Earlier this week I wrote how I believe climate denial has been replaced by climate rage – fitting the next stage of grief.
Following Greta Thunberg’s UN speech last month, I saw appear within my social networks a number of posts from people requesting that anyone who has an issue with her speech should defriend them now.
Jeremy Clarkson spat out a piece of fury against the 16 year old climate advocate and his daughter, Emily Clarkson, retorted back.
Friendships and families are strained by this climate rage.
It’s easily more effective than climate denial.
With climate denial, no evidence was ever good enough. There’s no point in improving air quality and finding cheaper sources of energy, after all, unless we’re 100% confident that climate change is real, that it’s going to make life harder for us, and is the result of our activities.
But the thing is, sure the denier couldn’t be convinced by the evidence, but anyone genuinely interested to learn about the science gained a plethora of resources online aimed at answering all the same talking points.
But climate rage…well, that totally shuts down the conversation. If you’re a rager, the nuances of climate science are irrelevant. It’s all about the activists and advocates who don’t provide the solutions. Until they do, they – and everyone else – should shut up, carry on and wait for someone somewhere to provide the solution.
There’s no room for discussion. Most just give up and some fracture all contact.
All the while, we sit on our hands as a collective.
But in truth, research and development is where we should go for the information about the situation and possible solutions. The public and private sectors are where we must go to drive for those solutions to be implemented.
The latter happens through our voting and shopping habits.
The individual who cuts their carbon footprint won’t address the problem. We’re not about to feed our families a vegan diet of whatever grows outside the fringe of our cave.
Regardless of where you sit on the question of climate change, we all want the same thing – for our communities to thrive into the distant future in healthy urban landscapes.
No-one wants our surrounding environments to be wastelands, our oceans to be devoid of everything by jellyfish and many of our famous landmarks to become popular diving spots.
We are, ultimately, on the same side. The climate denial and rage arguments divide us over points that really don’t matter when the end game is actually something we all want.
But until we recognise this shared goal, we will remained divided and weak.
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