Climate Unconsciousness
We have entered the age of the Anthropocene and are already bearing witness to the catastrophic effects of climate change that Earth scientists have been warning us about for decades. Against the backdrop of dramatic shifts in the Earth’s functioning, the hypothetical becomes realized, and kicks up our sense of urgency to understand what is taking shape and to respond effectively.
Direct experience of flooding and fires of biblical proportions help humans begin to get a sense of the magnitude of this phenomenon. Yet the inability for us to wholly take in what is happening to us and to the planet is in large part why we are in this mess. For those who have been engaged with environmental issues for some time, there is not only anxiety and grief at seeing the impacts but also a confusion about why the majority — citizens and leaders alike — continue on as though nothing has changed.
The story of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, and the metaphor of a person re-arranging deck chairs on the sinking titanic come to mind when thinking about inaction in response to resounding alarm signals. Identifying psychological mechanisms, as well as the cultural and historical forces that have shaped our world views may help us understand the difficulty to face up to and act on what we have been warned about unequivocally. It is also important to acknowledge the political and structural barriers to action, to discuss how vested interests connected to energy and finance sectors have hamstrung meaningful action from the top down, though that is beyond the scope of this article.
Disavowal and Double-mindedness
Identifying the range of psychological defenses and responses operating within the mind may shed light on the majority’s inaction and in-attention. Since the mid-2000’s we have seen the emergence of a wave of climate change denial. Psychologically speaking, denial constitutes a primitive and (at times) dangerous defense that allows people to block out what is right in front of them. When anxiety gets too much for us to endure, we can either negate reality or more rigidly disavow the truth and keep ourselves looped in irrational and delusion thinking (Weintrobe). The spread of denial through misinformation is disturbing, but for some it is not so much a willful ignorance of the evidence as an unconscious process used to ward off anxiety.
As we fast forward to the present, we see a largely global shift towards accepting the truth of the climate crisis, and yet the difficulty in making the leap to action lingers. In her book on the Climate Crisis, Donna Orange names this experience: “double mindedness”. Double mindedness describes living in two realities at once, wherein we know that there is a problem and at the same time throw up our hands because we believe the problem is too intractable or too great. Those in a double mind have the capacity for greater awareness while also hiding from what they do not want to think about, and so the consequence of inaction remains the same.
Inaction may also be understood as paralysis in response to trauma. Writing about climate trauma, Orange states that it impacts our capacity to act, hear and feel — in the grip of trauma, we become “dazed, disoriented and lost”. Psychological trauma also threatens our sense of safety, shatters our expectations and, she continues, collapses our capacity to make meaning. Being able to make meaning is a way that humans manage existential concerns. Though emotional freezing and dissociation may protect us from feelings of guilt and responsibility, these trauma responses hinder our ability to respond and adapt appropriately if the trauma is not worked through.
It is not all about Me
We know that psychological defense mechanisms operate to protect us, and that they can also get in the way of us taking in new information and adapting. We also know that we are products of our culture and time. Currently, we live in a culture that some have described as narcisstic (Lasch 1987), materialistic and individualistic. Weintrobe (2012) explains that narcissistic anxiety is created when our wishes or sense of our self is threatened. She writes that in the West, our identities are bound up with our lifestyles and we are encouraged to express our sense of self through material possesssion. And so, for those living in consumer cultures it is painful to give up a way of life that helps define the sense of self because in doing so, we lose a part of ourselves. She adds that when reality brings disillusionment, the narcissistic part living within us tries to restore a feeling of “being special” and to restore our ideal expectations. Our expectations of how we can live and what we can take from nature have been grossly inflated.
In his book Defiant Earth, Ethics professor Clive Hamilton cautions us that human impact has been so powerful that it “rivals some of the great forces of nature in its impact on the functioning of the Earth system”. It is difficult to fathom that we have become so mindlessly attached to the ways of life afforded by industrialization that we are set to leave a mark on deep geological time. This egocentric, me-first attitude takes root in and is supported in Western cultures, running counter to philosophies, values and ethics belonging to Indigenous and other cultures around the world who have lived communally and sustainably on the Earth for tens of thousands of years.
Donna Orange draws from Indigenous understanding, Asian Philosophies and the Deep Ecology movement to help us see what is breaking down in our current ways of life and what we must turn towards in order to repair the damage we have done to First Nation Peoples and to our shared home. These ancient and radically different worldviews remind us that the Earth and all of its creatures have intrinsic or inherent value beyond value tied to human use. They encourage knowledge sharing, dialogue and interaction with others in a way that does no harm and restores dignity to lives and voices that have been marginalized. And, finally, they remind us that as individuals we have a responsibility to others which will interrupt individualistic needs and desires. All of this can be understood through the lens of climate justice.
Climate justice according to Orange demands that firstly — we limit carbon emissions and secondly — that colonizing and wealthy countries come to understand that they have (and continue to) perpetrate injustice to the worlds most vulnerable, and that they must make restitution. In an emotional plea, climate activist Greta Thunberg stated: “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth”. This struck a chord with those who see the intrinsic value of the environment beyond just what the earth offers us by way of financial enrichment — and with those who believe that human progress should not just measured by wealth or individual success by the capital one can amass in their lifetime.
The uncomfortable truth is that many of us have been living in ways that do harm to other humans around the world and to plant and animal life. The difficulty now is not so much achieving consensus on the science, but in combatting the individual defenses and destructive aspects of our culture that keep us entangled. We are beginning to see the interwoven threads but we must work harder to overcome the collective paralysis, critique the “industrialization at all costs” ethos and claim responsibility for what we have all created and participated in.
Unconsciousness around connected social and environmental injustices permeate all levels and structures of society but as long as we stay unaware of what is happening we will continue to repeat mistakes. To wake up to the reality that what we value now threatens our very existence creates anxiety and grief but also allows the important work of mourning and restitution to begin. It could mark the end of some ways of life but as we begin to reckon with the forces that have contributed to this mess, we can open our minds and imaginations to a different, more ethical path forward.
