HOPE or ALARMISM? MESSAGING and PLANETARY BOUNDARIES.
THIS QUOTE FROM A RECENT ACADEMIC PAPER OUTLINES OUR CURRENT SITUATION:
To anyone with the guts to read this far, it should be obvious that there’s a massive gap between what we need to do and what we are doing. The global nature of this crisis makes it unparalleled in human history — more serious, urgent and disastrous than world wars or pandemics.
WE’RE FAILING OUR KIDS.
Let’s not fool ourselves: to ensure a viable future climate, we need to get our annual per capita GHG footprint down to around 2 tonnes CO2e (2).
I live in New Zealand, a typical developed Western democracy; our current per capita footprint is around 7.7 tonnes (excluding the emissions from our agricultural industries.) (3,4)
A return flight Auckland-London emits around 6–7 tonnes of CO2 per economy passenger (5 – 7) thus using up about three year’s worth of permissible emissions.
Let that sink in. It means our entire lifestyle is incompatible with a viable future. We’re not only damaging the global economy (8), we’re complicit in slow motion genocide(9).
Politicians make a living by selling optimism - that’s how they get elected. Commercial enterprises exist to make a profit and return dividends to shareholders in the short-to-medium term. They have every incentive to greenwash, deflect blame, tell lies, or just keep quiet about their environmental impact. Fossil-fuel industries have, of course, been sowing disinformation and misinformation for decades. Workers are fearful about losing their jobs. The media downplay the crisis as their businesses depend on advertising revenue.
Yet multiple analyses (10–17) show that while shifting to a low-carbon economy will be painful and costly, failure will cost far, far more.
POLLING AND AWARENESS
Repeat polling in developed nations indicates that a majority of citizens are aware of the climate crisis, and many claim to be concerned (18).
In the U.S. a recent survey (19) of people aged 16–25 from all 50 US states revealed that an overwhelming majority of young people are worried about the climate crisis: 85% said they were at least moderately worried, and more than half (57%) said they were “very or extremely” worried. Nearly two-thirds endorsed the statement: “Humanity is doomed,” and more than half of the sample (52%) endorsed: “I’m hesitant to have children.”
THE PUBLIC RESPONSE
Concern, alas, is not translating into real action. People are willing to take painless, trivial steps - recycling their takeaway coffee cups or turning off unnecessary lights - but only a tiny minority seem willing to ditch flying, cut holiday driving, change their diet, or get involved politically. The majority response is what I call functional denial - i.e. being aware - but doing nothing effective.
During the 11 years I’ve been involved in climate activism, it’s been interesting to observe responses — both among my own acquaintances and among the wider public. Climate is largely a taboo subject– if it comes up, the usual response is a silent grinding of mental gears as people hunt desperately for a less threatening topic of conversation.
ACTION, TRACTION, AWARENESS?
Some climate activists focus on specific campaigns, like pressuring banks and investors to stop funding fossil fuel projects, targeting frequent fliers or cruise ships, or fostering community-level self-sufficiency via food cooperatives or solar energy schemes. I have taken part in these actions; I still am.
But these specific campaigns fail to address the central issue: lack of public awareness. If citizens remain unaware of the need for radical change, falling prosperity and growing inequality are likely to lead to bitter resentment, increasingly divisive politics, public unrest and - quite possibly - the rise of global fascism.
HOW DO WE BUILD PUBLIC AWARENESS?
This question has occupied my thoughts for several years. What, if anything, can be done to convert concern into action? There’s an extensive literature on the psychology of climate action/inaction, and opinions vary widely on what approach to use.
HOPE vs. ALARMISM - WHAT WORKS?
“Those who are animated by hope can perform what would seem impossibilities to those who are under the depressing influence of fear.” Maria Edgeworth
Those who advocate a positive approach claim that negativity fosters despair, apathy and inaction. Appealing to the best in people, they say, can encourage them to take small steps. In time, that could lead to bigger steps — and hence to change at the societal level we need if we want our kids to inherit a viable future. They claim that as most people are fundamentally constructive and caring, a majority will surely act when they know what needs doing. They also claim that nobody likes being told what to do, so being too preachy risks a stubborn backlash.
But the optimistic approach (‘we can solve this, we know what to do!’) is getting us nowhere. It appeals to the small percentage of people who are so seriously worried about the future that they’ve already chosen to give up flying and get politically involved. Activists whose friends are largely like-minded folks may perhaps not fully grasp the apathy, science-illiteracy and obstinate denial so common among the wider public.
Positivity, I suspect, misreads human nature; most of us are just not that altruistic. Most people are unwilling to listen.
Worse: positivity is actually complicity with politicians’ lying, commercial greenwashing, and delusional optimism that tech solutions exist at scale. In other words — optimism fosters lethal complacency. (20)
Those who advocate an alarmist approach point out that most people are aware — yet action is not forthcoming. Most people are not reducing their GHG footprint, and are still voting for destructive short-term policies. Presumably therefore people are still in functional denial; the urgency and severity of planetary overshoot has not yet sunk in.
Alarmists claim that once people truly realise what we are up against, a measure of team spirit will kick in and people will be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to ensure their kids’ future. “The high sentiments always win in the end. The leaders who offer blood, sweat and tears always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.” George Orwell
Perhaps we should accept that nobody actually knows what works best, and there is no one single way to shift public opinion and get effective action. Given human nature, maybe it’s an impossible dream.
REALISM.
Homo sapiens is about to be downsized by the laws of physics, and the process will be unpleasant. We have neither the time nor the natural resources to transition smoothly to an economy based on renewables (22–27).
Even if we could shift rapidly to a low-carbon economy, the CO2 already in the atmosphere will be there for thousands of years; we are already on track for a likely temperature rise of close to +3oC above pre-industrial (28 - 31). What tipping points that might unleash is harder to predict; either way, the economic damage will be massive, and the human suffering and biodiversity loss will be tragic.
People need to know that. It’s a prerequisite for effective action.
It seems to me that if we want results, the only lever we can pull is to ask people to care about their kids’ future. What we can still do is to prevent the global mean temperate rise from going much above +3oC. And if we want to fight for our kids’ future, we have the tools to do that: sharply cut personal GHG emissions, and get political.
We can and must offer that much hope. The best recipe, I suspect, might be:
DON’T hide the truth.
DON’T sell delusional optimism.
DO point out the options we still have - IF we all work together, now.
RESPONSIBILITY AND DETACHMENT.
“If you want people to act you have to offer solutions.” “If you want people to change, you have to put things positively.” I’ve heard a number of comments like this, and I now see them for what they are: a form of blame-deflection. (‘I don’t like the message, so I’ll shoot the messenger’.)
Homo sapiens is in serious trouble - of our own making. There is no way to put this message positively. It’s not the job of activists to plead with people to grow up - if people are unwilling to act, it’s their responsibility. They will have to explain to their kids, a decade or two hence, why they were too gutless and selfish to act.
It’s not my fault if I fail to sugar the bitter pill. Accepting and understanding that enables me to feel some sense of detachment from the outcome: if humanity en masse is really, finally, too selfish and stupid to look after its own kids, then maybe we are just another evolutionary blind alley. That is not my fault.
That doesn’t mean giving up. What it does mean is that we can focus on trying to get the message out, without having to waste our energy on irrelevancies.
References:
1. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595
2. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-set-be-30-times-15degc-limit-2030
3. https://stats.govt.nz/indicators/new-zealands-greenhouse-gas-emissions-published-february-2022
5. https://calculator.toitu.co.nz/?calculator=household
6. https://co2.myclimate.org/en/portfolios
7. https://www.clevel.co.uk/flight-carbon-calculator/
8. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41888-1
9. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-climate-changing-human-billion-deaths-century.html
10. https://www.sciencealert.com/fighting-climate-change-isn-t-cheap-but-the-alternatives-cost-much-more
12. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41888-1
13. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0071-9.epdf
14. https://thebulletin.org/2018/06/benefits-of-curbing-climate-change-far-outweigh-costs
16. https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/04/10/climate-inaction-likely-to-cost-billions-treasury/
18. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3
19. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/17/young-americans-climate-change
21. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-psychology-unearths-ways-bolster-global.html
24. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-023-01283-y
25. https://phys.org/news/2022-04-halve-energy-climate-catastrophe.html
26. https://techxplore.com/news/2024-06-transitioning-renewable-energy-entail-decline.html
27. https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202307.0628/v1
28. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0d24w28qno
29. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55073169
30. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-carbon-neutrality-extreme-weather-events.html
29. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-earth-29c-current-climate-pledges.html
31. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-unprecedented-peril-disaster-track-27c.html
Since writing this article, the following reference has come to light. I think it reinforces the point I’m trying to make.
“Hope is often hailed as the superpower that elevates the grim climate narrative to a motivational crescendo. Yet, does this rallying cry genuinely leave people feeling optimistic and equipped to engage in meaningful climate action, or is it merely an oratorical technique designed to leave the audience inspired rather than disheartened?
Research on hope as a motivator for climate action reveals a complex and inconsistent picture. While some studies link hope with an intention for positive climate engagement, others find no measurable effect at all, and some found that a sense of climate distress was more motivating than optimism. One study indicates that hope is often not based on a positive sense of agency but on downplaying the climate threat and relying on distorted or unrealistic goals and pathways.”
