Home > Work > What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action
1 " It's a team, really: the wilderness and us. "
― , What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action
2 " Better storytelling can overcome our deepest barriers. "
3 " I don't need to believe that things will end well in order to act. The walking and the doing are their own reward. "
4 " Re-wilding is a story of nature's amazing capacity to rebound. It tells of the resilience of birch and pine, the dogged persistence of badger and fox, of dandelion and vine, the dark and voiceless worlds of algae and fungi. "
5 " There is always a component to denial that goes deeper than likes or dislikes. You’re not in denial about roses if you don’t like roses, but prefer tulips. Or about politics if you can’t stand a certain politician. Or if you want to switch off the radio each time pop artist Justin Bieber sings “Baby baby.” The concept of denial is reserved for those issues that are emotionally and morally disturbing and therefore—if not dealt with—generate an uncomfortable inner splitting. The term denial is appropriate when the full acknowledgment of what is denied would imply having to act upon it. The lifting of denial would result in an emotional shift, and would require both speaking and acting differently. And sometimes it would result in a substantial change of lifestyle, ethics, and identity. "
6 " However, there is no global right price that all governments can agree on across cultures and local economies, despite the economic model saying this is the ideal. Neither is there one fair model for sharing emission rights among countries. Blaming politicians for these shortcomings doesn’t bring much progress. "
7 " Optimism and pessimism are tools we can apply when considering the wild different futures lurking beyond the horizon. And they are best used in parallel, like the left and right eye. It's not an either-or, but a both-and. "
8 " To communicate the facts to the public, the same social experiment has been repeated over and over: Simply give people the information, and then wait and see if the facts trickling into their mind will convince them to change their behavior. The outcome has been consistently underwhelming. "
9 " Many of the interdependent mammals, birds, and corals may be vulnerable, living precariously close to the extinction cliff, but nature is also wild and robust, and swings back if given the smallest crack in the concrete. Witness the dandelions. "