Great article.

This paragraph grabbed my attention:

“I would like empathy to become the watchword of a new era of policies, social movements, cultural projects and individual action on climate change. How can we encourage this empathetic revolution of human relationships? What exactly might it look like? ”

The first time I read it, I saw ‘politics’ instead of ‘policies’ – as it chimes with my belief that for politics to have any chance of representing the real needs of everybody, it must start talking about ‘fairness’. Every young child understands intuitively what is fair and what is not. Perhaps they lack the neural machinery to dissemble and sincerely represent something manifestly not fair as if it is. Many of our politicians are not so afflicted!

We met at George Marshall’s talk in Belsize Park last year, and spoke about the empathy experienced among donor and recipient of living donor kidney transplants (I had a kidney transplant from a good friend). Do get in touch if you’d like to pick up on that.

Because its better to think first before you jump?

I bet the author of this blog would be overwhelming in favour of the EU direct banning the use of tungsten filament lightbulbs, mandating a change to “energy efficient light bulbs”

the fact of the matter is that a far more energy efficient technology is on the horizon, solid state LED lighting. Surely the cost of switching would have been more efficiently invested in this technology?

but passing rash laws are the placebo that make the perpetual hypochondiacs and wanna be heros feel better about themselves

Less panic and more rationality would make people take more notice to climate change

How would anyone know which effect was related to global warming?
Say if I chose Bangladesh which had been consistently prone to natural disasters for centuries, how do I decide which ones were or will be related to CO2 emmissions?

Climate Corps

Would that money not be better invested in researching 3rd generation Photovoltaics?

The Climate Futures Museum

who gets to decide if what the future holds?

Climate change is a technical problem that needs a technical solution.

The reason why no one appears to care is precisely because of the army of sociologists, political scientists etc that make up the majority of the green movement.

“…why, when the evidence is so strong, and so many agree that this is our greatest problem, are we doing so little about climate change?”

Climate change is an intensely misinformed debate, and whilst I shed little light on the root issue, this should address at least two of the key problems:

Firsty, I shall begin by telling you what you already know. We are doing so little about climate change because those with the power to propose any radical change have little incentive to do so. There is an enourmous economy based around, amoungst other things, the petrol car. This ranges from the factory to the oilrig, right down to the man that makes the spark plugs, and if, suddenly, we were to all buy a green car, it would destroy that economy and the lives dependent on it. Thusly, even if we did want to jepordize that economy by replacing it (After all, who would then need troops securing oilfields?) a gradual change has to be made.
Additionally, power by fossile fuels (whether in a car, jet or power station) has many more servicable parts and requires a constant input of fuel, and so will always be more econmocally attractive than a relaible, green power source running off water or moonbeams. Why spend time and money changing to electric cars, which will then lead to reduced profits, when we have enough oil and men already building those cars?
Additionally, why invest in great technology such as geothermal power? You cannot fiddle with the prices as you can with oil or coal, as there is a constant output of power regarless of economic conditions. If fact, a serious geothermal energy programme would be able to provide almost free power for the large proportiuon of any population. Whilst that is great, again it doesn’t make anyone a profit, and so is unlikely to occur.
Green simply isn’t economic on a variety of scales. As a result, few green products are marketed to us, and those that are, are done so at a high price – excluding the average person. Hybrid cars and personal wind turbines are still a quasi-luxery items for the middle class; too expensive for the average worker who makes up your taget population. Is it right then to scrutinize them for not buying such products?

Secondly let us show some empathy and understaing of the veiwpoint of the general public. The public have not been given any clear, seemingly unbiased and most importantly complete evidence about climate change. Most of the publics information on well, anything, is based on television, radio and basic print media such as newspapers and magazines. It is on this information that most people will make their life descions. A small percentage may use the internet to research current issues, however very few do and even less use academic journals and textbooks – and we cannot expect them to do so. There is simply too much information relevant to the debate, and the public at large cannot be expected to read through the hundreds of volumes of reports or so far un-united data.
What they need is a clear, relibale and unanimous statement. However the afformentioned media outlets do not provide this: the reports we read or see in common media are often fast (so impotant information is missed, averaged or skimmed over) and sensational (so that all semblence of objectivity is lost). With this in mind, we can see why we are often given graphs with hundred year time serises instead of a more accurate million year serise –. Finally and most importantly, common media is lacking in much of the fundemental evidence – The IPCC report istelf, for example, ommitted any comment of CFC’s and OZone.
As a backdrop to this, we are often reffered to the scientific world, who, in spite of the headlines, are not united in thought on this matter. Any reasonable scientist will tell you that a ‘debate’ is still going on, which nessestiates the absence of an absolute answer. In reality the scientific world does not have enough evidence to have a clear scientific concensus, (though we are often told that they do agree); there are too many contributing factors to the enviroment that have not yet been accounted for in models, and the reliability of our historical data and timescale is comprimised. Graphs often depict hundred year scales which is not an accurate way to represent climate change on a planetary scale – for this we need to look at data over several millions of years. To assess human contribution to the effects wemust take a sample which excludes humans, and this data is rarely presented.
So the average person is daily bombarded with hardline debate and fragments of poetentially unreliable information from a vareity of sources that they have never heard of, and then pressured into making descisions based on that information. Not only are they pressured, they are often scared into such decisions –examples are given in your own article Beware Green Bearing Gifts (George Marshall, December 19, 2007 6:01 pm). Regardless of the credibility of such information, this all amounts to coersion. Do not misunderstand me, recycling or turning off lights is easy, and it is beyond my comprehension why most people don’t do it, however the pulic have been almost deliberatly confused into non-action. Without a clear beacon of information in which the public trust, they are unlikely to make any substasial life changes based on anything abouve guilt.

Additionally the information is often presented by people who we suspect of selling us the idea or related ideas. You cannot deny that some people’s livlihoods are based on peddling the idea of man-made climate change, whether it’s true or not. The public have been deceived so much recently that they are weary of a man selling them a wind turbine whilst telling them the world will end if they dont buy it, or to that extent a politician selling the country a whole windfarm.
So when the people, who for hundreds of years have been lied to and manipulated, are presented with a poorly researched debate on which not all of the scientific community agrees and on which many people stand to make money, is it any wonder that they show disinterest or distrust? The idea that we lack empathy may be correct, but it is rude and hypocrtical to assume such a position of moral supiriority especially when you have not shown empathy to those whose views you hope to change. You expect many people to either fully understand a complex problem, or to blindly follow your word, both are unrealistic, people should come to their own decision. What is more worrying is some are using the fact that people are not jumping on the eco bandwagon as a sign of mental unsoundness (See recent “research” by the University of the West of England) – which is simply perverse. The idea of ‘Climate Change Denial’ is appaling as it assumes moral victory before the scientific debate is concluded.
I prefer the word ignorance to empathy (I myself am largley ignorant to the debate), because it singles out those who have not yet had the oppertunity to learn by being presented clear information. The provision of all of the relevant information, clearly and in a centralized place is nessasary if we expect the people to make a decision. Until that time looking down on them from our ivory wind turbines, or stemming the debate as you have done “How to win the climate change argument – in a 15min tea break” (Coinet.org.uk), is insulting and unproductive.
Hopefully my rant will be of assistance to you. You seem committed in providing information, but I worry about both the quality of that information and its potential for bias. I neither believe nor disbeleive in man-made climate change, mostly for the reasonts given abouve, but mostly because I believe I can be responsible without commiting to an ideal…

There’s also an empathy deficit on the part of many who are working to stop climate destruction.

No, seriously, we’ve tried.

We’ve seen that there are some people who simply refuse to be convinced that climate destruction is a real problem, no matter what we say.

Take this from Rush “de facto GOP leader” Limbaugh for example:

In fact, I’ve got to find it. There’s a story in this you will not believe. It’s gotta be right after this, and I know I organized this well today. Yes. Here it is. There’s a chart out there. The Earth has not been warming since 1998, and this year — last year, this year — is colder than the previous year. It’s cooling. This is not anecdotal. It’s scientific, temperature research surveys. [...]

[...] In fact, the stimulus bill, the Porkulus bill was sold and presented to you identically to the way global warming has been. Everything’s a crisis! Everything’s an emergency! There’s no truth to anything that’s being said about all this, be it global warming or what the stimulus package is going to do. It’s a disaster, and it’s all designed to get you to agree to pay higher taxes down the road.

How do you empathize with Limbaugh? How do you empathize with a radio talk show host who sees millions of people losing their jobs and insists that there’s no economic crisis?

– bi

Great article. I too wonder how it was that the market, prices, and consumption, became supreme. And any attempts at doing something that was ethical, or ‘green’ was labelled as radical, hippy and bad for the economy.

Creating empathy by sharing individual stories works; as an Australian, discovering stories of how indigenous people view climate change was very powerful for me. (http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/2009/01/19/sea-level-rise-in-kowanyama/)

But I also think that we also need to show people the innovative and simple solutions available (or in progress), as it encourages people to want to discover more (using positive/creative thinking as a motivation, rather than fear)

Sigh. Here we go again. Empathy starts with ceasing the class war and the hate right here at home on your blog, believing that climate change is all the fault of some evil imperialist fat rich West blah blah.

China is rapidly becoming the main culprit; Russia too. They aren’t rich. Tons of other developing countries are also to blame. The rich countries are in a better position to educate and mitigate than the poor, so hold your fire.

What’s really important with this crisis is to keep your head and encourage factual reporting, not “stories” and touchy-feely “empathy” that is misplaced on situations that might not in fact grow out of actual climate change. It’s also very important not to have an atmosphere of brow-beating and hatred of those who *question* the premises around the climate-change believers. Climate change, where it is real, makes itself known without having to bang anyone over the head about it. There is no need to agitate and incite.

One of the major triggers for this turnaround was Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, and I believe only five words in that film actually kick started the turnaround: “This is a moral issue”, said Gore, very emphatically. Empathy was the key to this sea change in attitude.

Until that point climate change was largely considered an environmental issue – external to ourselves (for most), a spiritual issue for a minority.

To add to Brad’s comment, while some use denial politically and expediently, we also know that denial is an intrinsic component of human behaviour. We therefore ought to be compassionate towards those who are so confronted by the hugeness of climate change that their instinctive response is to turn away from it, deny it, don’t let it upset their daily life.

If we understand this as a very normal human response we will respond to it much more intelligently and productively that if we do so by simply attacking their arguments or labelling them.

we need to avoid a situation we cannot adapt to and adapt to what we can’t avoid. Yet there is precious little sign of either.

The word is burning and we are all sitting here fiddling.