Guest essay by Eric Worrall
NPR author and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett thinks the reason people don’t care about climate change is most people can’t imagine what 120F feels like. But the reality is that Lisa is demonstrating her personal lack of insight.
Simulating The Bodily Pain Of Future Climate Change
September 23, 20179:03 AM ET
LISA FELDMAN BARRETT
Lisa Feldman Barrett is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University and the author of How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain. You can keep up with Lisa on Twitter: @LFeldmanBarrett.
Close your eyes and imagine a beautiful spring day in the forest. In your mind’s eye, try to see tall, green trees and smell the aroma of blooming flowers. Can you hear the gentle breeze rustling the leaves above you?
Most people can conjure up this mental scene without much effort, at least for a few moments.
Now, imagine that the temperature rockets upward. It’s 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Try to produce, in your mind, the discomfort you’d experience under that scorching sun. I don’t mean just the idea of being hot — actually try to feel the physical sensations of stifling, smothering heat. Can you invoke these feelings on demand?
Most people cannot.
…
If the sensory consequences of climate change are unimaginable to our government officials, what can we do? Perhaps we can help them feel those consequences directly. The next time a city like Las Vegas has a record heat wave, as it did in June of this year (117 degrees F), we could petition President Trump to travel there. Perhaps a three-day stay at Trump International Hotel — with the air conditioning turned off — would be swelteringly educational. Or shall we ask Vice President Pence to visit Nuatambu, one of the Solomon Islands northeast of Australia, where rising ocean levels have washed away half the habitable land and forced families to flee? Let him live there for a month or two. Or maybe Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, should survive on minimal drinking water for a few days, so he can understand viscerally what a drought feels like.
…
What our leaders cannot simulate, they can make themselves feel. All it takes is the courage to do so.
One of my first jobs was working in a poorly ventilated rubber factory, operating hydraulic hot plates to produce pressed plastic products. I don’t have to imagine what 120F feels like, because in Summer I used to experience 120F pretty much every work day. Some days the temperature inside the factory hit 130F.
My experience is hardly unique – anyone who has worked a factory job or mining job in a place with warm summers has likely experienced similar conditions.
My friends tell me that when they worked day shift in the mines in the scorching hot Marble Bar region, with outside air pumped straight in through the ventilation system, 120F would have been welcome relief.
120F simply isn’t terrifying, for anyone who ever experienced similar temperatures on a regular basis. Uncomfortable, moderately unpleasant, but not a reason for panic.
But Lisa obviously doesn’t know any of this. So she creates specious theories within the limits of her personal experience of the world, of why attempts to frighten people about the horrifying climate pain people will experience on a 120F day fall flat; especially I suspect with working class audiences.
The reason people don’t care about c̶l̶i̶m̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ space invaders is most people can’t imagine what 1̶2̶0̶F̶ being zapped by a laser gun feels like
Wow!
What a load of babbling drivel that was,since large areas of the world will NEVER get above 100 F. Her silly essay died immediately.
Meanwhile people living in HOT Phoenix Arizona and HOT Las Vegas Nevada where it is really hot, stay there anyway.
Not only stay they move there from places like Chicago and Buffalo where the January highs average 33 degrees and the lows average around 20. If you are AGW fanatic I expect you believe that people are migrating in large numbers from the south to Alaska. If you believe the AGW stuff you are terrified by the difference in climate between Atlanta Ga and Washington DC. Having moved from Washington to Atlanta the heat did not scare me.
Imagine you’re a Canadian snowbird, and it’s mid January in Montreal, you’re freezing your backside off and you get the news that you’ve won a 3 week all expenses paid trip to Miami, but the temperature there happens to be 120 degrees, so you graciously decline the offer.
I have worked in the summer in a building with a steam boiler, quite warm, thank you. I also was outside on a scorcher of a day on duct work taking data. We had to record the ambient temperature, it was 125F.
NPR? Is it still on air? And as to global warming: Sure, the globe is warming. We are in an interglacial period during which the globe warms up, after it quits warming we are back into an ice age. And: the catastrophists still haven’t explained why CO2 levels alway lag behind temperature increases. Purely political.
It would be helpful if all those posting articles would remember this blog has a world wide audience. The abbreviation NPR is one I never heard of and means nothing to me. Had to go and look it up.
Double click obscure word to highlight, then right-click and select “Search [default search engine] for [selected word/phrase]” from menu. I have to do it all of the time. It’s easy.
I know its easy but if post writers bear my point in mind it wouldn’t be necessary and thus make for a better read ( you don’t have to veer off elsewhere).
“Double click obscure word to highlight, then right-click and select “Search [default search engine] for [selected word/phrase]” from menu. It’s easy.”
I had no idea that this could be done. Easy yes, obvious no.
OK IYSS WDS PDQ
Thanks. I checked PDQ – People Dedicated to Quality.
National Public Radio (NPR), Reverend.
I know, I looked it up!
(United States of America) “national”. I suspect the Russians have a national public radio, UK certainly does and is paid by license fees, and so on.
McIntyre has a useful acronym list at climateaudit.org. I need it from time to time.
Good point.
Yes, there are some snow and ice enthusiasts, but the majority of people in temperate climates go — or want to go warmer regions for vacations. Ideally, the sunny beach somewhere in the tropics. I’ve lived and worked in hot and cold climates and as others have said, warmer is better.
Another academic revealing how their lofty education can fail to provide them any authentic wisdom, common sense, savvy or obligation to honesty.
To be cruel, many of them are simply weirdos, oddballs, creeps and/or chronic dumbshats.
I’m discovering these days that it’s now possible for those with a “lofty education,” certainly a name-brand one, to graduate without the remotest understanding of how human biology even works; hence the popularity of “health” products like Gweneth Paltrow’s “Goop!” (Look it up if you want some laughs).
Lisa has never heard of sauna? It’s a room heated usually +80°C, 176 F, and above. Some people can enjoy it for an hour.
Yes, the regular setup is +80C. Hot sauna is 90 or 100 C. I enjoy it cool, just +50C or +60C warm. I’m afraid my wife beats me in liking hot for long time.
Good reminder. Lisa probably hasn’t heard of a lot of things.
Good example.
What an incredibly quaint and parochial view she has, pretending everyone in the world is as privileged as she is and has actually been to a forest. I think I’d have to explain things to her the way I would to my four-year-old.
One wonders how these simple, backward folk end up as professors at a university. I question both her position and her institution.
As the saying goes: If you can’t do, teach. If you can’t teach, teach teaching.
This professor is completely misreading the way in which societies are moving .
A slight diversion will illustrate what I mean . Uber , a consumer led transport movement has been forbidden a licence to operate in London , in favour of the traditional and very expensive black cabs and in response to heavy union pressure on the London Mayor. Articles in the press suggest that for all the problems Uber has had ( I have never used them and have no connection with them) , it is favoured by millions of users because it synchronises with the technological control that they have to hand , and gives the consumer a choice: public transport , black cabs , unlicensed minicabs or Uber.
The climate action choices that this Professor demands are not in fact choices , but diktats from international; or Govt bodies in which the consumer has little or no say. This is contrary to the way society in countries without obvious oppressive control is moving , thanks to technology, and that is why there is an apparent scepticism amongst the general public.
Good analysis.
Lisa fails at the most basic emotional level by assuming that an increase in the global average temperature will necessarily present itself during the high temps of the summer months. The reality is that (pleasantly) warmer winters and early evening temperatures seems to be where the warming actually happens, if at all. The global temperature range seems to be the same as it ever was. That’s why the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth happened in 1913 and still remains the record.
Yep. Australian records are very longstanding too – not just nationally, but at state levels too. (Cold records, not so much.)
She also ignores the fact that with maybe 1F of unadjusted warming seen in satellite data, that in such a place it would have been 119F without the alleged warming. No one would have been in Death Valley or Marble Bar in summer. And while people may have been in Riyadh anyhow, they’re not walking around the streets.
I went to Bahrain in summer. It was 105F at NIGHT.
Just sit in a sauna. Most people have. They are typically 175F. Look it up. Don’t have to imagine anything.
Well I have to admit I would not like to live in a sauna, not for a day. On the other hand, projected 2 or 3 or even 6 degrees of warming are still pretty far from 175F.
spent one summer during college working in a rather large machine shop. My job was to pull the chips out from under those big old turret lathes and horizontal boring machines. This was up on the east coast where relative humidity would often reach 95% and higher with temps in the 90’s too. later in life, I did masonry work in central Texas, and then worked as a carver in a stone mill–quite similar to the machine shop of my youth. I know what high heat is like, and know that it is easily adaptable to. In fact, the first a/c vehicle I ever bought was in 2000, (my Texas stoneworking career started in72), and for a lot of years did not even live with A/C since the hardest part physically would be going back and forth from the A/C into the heat
It only depends only on the l’atitude of the observer.. Move if you don’t like it where you are. Or it the real question I’d like you to have less than optimal colder because I don’t want hotter …
Some time ago I worked on an oil rig about 120 km east of Derby WA in the Kimberly ranges. It was December, early summer in the build-up to the rainy season. Mostly about 40 C max, but we had a rainy/hot spell where it was 46 C in the shade in the afternoon,and very humid from the intermittent rain. Inside the logging unit we could get the temperature down to 30 C. My job was partly inside in the ‘cool’ 30 C, and partly outside. The drill crew were out in it all the time (shift changes were midnight and noon to share the heat and cool), and when they were busy and I was slack I’d go and re-fill the drink cooler at the camp. On the worst shift our crew of 7 got through 15 gallons of the Staminade. Hard physical work, not sitting on the porch fanning yourself. Nobody keeled over or died, we all just got on with it and looked after ourselves as the conditions dictated.
Definitely no ‘snowflakes’ on that job.
I’ve shovelled a meter of snow off my roof when it was -35C and I’ve shovelled a meter of dirt out of a trench when it was +30C. I’ve seen the temperature “rocket up” by 5C during breakfast. I guess it would come as a surprise to this chirping academic that I CAN imagine an increase of 2-3C over 80 to 100 years… yawn.
I Close my eyes and imagine a beautiful spring day in the classroom. In my mind’s eye, I see tall, green trees and smell the aroma of blooming flowers I Can hear the gentle breeze rustling the leaves and see a room full of attentive faces.
I can conjure up this mental scene without much effort, at least for a few moments.
Can I imagine that scene as a professor spouting about how emotions are made ? I Try to produce, in my mind, the discomfort of mental gymnastics. I don’t mean just the idea of being thick— actually try to feel the physical sensations of being an arrogant other-worldly prig. I cannot invoke these feelings on demand
Most people cannot. So lets defund her. and them.
close your eyes and imagine being retarded. most people can’t – so they listen to NPR!
I spent a few years in Iraq at temperatures around 120-135°F. Not only was it really fricken hot, but then add a Kevlar (~3-4 lbs), Body Armor (~30-35 lbs), ruck (with about 2 gallons water, ~16 lbs), and carrying an M4 (~7.5 lbs) with 210 rounds of ammo (~5.5 lbs) just for added comfort. Was in many buildings without A/C and survived by drinking water, a lot of water (and not getting shot). Now live in AK where it is very fricken cold in the winter often getting down to -40°F in the winter. Operations are so much easier at 120-135°F than they are at -30 to -40°F. Fingers and toes work much better at hotter temps too. Light contract gloves provide protection vice mittens which gives no dexterity. All you have to do is drink A LOT of water and stay hydrated.
Point is I hung out at 120-135°F daily for prolonged periods of time (over 8-10 hours) with a lot of extra weight and wrapped in stuff (long clothes, contact gloves, boots, helmet, body armor) that does not allow sweat to evaporate and cool the body as intended. Way to survive was to drink A LOT of water. I challenge anybody to hang out at -40°F under same conditions for the same time frame without external heat. They will die, quickly.
Heat is not the issue. Cold is. My take.
Well -40C is why we invented sauna, I guess. To melt people.
Frankly some people dig a hole to a lake and start fishing, angling through. In minus 40C.
Yes, they do. And most (all that I have seen) people have a shed over the hole (or on the ice near several holes) that they warm up to 30°F or more which is 70°F warmer than -40°F. I have also started a fire on a frozen river at -40°F to stay warm. Burning wood melts ice the until logs sink under water (about 5″), but the fire stays going on wood which is dry and out of water. Pretty neat actually, a fire on a frozen river.
There is a huge difference between 30°F and -40°F. At -40°F, I can pound a 16 penny nail into a 2×4 with a frozen solid banana. When it gets back up to 30°F, we all start hanging out in shorts, forget about gloves, and some hardy folks actually begin wearing flip-flops.
Not saying people cannot survive at -40°F. However, I am saying without external heat, a person’s time at that temperature is very limited no matter how well dressed a person is (unless doing active work and still hands, feet, and face are at risk). Also, having been at very hot temps (~130-135°F) and very cold temps (-55°F), it is much easier to do work and survive at hotter temps even with a whole bunch of stuff that weighs a lot and prevents cooling via evaporation of sweat.
I had two clinical thermometers blow up in my luggage from heat that left wet tire tracks in the asphalt at Yelwa on the Niger R. in Northern Nigeria (I learned my regular thermometers wouldn’t do!) . I had my wife and two very young children with me (mid 1960s). There was no air-conditioning indoors but sitting having lunch under wafting fans seemed most luxurious.
Nor was the world into the collective OCD of never taking a step without lugging a bandolierr of water bottles. Nigerians I worked with advised only sips of water, about a liter on a day’s geological compass and pace traverse. Rehydrate in the evening on lots of tea and a cup or two at breakfast. He said ‘Bature’ drink far too much water in the heat. I got accustomed to it and became lean wiry and healthy. I haven’t quit yet 50yrs later.
Gary,
I did my Summer Field Mapping for two months in the White Mountains at about 5,000 feet elevation, east of the Owens Valley in California. It was well over 100 every day. I’d carry two canteens and a couple of cans of soda, and get dehydrated every day. I’d then spend the evenings getting re-hydrated. I don’t think that there was any long-term damage to going without a bandolier of water bottles.
You’d probably sweat out as much extra water as the bottles would replace. Water is heavy!
I’ve noticed this getting some fitness up walking in some steep hills. Keeping hydrated during the walk is not a bad thing but it doesn’t help as much as keeping up the fluid intake for many hours afterwards.
Tribe’s have lived in the Amazon under heat and humidity for a long time and adapted and this twit would not last a few day’s there. People adapt to slow changes and fast changes in climate and have throughout history everywhere on our planet. People living in climate controlled buildings most of their lives are whom complain the most when they venture outside where reality hits them.
“Most people” is the 97% science by consensus fallacy restated.
I dehydrated a large fraction of the world’s prunes in 1966. I worked in the engineroom of a Forties vintage steam ship. I walked in the heat in Pinnacles NM and Death Valley.
Took 27 semester hours of various behavioral studies as electives in engineering undergraduate school and during my masters as they were interesting and easy. Only had one really bright professor and he also had his “stuff” together, as we used to say, though not how we said it. He was a psychoanalyst, ie phd, md, clinical psychologist to boot. All of the rest of my behavioral sciences professors were marginally interpersonally adept, at best, and personality basket cases at worst, and none of them, other than him, very bright. This lady fits the mold of what I experienced with rank and file psychology profs. Probably couldn’t find her kiester with both hands and a flashlight.
A friend of mine took a 2-year graduate degree in Psych. She said the first year was mostly no-brainer survey courses with multiple choice exams that nobody could flunk. (To flunk them would deprive the school of tuition.) The second year was group-oriented, with team assignments where incompetent or lazy students were allowed to take a free ride on the more capable students’ work.
The curriculum included a laughably low requirement of 4 hours of personal therapy. I just checked the school’s latest curriculum and discovered that personal therapy is now “highly recommended.” Programs at other institutions have similarly lowered (deleted) the requirement, so this is not unusual in the field.
I pity the unfortunate client who goes for help to a practitioner who should have flunked out of such a program or been given a “Section 8” by a therapist. The standards have been irresponsibly ‘dumbed down’ below a safe level.
I experienced 140 F on the tarmac in Kuwait, but not for long. However I worked in 120 F a number of times, including in Afghanistan.
Notice that in almost every alarmist scare statement, there’s a stack of assumptions which are supposed to be taken as “givens”:
– It’s going to be 120 F. (somewhere? everywhere? now & then? every day?)
– That’s because the climate is getting dangerously warmer.
– That’s because humans are putting “too much” CO2 in the atmosphere
– Reducing CO2 will make the climate stop warming
– If you give governments enough money, authority & power they can “fix” the climate.
There is no evidence for any of these, except the first (barely).