After participating in the panel discussion and listening to different personal opinions and scientific approaches, one thought comes to my mind: after all, are climate change and climate (in)action purely psychological issues? I would like to begin this text by bringing some knowledge that Dr. Isabelle Uhl-H\u00e4decke provided in the panel discussion. Human beings have a basic need to be in control of situations. We can see as a clear example the Pandemic, where fear and anxiety took over people\u2019s life, because they faced the loss of control. It is part of human nature to develop defense mechanisms when we do not feel safe, when we cannot control our surroundings. However, according to the environmental psychologist, there is a way to dissolve the barriers of the human mind: turning the idea of uncontrollable to controllable. In other words, changing the uncertainties into certainties.<\/p>\n
One very important discussion in climate debates is communication strategies. How should scientists communicate uncertainty? Is communication a political responsibility? Different ways of communication are different attempts to try to dissolve the public\u2019s defense mechanism to increase climate action. However, this mechanism is deeply rooted in the History of human beings, and now I ask myself \u2018Can we change something that is so grounded in the human mindset as fast as climate change happens?\u2019. I would like to give an example to clarify my thoughts.<\/p>\n
The term \u2018veganism\u2019 was coined in 1944, although the concept of flesh-avoidance was already recorded in the ancient Indian and eastern Mediterranean societies.\u00a0Meat has been always present in the Man\u2019s diet, parts of our body are designed with shapes and functionalities that facilitate the digestion of meat. Thinking of veganism as a movement that partially goes in the opposite direction of the human biology, there are still people that adopt this diet and lifestyle. But how many?\u00a0 According to a survey conducted in 2020, less than one percent of the entire world\u2019s population consider itself vegan. To put it another way, it took 77 years (or more) for less than one percent of the population to change its habits in a way that is not part of human nature. Keeping this example in mind, I go back to my question: to what extent can strategies of communication, politics and education change the human mind nature within the same time urgency that climate change requires? Our planet does not have 77 years to wait.<\/p>\n
Another aspect that is related to human beings\u2019 actions when facing uncertainties is the egocentrism. Among many interpretations, the term \u2018egocentrism\u2019 can be understood as the inability to accurately assume or understand any perspective other than one’s own. It is part of the human nature to first return to their own interests and wills, specially in situations of alert and when we are out of our comfort zones. Bringing this idea into the context of climate change, I ask you: how many times have you already heard sentences like \u2018I am not going to be alive anyway\u2019 from friends or family? If altruism were greater than self-centeredness within human nature, would actions under uncertain scenarios be different?<\/p>\n
With climate change and global warming increasing faster and faster each day, society is gathering its forces to reverse the scenario. Politicians, NGOs, academia, private corporations \u2013 all of them trying to work together and find solutions to tackle climate change. Would all this work be worth if the individual human mindset remains the same? I do not know the answer for this question, but I do want to believe that it is yes.<\/p>\n
References: https:\/\/veganbits.com\/vegan-demographics\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After participating in the panel discussion and listening to different personal opinions and scientific approaches, one thought comes to my mind: after all, are climate change and climate (in)action purely psychological issues? I would like to begin this text by bringing some knowledge that Dr. Isabelle Uhl-H\u00e4decke provided in the panel discussion. Human beings haveContinue reading “Climate change and climate (in)action: purely psychological issues?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[145],"tags":[157,28,159,160],"class_list":["post-2162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students-blogs-2021","tag-climate-action","tag-climatechange","tag-psychology","tag-uncertainties"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2163,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions\/2163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}