Breda O’Brien: Climate change should be an election issue

Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology, once said to writer George Marshall that if climate change were caused by eating puppies, that millions of Americans would be massing in the streets.

Marshall’s book in which Gilbert is quoted is called Don’t Even Think About it - Why our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change.

Marshall talked to all sorts of people, including Gilbert, to try and figure out why most people feel vaguely guilty about climate change, but do nothing about it.

The research that Gilbert and others have carried out suggests that we are pre-disposed to responding to four triggers, for which he uses the acronym PAIN.

These triggers stand for personal, abrupt, immoral and now. ‘Personal’ means that we are highly attuned to identifying friends, enemies and detecting who is at fault in situations.

However, the fossil fuel addiction of the entire developed world is hard to blame on any one identifiable and simple target.

Climate change is also not an abrupt change, but instead is relatively slow.

Speaking of slow change, contrary to myth, no sane frog will stay in a pot of water while the temperature slowly rises.

Rather than sitting still while they boil, they will hop out as soon as they perceive the threat if there is any means of doing so. Unfortunately, human beings appear to be much more tolerant of slowly developing threats - we are quite happy to sit here as the temperature rises.

Nor does climate change trigger the sense of outrage or moral repugnance that eating puppies does. We are also notoriously bad at looking into the future, and will discount all risks that are unlikely to affect us directly right here and now.

Even though developing countries feel the impact right now, we discount it because it is not happening to us.

Despite his book’s title, Marshall does not believe that humans are incapable of grasping the threat and taking action.

However, ladling out gloom and doom is counter-productive.

Climate change activists are working hard to create compelling narratives that inspire change, but by and large, they lack support from the media and most politicians.

For example, a coalition of civil society groups including unions, business, church bodies and the environmental sector has been hosting what it calls Climate Conversations, with the aim of motivating people to take appropriate action.

Another Climate Conversation was held last Wednesday in Trinity College in the wake of the COP 21 negotiations in Paris. Some of the organisers were mildly disappointed that only about 250 people turned up. However, most political parties would be delighted both with the turnout and the age profile, particularly so close to Christmas.

There were plenty of older people, but a significant number were young.

There was lots of polite disagreement - a minority thought that COP21 would be better described as Copout 21, while another minority thought it was a great step forward.

The majority seemed to think that it was extremely flawed, but still significant. There was also a sense of developing momentum.

As one participant put it, if even Saudi Arabia accepts the impact of fossil fuel consumption, we are getting somewhere.

In my view, the media have to bear a huge amount of responsibility for the lack of a compelling narrative that motivates change.

Look how journalists and presenters rallied behind the move to change the definition of marriage, to the extent that on the day of the result in Dublin Castle, it was hard to tell the media from the activists.

The same is true of politicians. Imagine if a fraction of the passion that is expended on getting re-elected were expended on creating narratives that point to the brighter future that can result from caring for the environment.

Vision matters. At times of challenge, a sense of common purpose and of inter-connectedness is essential. We need to see our planet as our beloved home in order to defend it with the passion that is needed.

Even in dire situations, there are positive aspects that can be emphasised. For example, thousands of jobs could be created by incentives to retro-fit houses so that they are more energy-efficient.

There are local initiatives that are both good for the environment and our bills, such as district heating schemes for estates, which reduce fossil fuel use by 90%.

Irish small farmers are understandably embittered and embattled at the moment, but imagine if there were concentrated efforts to help them diversify, instead of the assumption that family farms that are not massive agri-businesses are on the way out.

Everyone can get behind the ‘Keep it in the ground’ movement, which puts moral pressure on investors to divest from fossil fuel companies.

Individual action is important, but community action is even more important, and political action perhaps most important of all.

One thing every voter can do is to make this an issue when candidates come canvassing. Politicians believe that there are few votes in this, that people fundamentally don’t care that much.

The forthcoming election is a prime opportunity to shake that complacency.