2017)
15 Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Bloomsbury (2006)
16 Mamoudou Gassam, babyhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/28/spider-man-of-paris-climbs-four-storeys-to-rescue-dangling-boy
17 Greta Thunberg: Our house is on Fire, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/25/our-house-is-on-fire-greta-thunberg16-urges-leaders-to-act-on-climate
18 Melbourne-based think tank the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/climate-change-global-warming-end-human-civilisation-research-a8943531.html
19 Elizabeth Kübler Ross. On grief and Grieving, Simon Schuster (2014)
21 Katie Raworth, Doughnut Economics, Random House, (2018
22 Katherine Trebeck, The Economics of Arrival, Policy Press (2019)
23 Ann Pettifor, The Case For The Green New Deal, Verso Books (2019)
24 https://ourworldindata.org/how-much-will-it-cost-to-mitigate-climate-change
25 Lily Cole, Who Cares Wins, Penguin (2020)
26 The Future is Faster Than You Think, Diamandis and Kotler, Simon and Schuster (2020)
28 Suzanne Simard, https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other