Hi James,

I'm not a psychologist, but found the "mortality salience" was the only 
way to explain behaviour of some top climate scientists, who will not 
accept the conclusion of a straightforward argument about the danger in 
the Arctic - while unable to dispute the logic of the argument!

You might be right about peak oil being a potential killer. All the 
things we might run out of are potential killers, if they cause 
conflict. I focus on Arctic and Amazon, because we could pass the point 
of no return quite suddenly, and the resultant catastrophes are on a 
scale that could take out civilisation - causing the collapse that 
Diamond writes about in his book. We are exhibiting all the signs of 
impending collapse, if we continue to behave as we are - especially with 
this denial of the means to save ourselves!

But, as Jared Diamond says, if we learn to understand ourselves, and how 
we can make disastrous decisions (see his Chapter 14), then we have some 
hope. To counter our natural psychological tendency for wishful 
thinking, always consider the very worst case most seriously, and what 
could be done to avoid it. That's my motto.

Cheers,

John

---

James Pavitt wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> fascinating description of “mortality salience”.  Thanks.
>
> However, I have to take issue with you that peak oil is not a killer.  I’d
> suggest that it is based on the Iraq war and resource wars that are likely
> to be fought in the future.
>
> James
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Nissen
> Sent: 10 September 2010 22:59
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: the role of identity in denier motivation .... strategy ideas?
>
>
> Hi Mandy,
>
> I think that in some cases the denier's "motivation" is a kind of
> unconscious psychological self-preservation.
>
> I have been reading again Chapter 14 of Jared Diamond's brilliant book
> "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" [1].
>
> He has four fuzzy categories of factors contributing to failure to resolve
> problems: 
> • failure to anticipate problems; 
> • failure to perceive problems;
> • failure to even try to resolve key problems;
> • failure to succeed (especially by leaving action too late).
>
> Our civilisation is facing problems in all four categories.  But the most
> surprising is what happens for the most severe problems, which fall in the
> third category: "failure to solve key problems".  When a problem becomes too
> great, we stop being concerned about it!  This is fairly well-known
> psychological effect, sometimes referred to as "mortality salience".  It's
> as if our brains can't cope with an overburden of anxiety, so we blank off
> the concern - shutting it out of our minds or (perversely) inventing reasons
> why not to worry.  Diamond gives an example of people living in a narrow
> valley under a dam - who might be killed if the dam burst.  They questioned
> people in the valley about how concerned they were about living below the
> dam.  As they got closer to the dam, they found people were more concerned,
> as you'd expect.  However, less than a critical distance below the dam, they
> found people had no concern at all.  It was as if one couldn't survive if
> you were looking up at the dam every day and worrying about it.
>
> You mention peak oil, but peak oil isn't a killer.  Nor is the economic
> crisis.  The immediate killers are from global warming: melting of the
> Arctic sea ice and drying out of the Amazon rainforest.  These are liable to
> happen quite suddenly, with terrifying consequences.  In the Arctic, once
> the sea ice melts, massive quantities of methane could come out of
> permafrost - and there is probably enough methane to cause global warming to
> spiral out of control.  That's too dreadful to think about.  In the Amazon,
> if there were several successive years of drought, the rainforest could die
> and burn off - again with a dreadful effect on global warming.
>
> This kind of denial of key problems works at two levels.  There is the
> denial of global warming itself, and there is the denial of effective means
> to deal with global warming's most dangerous effects.  The first gets a lot
> of attention.  We are not aware of the second, because we are guilty of it
> ourselves.  In particular, we deny that the only means to save the Arctic is
> using geoengineering - emissions reduction cannot work.  We nearly all deny
> it.  I have hardly come across anybody who is prepared to admit
> geoengineering is required urgently to cool the Arctic and reduce risk of
> catastrophe [2].  But, if you are a convert to geoengineering, let me know!
>
> Cheers,
>
> John
>
> [1]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succe
> ed
>
> [2] I wish I was wrong about this - but I've not found anybody to refute the
> argument, given here:
> [log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask] 
>
> ---
>
> A&M Meikle wrote: 
> Thanks Alastair. You say, "What's important in all this is that we must
> distinguish speaking the truth about the situation from feeling obligated
> also to come up with the fixes" - I couldn't agree more! Anyone who gets up
> on a platform and says they have 'the answer' is not to be trusted & they're
> probably selling something.
>  
> As some will know, I've been trying to explain the links between climate
> change and peak oil for years and I don't feel I'm getting any better at it
> because of how hard it is to speak 'the truth' (well, my truth - we must
> remember that we all have our own truths). In my opinion, the truth is that
> the complex socioeconomic global system is collapsing but very few are
> willing to entertain that idea. All the major environmental NGOs are trying
> to come up with fixes which remains within the 'capitalist' system. We can't
> buy our way out of this - money has got further and further removed from any
> kind of underlying real wealth (i.e. natural resources). Now it's
> credit/debt which is holding the whole system up - just.
>  
> Climate change is in process and, yes, any mitigation we can put in place
> will help, theoretically. Closer is the impact of peak oil (aka the end of
> cheap energy) which will roll out & impact those energy importers (like the
> UK) first as exporters decide that they'd be better off keeping their oil,
> gas etc. (By the way, I assume you've all noticed the furore over shale gas
> - another low energy return option to keep us wedded to the hydrocarbon era,
> which also uses millions of gallons of water....). But closer still is the
> collapse of the Ponzi scheme we call global economics. 
>  
> There probably won’t be a perception of energy scarcity for a while, and if
> demand falls due to economic depression while production is still at the
> same level then there could actually be the perception of glut - for a short
> time. Indeed there have been some articles recently suggesting this (e.g.
> http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/07/news/economy/coming_oil_glut.fortune/ ). But
> the whole financial system is built on debt and what will happen when the
> defaulter dominoes start to fall even faster? Debtors prison? Or will
> defaulters simply lose their homes and be left on the streets. The welfare
> system is already contracting - what welfare will there be in even just 5
> years? Yet, some put their faith in clean coal, nuclear, electric cars,
> renewables, biofuels, a whole host of alternatives to fossil fuels which
> still require the complex systems which fossil fuels allowed us to build.
> None of the alternatives can exist with no fossil fuel input at all. In
> terms of net energy return, the alternatives don't add up - another 'truth'
> no one wants to hear about. 
>  
> Yes, there's a lot of bad news out there (I haven't even mentioned oceans!)
> but we've been ignoring the environmental crisis for 40 years or more.
> There's no time to worry about 'disempowering' people with bad news. This is
> coming & we've got to face it. And we've got to explain it to others - not
> easy. First, they won't want to hear what you have to say (whatever your
> truth is) and second, it's not easy to condense decades of learning into a
> few catchy soundbites. 
>  
> Like Alastair, I don't believe that humankind is good for nothing but boy,
> do we hide that well! Humans are capable of forethought and planning - this
> is what makes us so awful as a species. All wealth comes from exploiting
> natural resources - we've known this for millennia. We're not destroying the
> planet because we don't know any better. We're doing it at the behest of our
> 'bosses', because we need the pay cheque. It's these 'bosses' who have
> benefitted from the current system, they call the shots and are mostly
> unknown to us. But you can bet your arse that they do not want the system to
> change and will do everything they can to keep perpetuating the myth of
> continuous economic growth. This is what we're up against yet we still can't
> agree on the problem. 
>  
> OK, rant over!
>  
> Mandy 
>  
> http://mandymeikle.wordpress.com/ 
> ____________________________
>  
> Much of the worst damage to Rome was done by Roman emperors and armies
> thrashing about, thinking they were preserving what they were in fact
> destroying.
> - James O'Donnell 
>  
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Chris Shaw 
> To: [log in to unmask] 
> Sent: Friday, September 10, 2010 9:53 AM
> Subject: Re: the role of identity in denier motivation .... strategy ideas?
>
> Sorry to be critical and, time constraints being what they are I have only
> had time to scan read the summary document, so I may be way off here in my
> comments.Nonetheless I was looking for discussion of how the state would
> respond to any sucessful attempt at turning the masses away from materialism
> (materialism seeming to be the core problem as far as this publication is
> concerned). I could see nothing about the violence the state would employ to
> maintain the status quo so. The only thing i could find about the
> relationship between the state and economics was this. 
>
> "Tackling advertising. Advertisements and marketing are
> prominent means by which materialistic, self-enhancing
> values are encouraged: underlying most advertising is the
> implicit proposition that purchase of a product or service
> can confer happiness or self-esteem". TRUE, and it is very sucessful in
> this.
>
>  "Moreover, government
> policy on advertising often operates to extend the reach and
> dissemination of these implicit messages." WHY would that be? Because that
> is the purpose of the state, to maintain the optimum conditions for economic
> growth.
>
> " + Environmental
> organisations can begin to address these dynamics by
> developing and distributing educational materials that
> help individuals (in particular children) to ‘deconstruct’
> advertisements and recognise the techniques of persuasion
> deployed.+"
>
>  Is this a joke? have the authors ever seen a child? If I offer my children
> a choice at Xmas between a playstation and some texts deconstructing
> advertising techniques, which are they going to choose? Where is the
> evidence that there is a demand for texts deconstructing adverts? Are these
> texts to be forced down people's throats? I don't count myself as an
> environmentalist, more a humanist. If this is the new hope for
> environmentalism then we are doomed. 
>
> On 10/09/2010 08:51, Jon Barrett wrote: 
> I am sure the 'identity campaigning' advocated by WWF in their Stategies for
> Change research is very familiar to most, but it seems relevant to draw
> attention to the recent publication of Tom Crompton's and Tim Kasser's
> "Meeting Environmental Challenges: The Role of Human Identity".
>