Accepting Climate Change Despite the Difficulty of Processing It

One of the problems with accepting climate change is that it is so far outside of the range of our actual experiences it doesn’t seem real. Even if you intellectually accept the truth of it, emotionally it can still seem like an abstract idea remote from physical reality.

This reminded me of another recent situation.

Last month I took my first business trip to South Korea. It turned out the best connections for me was to fly through Detroit where Delta has a major international hub. From Detroit, the great circle route to Korea took us far north. I had a window seat, but everyone kept their windows closed since many people were trying to sleep. As I rested my head against the side wall of the plane, I watched the flight monitor on the screen in front of me. At one point we were actually north of Alaska, 40,00 ft above the Arctic Ocean. The air outside, roughly 6 inches from my head, was -80F and flying by at almost 600 mph.

And yet I was sitting there quite comfortably in the dim light of the cabin, completely disconnected from outside nature. Intellectually I accepted the description of my location and the environment 6" from my head — I trusted the flight information on the screen in front of me. In some sense though, it didn’t quite seem real on an emotional level. This situation was so far outside of my daily experience that it was hard for my mind to fully grasp the reality of it. It’s as though it was just an abstract intellectual curiosity with no impact to daily life.

It seemed to just defy common sense.

And yet it was reality, regardless of my inability to fully process it.

While comfortably sitting there, it occurred to me how similar this is to fully grasping and accepting climate change and it’s long term consequences. Both are so far outside the realm of any daily experiences that it’s easy to ignore the reality of the situation, and easy to deny it. Things were quite comfortable at the moment. And yet, things very far outside of our experience are indeed real. The data is there showing what reality is, even when it’s hard fully grasp it.