Isn't This How Most of Us Feel Today When Someone Mentions Climate Change?

 

I've struggled to put my finger on how people respond when the subject of climate change comes up. This excerpt from a piece in Pro Publica captures the dilemma we all face.

"George Marshall opened his book, “Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change,” with the parable of Jan Karski, a young Polish resistance fighter who, in 1943, met in person with Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, who was both a Jew and widely regarded as one of the great minds of his generation. Karski briefed the justice on what he’d seen firsthand: the pillage of the Warsaw Ghetto, the Belzec death camp. Afterward, Frankfurter said, “I do not believe you.”

"The Polish ambassador, who had arranged the meeting on the recommendation of President Franklin Roosevelt, interrupted to defend Karski’s account.

'"I did not say that he is lying,” Frankfurter explained. “I said that I didn’t believe him. It’s a different thing. My mind, my heart — they are made in such a way that I cannot accept. No no no.”

Isn't that were most of us are today? We simply cannot accept the reality of this building catastrophe. We know it's true but we can't bring ourselves to accept it. 

Comments

  1. Owen GrayJanuary 28, 2021 at 7:24 AM

    That seems to be our problem when it comes to so many issues, Mound. We simply cannot believe the problems we face -- even as they blot out our future.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibJanuary 28, 2021 at 10:28 AM

      It's a bizarre form of denialism, Owen. It's not the "global warming is a hoax" denialism. It's denialism for reluctant believers. Anyone who has ever ridden a motorcycle into a curve at an impossible speed is familiar with the split seconds of helplessness and resignation before the lights go out. You try everything you can think of but then you have this flash of clarity, "no, it's not working."

      Delete
  2. TrailblazerJanuary 28, 2021 at 5:00 PM

    Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change,”

    And many other unpalatable issues , climate change denial is not a unique to our thoughts.

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0146107917715587#:~:text=Then%20God%20said%2C%20%E2%80%9CLet%20us,that%20creeps%20upon%20the%20earth.%E2%80%9D

    The fundamentalists have much to answer to.
    Fundamentalist religion has always been the gateway to the demise of the human race.
    Fundamentalism lies beneath many , if not most, of the worlds problems from climate change to civil rights.
    Fundamentalism encompasses both the believers and those that use the issue to pad their own wallets!
    We live in a sick friggen world,

    TB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibJanuary 30, 2021 at 11:53 AM

      TB, I must say I was not expecting a dissertation on Christianity, Genesis and vegetarianism. That threw me for a loop. I do, however, share your views of religious fundamentalism no matter the faith - Christian, Judaic, Islamic, Hindu, even Buddhist. For starters, such extremism is exclusionary. One faith is true, all the others are heretical and, hence, the enemy of the adherents of the true faith. Infidels must die that true believers can go forth and multiply. Haven't we been doing that since the beginning of what we recognize as civilization? It reminds me of US Army general, Boykin, who took the stage (in full uniform) and told the assembled evangelicals that his god, Christ, was more powerful than the god of Islam and, hence, must prevail. The guy appeared in uniform and said that to the crowd and wasn't immediately cashiered. Amazing.

      Delete
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