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But at least then scientists could say they tried to deliver the message? As Hansen does every time he goes out to protest and gets arrested? Every person will have their excuse ready to absolve themselves of any responsibility, from what I’ve noticed to date (even myself). Regards, Douglas From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of david McKay Sent: 24 March 2013 19:04 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: What zombie films can teach us about climate change Not sure banging up scientists for being conservative with their interpretations (as scientists tend to do in all fields) will help very much - at the very least it doesn't make it any more likely that governments or people would act any more quickly anyway! Even if we stood and shouted from the rooftops and went on strike to deliver the worst-case message, I suspect scientists would still not get very much more attention or headway... Dave _____ From: John Nissen <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Sunday, 24 March 2013, 22:06 Subject: Re: What zombie films can teach us about climate change Hi Chris, You say, correctly that "we all tell ourselves stories to make sense of our lives and to convince ourselves that our existence hasn’t been a complete waste of time" This is why it is so difficult to contemplate that there may not be a future in which there are people who can look back at us. Becker [1] had the theory that our society deals with death by making each person think they are a hero, or at least working towards that end. Thus the contemplation of an end of civilisation conflicts very much with this worldview, and we just can't contemplate it. We all have a hang-up. Our subconscious edits out the extremely uncomfortable in order to free-up our conscious minds for daily living. It's the same as living under a dam - if you were concerning yourself about the dam all the time, you'd be incapable of functioning. It's an adaptation of the human psyche through evolution and survival of the tribe. Unfortunately this particular hang-up inflicts the very scientists who advise the government over what should be done in a crisis. These scientists are indeed deluded - culpably deluded - perhaps even certifiably deluded [2]. Thus our western governments apparently have no idea of the severity of the crisis that will beset us as a result of the rapid demise of the Arctic sea ice unless drastic action is taken to cool the Arctic. I have experienced this denial of reality first-hand, and it is very extraordinary - especially because you see it in people of high intelligence at the top of their field. They either refuse to talk to you on a topic or they come out with the most insane arguments to justify their position. What can we do about this? Their behaviour is threatening the survival of themselves as well as the rest of us. Their behaviour is both suicidal (the ultimate self-harm) and genocidal, yet they are blissfully unaware because of their delusion. Could we file for the protection of these people in a psychiatric ward [3]? Cheers, John [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Becker [2] http://www.mdguidelines.com/delusional-disorder [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_psychiatry -- On 24/03/2013 19:36, Christopher Shaw wrote: Hi Brian Thanks for taking the time to engage with the ideas I was trying to put forward. I agree with a lot of what you say. I guess for me, and many people who have studied these things, we all tell ourselves stories to make sense of our lives and to convince ourselves that our existence hasn’t been a complete waste of time. These are not explicitly stories about climate change but implicitly they are. Just one example – the story I might tell myself, that I am successful because I have 3 cars, a holiday home and 5 foreign holidays a year is about climate change, at an implicit level. Or I am a social scientists on £70 k a year and I fly to conferences and I do not want radical change to the social order because I have done well out of it, but I research climate change issues. I tell myself I can be excused because I am making a difference through my research. I tell myself go slow policy prescriptions which avoid any change to the social order are the best response to climate change. Those are the stories. They are all conditioned by capitalist culture and constrain what counts as rational stories within very tight bounds which leave the comfort of the rich untouched. Chris From: Brian Orr [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: 24 March 2013 19:23 To: Christopher Shaw Cc: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: What zombie films can teach us about climate change Christopher, I do think you're right about the 2˚C limit being a major hazard in the way of getting 'the people' to take climate change 'as seriously' as required. But I am not convinced that your 'people have their story' theory has that much traction. I think the billions of people around the world who rely on stories to make broad sense of their lives are very small players in the 'mega-saga' that is now being played out. For the West, and China, 'stories' have nothing like so great a hold. Yes, in the West we have the Christian story, but this has been largely side-lined with very few believers signing up to "It is harder for a rich man…….), while the Chinese, although still steeped in the story of Chairman Mao, would also seemed to have strayed from 'the straight and narrow' as much as the West in terms of how they are continuing with his 'revolution'. The scientific evidence is that we are, for all practical purposes, in the process of toppling over the cliff. All the climate mitigation that we could bring to bear within the extreme limits of what is politically and physically possible, will not prevent the inevitable 'toppling of successive dominoes' that will lead to a world-wide 'mega-calamity' exceeding anything the Black Death inflicted on us, and probably involving the Black Death as well as part of the 'descent into the pit'. Very few ordinary people talk much about climate change: probably the majority hardly talk about it ever. A fair explanation is that they just haven't got the tools with which to discuss it, but alongside this is the cultural block against discussing such things. (As an example, most people will not spend much time analysing the pros and cons of the austerity strategy of the present government and the EU. They might look at it superficially through the lens of running a household budget and the desirability of a rising job market, but there's not much they can do about it personally - so why, they probably think, should I bother my untrained mind about it?). So, let's put ourselves under the microscope. Why don't we 'talk more' about the 'fact'???? that the game is up? Do we have the tools to do it? Well there's a mountain of material out there on the internet and no shortage of talented bloggers who have addressed this issue (with no shortage of deniers alongside whose basic premise is global warming is a hoax.) Does the thought that the game is up leave us so depressed and dispirited that we shy away from thinking about it, either consciously or sub-consciously? Are we inhibited by the possibility of aggressive reactions to admitting that the position is looking extremely daunting? Isn't there a fundamental dilemma for crisis-forum here in that, on the one hand, we cannot give up hope, or get close to that by admitting that things do look pretty hopeless, and on the other, 'inspecting our souls' with absolute honesty as a means of grappling with this strangest of puzzles: why are most people extremely reluctant to discuss possibly the greatest threat mankind has ever had to face in appropriately graphic terms? Brian On 22 Mar 2013, at 10:33, Christopher Shaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote: That right, that article offered two scenarios, 1 degree as low risk and 2 degrees as high risk. Not certain that even the 1 degree limit is low risk. C From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [mailto:CRISIS- <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of CCG Sent: 22 March 2013 10:22 To: <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: What zombie films can teach us about climate change The 2C limit is an overwhelming popular meme (and as you observe in your link without proper justification). I assume people are aware of this (from 1990... over two decades ago)? <http://www.scribd.com/doc/121702780/Responding-to-Climate-Change-Tools-For-Policy-Development-Part-I-of-II> http://www.scribd.com/doc/121702780/Responding-to-Climate-Change-Tools-For-Policy-Development-Part-I-of-II With particular reference to the bottom of page viii: “Temperature increases beyond 1.0 C may elicit rapid, unpredictable, and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage.” That would seem to describe what we’re starting to see today at ~0.8C – not bad going for something as old as that – makes me wonder what the last two decades and change were spent doing... except guaranteeing we made it happen. Regards, Douglas From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [ <mailto:[log in to unmask]> mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Christopher Shaw Sent: 22 March 2013 06:07 To: <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] Subject: What zombie films can teach us about climate change Dear all Shameless self-promotion time but I think this short piece I wrote for New Left Project speaks to many of the themes that engage members of the forum. <http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/what_zombie_films_can_teach_us_about_climate_change> http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/what_zombie_films_can_teach_us_about_climate_change Thanks Chris