To start this post off, I’m going to let y’all in on a little secret, and it may just surprise you. I have no strong emotion towards climate change. Obviously, I wouldn’t have any positive emotions towards it: joy, happiness, exuberance. None of those would make sense. But, I don’t have any real negative emotions towards it as a whole either. I have no guilt, because it’s not my fault; no extra fear, because our world was never safe to begin with; no despair, because I have hope. The best emotional reaction I can give towards climate change is apathy; strange, considering my hopeful career as a climatologists or climate scientist. I should be the one who is consumed by some sort of passion towards this, since the new phenomena of weather that is occurring is the very reason I chose that field.
Margaret Klein claims in an online article that “Many people claim not to have an emotional reaction to climate change. Some of these people who lack the education, exposure to fact-based media, or intellectual capacity to comprehend the threat of climate change, and thus truly have no emotional reaction to it.” Well, I certainly don’t fall into any of those categories. The courses I have taken in climatology, while not making me an expert by far in that field, also don’t allow me to declare ignorance of this fact. And I certainly feel that I have the capacity to understand the threat of climate change. My professor believes so, at the very least. According to Klein, that leaves only one other possibility: I’m in denial.
Klein states that “climate change apathy should be regarded in the same way as people who claim to have no reaction to their recent divorce, the death of a parent, or being raped.” Now, I haven’t experienced any of these (and by no means am I attempting to make light of these events), but I did have an uncle pass away not more than a few weeks ago. While this was a trying time for his wife and children, I didn’t respond much to the situation beyond the initial “this sucks” reaction. The same goes for climate change. Yes, there are a lot of bad things that could happen to the world, but no, I don’t feel anything towards it. It is a fact of the world, and therefore cannot be helped. My personality type doesn’t really mix well with emotion; to get me to do something, appeals to reason work a whole lot better. I know I’m not the only person like this, and I also know that there aren’t necessarily a lot of us around. Our lack of emotion doesn’t mean we don’t care. People don’t need emotion to take an action, nor is emotion necessary for someone to be passionate about something. So there is no need to be upset with someone for not having an emotional reaction to a situation; when it comes to science and similar fields, or any point when a cool head is better than an emotional one, lack of emotion is considered a good thing.
If you do want me to give an emotional reaction, or at least a passionate one, then just talk about geoengineering. The topic is just something that really interests me, and more importantly, the people who advocate it interest me. Someone who just brings up the topic as a possible scenario hasn’t done anything to provoke my ire. It is still considered a possible solution, if a not yet viable one. It would be unfair to all parties to not talk about it in a scientific discussion. Having to talk to someone who is defending it, however, is when I view the person in question as irksome. Bruno Latour told us to love our monsters, and monster is an apt name for what could happen if geoengineering is pursued. Any resultant disasters would most likely not be small in scope; the globe has over 7 billion people, and the purpose of geoengineering is to affect the whole globe. Ergo, there are over 7 billion people who could be negatively affected by geoengineering. That is a number of people that I am not comfortable jeopardizing. In addition, the way to correct geoengineering is, by design, more geoengineering. Logically, this move seems unwise; emotionally, it must be terrifying.
I wonder how much of it has to do with experience. Obviously it does but it makes me me think of 2nd or 3rd grade. We had just finished learning about the rainforest, the different levels (forest floor, canopy, understory, etc.) and we had coloring activities. We learned about some of the cool animals that live there like the toucan and such. Really soon after that we watched a video about deforestation and it was horrible. It talked about how it was killing all of these animals that we had just met and taking away their homes and all that jazz. As an 8 year old you're highly impressionable with those emotional reactions and so for me, that was a defining experience when I feel about climate change and other environmental issues.
ReplyDeleteI also had the same reaction when my uncle passed away a few years ago because he wasn't a feature person in my life but when my sister did, that was a completely different story. It may be that you might not have had an experience that really hits home yet. (Of course, I'm just speculating)
Thanks for sharing. I think being open about how you are feeling, or not feeling, and that being vulnerable about it is the only way to really understand people and their motives. I disagree however that passion can be emotionless. Passion is, if not an emotion itself, inherently linked to emotion and cannot be separated from it. You can't care about something, or be passionate about it, without feeling any emotion toward it. This is a really thought-provoking post! - Sophia
ReplyDeleteI think you make an important argument, separating lack of a strong emotional reaction from apathy; the real difference between apathy and activism is not necessarily emotion, but the level of effort devoted to a cause.
ReplyDeleteAnger, for instance, when directed at the big business interests perpetuating environmental problems, can lead to their demonization in the minds of emotionally-passionate supporter; I myself am often guilty of this. However, I have also come to believe that demonization, however justified, is not productive. It hinders opposing interests from collaborating on a mutually-agreeable solution, and provides an implicit excuse for one's own lack of productivity (take the U.S. Congress, for example). Sometimes we need cooler heads, as well as more dispassionate and rational mindsets, to effectively solve our problems.