I have encountered a number of denialists and people whom I will refer to as “ignorers”. Ignorers are those people who believe that climate change is happening, and do believe that humans are directly causing it, but they choose to ignore all of the negative effects that climate change is having on the Earth. I believe the main mechanism behind this group of people, and a large number of outright denialists can be better understood by delving deeper into the second word: “change”. Change is a concept that the human mind can react oddly with, and if we understand the psychological effects it has on the brain, we can think of more careful explanations and more convincing arguments to persuade them back.
The effects of change on the mind can create interesting results. The most obvious is that change can be scary. People do not like to think about what scares them. It becomes a little easier to see how with all this talk of flooding cities, global food shortages, and more intense severe weather, someone could be scared and just want to shut it all out. It isn’t the right thing to do, but it is the easy, comforting thing to do. Think of the famous “Knowledge is power, Ignorance is bliss”, knowing and understanding what is happening will give power so that people can work towards finding solutions and leading into a better future. Whereas, ignorance will provide an, albeit temporary, sense of comfort and protection, you can’t see anything bad happening, so it becomes easier to avoid it, until it can no longer be avoided, and the bliss is shattered. In (Goldberg, 2002), he states “Change must be Positive”, and I fully support this. He further states that change must be incremental, and that small successes have a big impact. I feel that this is a good way to frame the solutions to climate change: as incremental, positive change. Climate change is inherently negative, there is no way to get around that fact, but what we could do is re-frame green life-style changes to being positive, encourage people to grow some of their own food and buy local, don’t scare them by constantly pushing the global food shortages, especially if you can’t provide easy, real solutions to combat it.
Another thing I want to talk about is the way people react to being commanded to do something. When you see climate change activists in the media, what kind of phrases do they use? There’s a lot of ‘We have to do …’ or ‘We must stop…’ followed by an ‘or else’ threatening massive destruction. This kind of phrasing is really bad from a psychological standpoint of trying to convince people who are not already wholly on board. I can vouch from personal experience that this kind of phrasing is the first thing a mental health councilor will tell you stop using immediately if you go to them for stress and anxiety issues. The ‘or else’ will scare them, and the commanding nature will either scare them or push them away. Commands serve to repulse, either through fear or rebellion, because let’s face it, some people just will not be told what they have to do by anyone else. I want to make it clear that I am not trying to minimize the effects of climate change. There will be large-scale effects as a result of the actions we have taken, but what I am saying is that commanding people who are already skeptical is probably not the most effective way to convince them to support the cause.
To wrap things up, change can be scary. There may not be a perfect way to explain how to enact the huge changes that will be required to effectively mitigate the damages. What I think needs to be done is a more empathetic method of persuasion. Understand why people may be scared by big change to their daily lives, and abandon the bullhorn for a one-to-one and speak about the good that that will come from the change in habits that will be needed to mitigate and prevent damage from climate change, and save the doomsday allegories for your novel.
Thank you for reading all the way through this. I realize a wall of text like this is both daunting yet monotonous, but I couldn’t find a good visual, maybe I’m too picky. But, I didn’t want to put some odd colorful photo that would break up the flow.
Sincerely, Adam
Sources: Goldberg, S., 2002: The 10 rules of Change, Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200209/the-10-rules-change
Global Climate Change and Society 