The Climate Crisis and the Global Epidemic of Disconnection
In order to bring people together we must change our communication strategies to adapt to the new world
This story took root after an argument with an ‘Influencer’ on social media. The said Influencer had posted about the blazing fires in the Amazon with some token drone shots in the amazonian forests. This was a few posts after a photograph of them in a chartered plane in the Arctic. I was deeply affected by the Amazon fires (and several others destroying pristine forests in the world) and I confronted them with their own reality and the response I got was a reality check for me instead. The influencer said I was being an aggressive ‘eco-warrior’ and we must find a balanced way of living without targeting others. She is right. Social media isn’t really the space to try and change anyone’s opinions about these issues. Most often than not, things get blown out of proportion and people become reactive because human beings tend to get extremely defensive about their opinions when confronted.
The bigger issue that I wish I could’ve targeted was the deep disconnect that people have between issues and their own lifestyles. It surprises me that people are shocked and shaken at the Amazon fires but aren’t able to see the reason behind it or their own responsibility towards it.
As a conservationist, I am of the opinion that we must not place blame or responsibility on individual action, and instead target policy and corporate companies driving markets, to take action on the environmental crisis. However, individual awareness is crucial for policy change. Only when people come together for a cause, do governments listen and frame better policies. Therefore, it’s important that as individuals we are more self aware and acknowledge our contribution to the environmental crisis. When we disassociate ourselves from the larger crisis, we are unable to place ourselves in the solution either.
This disassociation isn’t always a choice. A couple of years ago, I was working on a project in a small, drought-prone, village in Madhya Pradesh, India. While we spoke to the stakeholders about restoration efforts in the region, an overwhelming response was that unless they’re able to secure food and livelihood for their families, they didn’t want to talk about the environment or wildlife. Clearly, conservation still needs to incorporate social and economic dynamics more effectively. On the other hand, people in cities talk about climate change but continuously frequent shopping malls in diesel-guzzling SUVs. How do you convince an entire meat-eating community to give it up? They won’t and your argument will only push them away further.
Where did we go wrong? How does the conservation community fix this?
We have the science. It’s clear that we’re in the midst of a climate crisis. Floods, droughts, extreme heat are no longer rare phenomenon. It’s happening every year.
How do we communicate this science to people without scaring the guts out of them? Lord knows, I have eco-anxiety because of the kind of profession I’m in.
We need people to care and call for action. We also need people to accept drastic changes in their lives — think higher taxes for private transportation, flights and luxury living, increased pricing on high carbon food, higher wages for labour markets in developing countries. These aren’t easy changes.
How do we ensure that the people who are concerned about climate change are also agreeable to these changes? How do we ensure that people start connecting with nature at a personal level and not as something distant or unrelated?
Behavioral change is slowly making headway into conservation campaigns. Conservation organisations like WWF are trying to understand the human psyche and use it to produce more effective outcomes for nature.
If we are going to stop climate change-induced temperature increases, we will need collective action. In order to bring people together we must change our communication strategies to adapt to the new world. We need to talk about climate change more seriously but ensure that we aren’t painting a doomsday picture. We must give hope of a better future which includes making certain personal sacrifices too. As Václav Havel said, “Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” We must tell stories of hope. Stories that encourage us to do better. Stories that drive human empathy for the planet. Stories that show the beauty, and equally the vulnerability of this beautiful planet.
Because when people start to connect with ‘Their Living Planet’, instead of an impersonal ‘Planet Earth’, we will come together to demand action from the government and accept drastic changes to our way of life in the future.
