Is it the “radical”, “climate changers”? Is it the mass adoption of pro earth attitudes by the “millennial; heirs of participation”? Is it the Everest like scale of every solution offered? Perhaps it is the inconclusiveness of exact detail? Maybe it is the saga like Bills & Laws that even seasoned readers could simply not sit through? It could even be that it is happening so slowly in the moment, that it’s hard to realize how rapidly it is happening to humanity? Hell, maybe Al Gore owning Excursions spoiled the plot.
Personally, I believe all of those are at play; different combos plus some for all kinds of folks. However, I also believe there is something natural about this behavior. Three categories of academia address the issue I am about to describe. In the research of the cosmos, we either look too close or too far away, often having to change perspectives to gain better understand of the whole (Tyson). In calculus, we must rely on the micro to understand the macro of the linear and the geometric (Hernandez). For the economy, one would hope that we use the two former, but the average investment portfolio often fails to zoom out and look at the larger trends (Dalio). All three examples of why it is just as important to look a segment as it is to look at the whole.
It’s interesting, the moon landing was in 1969. The EPA was founded in 1970. 1969 was the first year our humanity was allotted the privilege of seeing our own macro and with it we made informed decision (at least in the rush of it).
Of course, there is the common remedy that we should learn from the past to make better decisions in the future, but how many of us follow this strategy. Or better yet, how many of us believe we follow that strategy. Dan Ariely, cofounder of the Center for Advance Hindsight (Duke, and yes that is a thing), believes that often we believe we are making informed decisions, but rarely do actually make informed decisions (Ariely). The Center’s whole mission is depicting these “repetitive” behaviors under some pretty fundamental categories — emotion, morality, motivation, and self-control — with the hope it might further develop our foresight moving forward (Duke).
I believe the studies hold true for many; I also believe that there is habituality at play within our communities. Like it or not Climate Change agendas right now are “ideals”, as are “New Year’s Resolutions”. The rhetoric around the climate movement has goals that are too big for achievement in one bite. Like New Year’s resolutions [a bridge I choose to draw], where only 8% of those surveyed by Statista (percentage reached after excluding those who chose not to have a New Year’s Resolution per the study) followed through with their resolution (Statista Survey).
The summary of the first half is portioning issues. The second half has more to do with the lack of sexiness.
Right now, climate change is an unmarked can and lacks an “umph”. Beings of preference prefer to do things they prefer. Few beings of preferences prefer to do thing they do not prefer. Because of the outlandish size of the problem, the lack of visible change day to day, and general lack of motivation sublime or not, we are left with a population without much motivation to do a damn thing about it.
One might counter, Greta, Telsa, Artic National, Sierra Club, National Forest, Recycling, Paris Agreement, EPA, etcetera. Too which I respond fantastic, but in my humble opinion, in order to change a problem cause by the entire population, the entire population must recognize what the problem is and what they need to do fix the problem (no matter how large or small the effort). Key components to that effort might look like making it cool and providing resonate chewable bites of information (preferable lacking ultimative epitomes). Participation in ideological support is simply not enough to change the planet, it takes the step further of practicing the ideology.
One thing that I think many people miss is that the goal is to hit “net zero emissions” not “zero emissions”. “Zero Emissions” is a hard sell. However, telling people that we are withdrawing too much from our environmental bank account and we are getting charged with overdraft and interest is a much easier sell. To reinforce this, one could study the “Carbon Cycle”.
Net Zero can be exchanged with the idea of a “Carbon Budget” (Carbon Brief). Without being callous, I do believe that many are being deprived of the ways in which they can taking meaningful actions, mainly caused by brash politics, special interests, and conspiracies. I also think there are several grandiose solutions being made to solve something nature already has an answer for (Ron Finley for an approximate example of what I mean).
Takeaway: Make it cool, make doable, cut the BS.
Surface Area of a Sphere, Saul Hernandez, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J42wNwCh0Mk
Death by Black Hole, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Book
How The Economy Works, Ray Dalio, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0
Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely, Book
Advanced Hindsight, Duke, https://advanced-hindsight.com/
How long did you manage to stick to your resolutions last year?, Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1076481/perseverance-with-new-year-s-resolutions-in-the-united-states/
Analysis: How much ‘carbon budget’ is left to limit global warming to 1.5C?, Carbon Brief, https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-much-carbon-budget-is-left-to-limit-global-warming-to-1-5c
A guerrilla gardener in South Central LA, Ron Finley, https://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerrilla_gardener_in_south_central_la?language=en
