 |
| Logo of the Committee on Climate Change (Pic: Wikipedia) |
In 2015, humankind will face its greatest challenge ever - to achieve a binding global agreement to reduce carbon emissions and avert catastrophic run-away global warming.
The Conference of the Parties will hold its next climate conference - COP21 - in Paris in December. 2015 will be the most critical year the climate movement has yet faced. Many experts insist that this is our last chance to begin the transition to a zero-carbon future.
I’m pleased to feature Margaret Klein’s (Climate Psychologist) article, What Climate Change Asks of Us: Moral Obligation, Mobilization and Crisis Communication in BoomerWarrior. The article will be presented in three parts. Part 1 asks the question, why are we morally obligated to fight climate change? (Rolly Montpellier, Managing Editor, BoomerWarrior.Org).
Why are we morally obligated to fight climate change?
The future of humanity falls to us. Fighting Climate Change is the Ultimate Moral Obligation.Climate change is a crisis, and crises alter morality. Climate change is on track to cause the extinction of half the species on earth and, through a combination of droughts, famines, displaced people, and failed states and pandemics, the collapse of civilization within this century.
If this horrific destructive force is to be abated, it will be due to the efforts of people who are currently alive. The future of humanity falls to us. This is an unprecedented moral responsibility, and we are by and large failing to meet it.
Indeed, most of us act as though we are not morally obligated to fight climate change, and those who do recognize their obligation are largely confused about how to meet it.
Crises alter morality; they alter what is demanded of us if we want to be considered good, honorable people. For example - having a picnic in the park is morally neutral. But if, during your picnic, you witness a group of children drowning and you continue eating and chatting, passively ignoring the crisis, you have become monstrous.
A stark, historical example of crisis morality is the Holocaust - history judges those who remained passive during that fateful time. Simply being a private citizen (a “Good German”) is not considered honorable or morally acceptable in retrospect. Passivity, in a time of crisis, is complicity. It is a moral failure. Crises demand that we actively engage; that we rise to the challenge; that we do our best.
What is the nature of our moral obligation to fight climate change?
Our first moral obligation is to assess how we can most effectively help. While climate change is more frequently being recognized as a moral issue - the question, “How can a person most effectively engage in fighting climate change?” is rarely seriously considered or discussed.
In times of crises, we can easily become overwhelmed with fear and act impetuously to discharge those feelings to “do something.” We may default to popular or well-known activism tactics, such as writing letters to our congress people or protesting fossil-fuel infrastructure projects without rigorously assessing if this is the best use of our time and talents.
The question of “how can I best help” is particularly difficult for people to contemplate because climate change requires collective emergency action, and we live in a very individualistic culture. It can be difficult for an individual to imagine themselves as helping to create a social and political movement; helping the group make a shift in perspective and action.
Instead of viewing themselves as possibly influencing the group, many people focus entirely on themselves, attempting to reduce their personal carbon footprint. This offers a sense of control and moral achievement, but it is illusory; it does not contribute (at least not with maximal efficacy) to creating the collective response necessary.
We need to mobilize, together
Climate change is a crisis, and it requires a crisis response. A wide variety of scientists, scholars, and activists agree: the only response that can save civilization is an all-out, whole-society
mobilization[i].
World War II provides an example of how the United States accomplished this in the past. We converted our industry from consumer-based to mission-based in a matter of months; oriented national and university research toward the mission, and mobilized the American citizenry toward the war effort in a wide variety of ways.
Major demographic shifts were made to facilitate the mission, which was regarded as America’s sine qua non; for example, 10% of Americans moved to work in a “war job,” women worked in factories for the first time, and racial integration took steps forward. Likewise, we must give the climate effort everything we have, for if we lose, we may lose everything.
Where we are
While the need for a whole society and economy mobilization to fight climate change is broadly understood by experts, we are not close to achieving it as a society. Climate change ranks at the bottom of issues that citizens are concerned about[ii].
The climate crisis is rarely discussed in social or professional situations. This climate silence is mirrored in the media and political realm: for example, climate change wasn’t even mentioned in the 2012 presidential debates.
When climate change is discussed, it is either discussed as a “controversy” or a “problem” rather than the existential emergency that it actually is. Our civilization, planet, and each of us individually are in an acute crisis, but we are so mired in individual and collective denial and distortion that we fail to see it clearly.
The house is on fire, but we are still asleep, and our opportunity for being able to save ourselves is quickly going up in smoke.
Watch for Part 2 of What Climate Change Asks of Us: Moral Obligation, Mobilization and Crisis Communication.
References:
[i] Selected advocates of a WWII scale climate mobilization: Lester Brown, 2004; David Spratt and Phillip Sutton, 2008; James Hansen, 2008; Mark Deluchi and Mark Jacobsen, 2008; Paul Gilding, 2011; Joeseph Romm, 2012; Michael Hoexter, 2013; Mark Bittman, 2014.
[ii] Rifkin, 2014. “Climate Change Not a Top Worry in US.” Gallup Politics.
___
Margaret Klein is a therapist turned advocate. She is the co-founder of The Climate Mobilization and the creator of The Climate Psychologist. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from Adelphi University and also holds a BA in Social Anthropology from Harvard.
Margaret applies her psychological and anthropological knowledge to solving climate change. You can follow her and Climate Mobilization on Twitter: @ClimatePsych / @MobilizeClimate and also on Facebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment