Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova – a psychology handbook produced by the Australian Psychological Society recommends people suffering debilitating distress and helplessness about impending climate doom can recover their ability to function in society by becoming climate activists.
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It is common for people to have very strong feelings about climate change. The reality is actually very frightening. It is not just the phenomenon and threat per se, but the implications of climate change for individuals, human society, all other species, and the planet, that make this such a frightening, confronting and
existential threat and concern. People can feel anxious, distressed, helpless, pessimistic, guilty, angry and stressed, amongst other feelings (Clayton et al., 2017a). How people respond to these feelings is very important. People can react in many unhelpful ways – e.g., by trying to minimise the threat, distract themselves and blame others, or by becoming helpless and resigned to the disaster. A more useful response is to anticipate, identify and manage these feelings so that we can properly accept the reality of climate change and not avoid it. Psychologists call this a skill of emotional self-regulation and it’s an important part of climate adaptation and coping.Learning to cope with the feelings we have about climate change ensures that:
- We don’t try to avoid the problem in order to avoid the feelings
- We don’t become overwhelmed by these feelings or burn-out
- We can keep functioning well in our everyday lives.
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Model the pro-environmental behaviours that you would like other people to take up
What we see people doing matters. Our brains are highly tuned to noticing others’ behaviours and copying them. This happens automatically and often unconsciously.
- Make your pro-environmental behaviour very visible so others can notice it.
- Leave behind as many ‘behavioural traces’ as you can. These are physical signs of the behaviour you engage in, like your bike helmet sitting on your desk signaling that you ride your bike to work.
- Transmit the meaning of your pro-environmental behaviour as well. People are always
seeking the meaning of behaviour and actively interpreting what they see. By explaining the reason for your actions, you give other people another reason to copy them (Harré, 2011).- Attach stickers to cars and letterboxes and other places that communicate your pro- environmental behaviours, like using solar power or a greywater system.
- People are more likely to copy models they see are rewarded (Bandura & Walters, 1977). Highlighting the satisfaction of engaging in a sustainable behaviour is one way of making the reward (in this case, the satisfied feeling) more visible, and therefore more likely to be copied. Also, research evidence very powerfully tells us that internal, self-motivating, reasons for doing things are much more influential and sustainable than external rewards and benefits (Deci & Ryan, 2013). And again, we can see that there are multiple benefits of action, both in reducing our footprint and giving us a sense of inner satisfaction.
Promote norms that ‘everybody’s doing it’ and ‘it’s normal to be green’
- Provide explicit statements about the pro-environmental behaviours that people are already doing.
- The most useful norms are descriptive norms that say ‘everyone’s doing this’ and ‘It’s normal to do this’.
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Challenge climate change denial when you hear it
Psychological research on science denial provides a model, based on inoculation theory, for how to debunk myths about climate change (often spread by misinformation) which cause confusion and uncertainty in the community (Cook & Lewandowsky, 2012).
- Take care not to repeat the myth up front when you are debunking it. This can often reinforce it! Instead, start with the facts.
- Familiarise yourself with the five different
techniques deniers often use to distort facts:
Fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible
expectations, cherry-picking evidence, and conspiracy theories (Diethelm & McKee, 2009).- Use the Fact-Myth-Fallacy approach to correct misinformation (see box below)
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I’m personally horrified that people who are suffering genuine distress because of their climate delusions are being encouraged to engage more fully with the source of their distress. I’m not a psychologist but that doesn’t seem a sensible route to a cure.
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Of course, the “debilitating climate angst” problem was created by the very people pushing the renewables “solution”. A bit circular, no?
Virtue signaling on steroids.
Mental health issues are major contributors to loss of life enjoyment and are a very real threat to overall health and longevity. Suggesting that those with delusions of catastrophe and helplessness should reinforce those delusions and try to spread them to others is like deliberately trying to spread cancer.
I drove my truck to the nursery a few miles from my house a truck-load of trees had just arrived, I bought one, drove home and planted it.
Now I feel better.
Lucky you… I drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry!
Now I need therapy.
“Leave behind as many ‘behavioural traces’ as you can.” Virtual signaling personified.
Cry for the people who “suffer” from this. All 3 of ’em . . .
I recommend anchovies in the fight against stress.
Anchovies? Nah! I detest anchovies! Make it a pizza with everything else, including extra pepperoni, and you’re on!
Oh dear, you and I would have to have half with anchovies and half without should we order a pizza for dinner!
Anchovies?
Why not just eat a box of salt?
Peruvians will be happy with fishing this year. That’s why they will not stress.
The Japanese have a real problem, because another typhoon will attack them this year.
If their apocalypse comes to pass at least it will melt all the snowflakes.
Distressed by rising carbon dioxide numbers? Stop breathing.
This is EXACTLY the same thing as telling those who are terrified of eternal damnation that the “cure” is for them to become Missionaries to the Heathen. Same old game.
Sorry, not the same and religion hating just tells me you’re mean and nasty person.
I was raised, or rather brainwashed, as a Catholic. I cannot tell you how hard it was for me to break loose from the mental fear they instilled in me. It was well into my 20’s. So yes it is the same.
Hard to break away does not make it the same thing. It’s hard to break away from peer pressure in high school but that’s not the same. It’s hard to believe in things others around you don’t, but that’s not the same thing. You blame others because you were imprisoned by your own fears. There are hundreds of things that demand loyalty and use fear and guilt to enforce it. It’s part of life.
PEAR PRESSURE IN HIGH SCHOOL? Not even in the ball park. When you take innocent children at a very young age and instill a fear in their very impressionable minds it is not a prison of their own choosing. Screwing up children’s minds is child abuse and it is done to ensure the future of the church.
Sheri, it IS the same thing. It recruiting people who are vulnerable to the deceit to proselytize for The Cause, just as proselytizing for religious groups is aimed at people who seem to be at loose ends. It doesn’t even have to be ‘to the Heathen’.
The disastrous events at David Koresh’s compound in Texas could have been avoided if he had not intimidated his followers the way he did. Ditto the Jonestown, Guyana, massacre in the 1970s.
My concern here is that those at loose ends who find themselves getting “support” from climate groups like the CAGWers will be persuaded to do things that they would not otherwise think of doing, and I will not speculate on what that may be.
It IS the same methodology. The only difference is the venue: instead of religion, it is science that is being corrupted.
It’s the same methodology used in ALL of life. Advertisers play on the fear of looking different to sell skin disease cures. They instill guilt because you go to the bathroom too much. Sororities in colleges use this. Clubs use it. Parents use this. Heck, Santa Claus uses this.
If we are going to do comparisons, then it should be accurate. It’s NOT just religion and singling out religion is attacking something the person dislikes. Religion is an easy and incorrect scapegoat for how humans behave in many, many areas.
Eric, you are correct. The authors are not trying to help those poor distraught people but to actually get them more involved and more distraught. Their idea is to drive such folks to join more radical movements.
My family was raised to recycle, conserve when and wherever possible. I was brought up in the Conservation movement which began in and around the end of the 19th Century. I use to ride my bike to work. Didn’t own a car that got less than 20 mpg. Living in the SE USA we didn’t use air-conditioning until I was over fifty. I stressed to those that claimed to be environmentalists and my staff that you had to lead by doing; you needed to set an example. It earned me no “brownie points” with those in modern environmental movement. I was still considered Darth Vader, from the dark side and my favorite, probably paid off by somebody. Why? because I expected government agencies, especially mine, to function within the statutory mandates and not to make it up as they went along. When I questioned the making up and misuse of scientific data I became persona non grata in my organization except by our agency leadership. I had long suspected but came to realize that many, if not most, in the environmental movement cared little about the environment and a lot about power. Debating many in my time most didn’t have a clue what they were talking about only parroting back information that some anointed one had fed them.
Of course their real aim is to get people all worked up and then knowing most do not know how or have the time to participate, they simply ask them to donate to the cause instead.
It’s been my experience that psychologists become psychologists because they personally have psychological issues and are try to selfmedicate to understand their own psychological problems. Whilham whatyamacallit (I forgot his last name) the father of psychology and Sigmund Freud were both German basketcases and friitcases full of nutty ideas.
It just dawned on me how much influence we have in our lives that come from old German philosophy and medical ideologies. All from Socialist point of views during their world domination era’s. The majority of our schools have transformed from being church based and community based, to anti-religion and public control indoctrination institutions since WWII. When you take John Dewey and the Frankfurt School that came to the ISA are communist influence of socialism ingrained into our schools…it’s been like an uncontrolled cancer.
Ah, don’t compain about German philosphers to a Dutchman. That’s why we sticked to painting and making cheese.
Sounds pretty messy. Does it come out in the wash?
We can also thank the Germans for Marx and Engels.
I’m assuming you don’t realise those are 2 of the “Philosophers” I was referring to and that they are considered “philosophers” like Hagel whom Marx built his socialism philosophy from.
Here’s a thought.
Why not just tell them the truth?
The BoogeyMann is nothing to be afraid of.
There is a physical part of the brain that gives you a rush called an epiphany, when something happens that supports your belief system. Some psychologist in Chicago has been studying converts to extreme Islam and has found that it is a physical, NOT emotional, occurrence. It creates something similar to a physical ecstasy (not the drug, no), like a drug-induced high or a rush, which allows the conversion to be complete.
From what I”m seeing, this is what these people are looking for – a need to “believe in Other”, some invisible something that they can’t see. But they aren’t getting the “rush” that they’re expecting, which in my view is why they are having these mental issues.
There is a need in humans to believe in the Unseen. Charlatans take advantage of this all the time, frequently causing a great deal of harm. Unfortunately, since most of the people who are teetering on the edge of this climate belief system**, they have nothing else to fall back on including a family history of religion, and are gullible enough to listen to quacks like Gore and Lewandosky. The result is this anxiety about something, some amorphous, insubstantial thing, over which they have no control.
Any shrink at any level who thinks it is even vaguely ethical to encourage this betrayal of trust should be exposed and brought to bear for it. It is completely despicable to take advantage of anyone this way.
**By ‘climate belief system’, I am including the proselytizing and recruiting, presenting quacks as trustworthy, and demanding a belief in both questionable and fraudulent statements. If you think it is not a belief system, then try observing people who were NOT believers and later became ‘believers’ in both an evangelical religion and this climate belief system. They’ve gone from being uncertain and morose, to grinning ear to ear and ecstatically happy.
A few years ago I had an online argument with a devout atheist – that has an establishment and a following of other atheist – that her belief system and trying to convert people to be atheist and anti-religion, is the definition of a religion. The argument started over an article about tax exemptions, when the IRS was targeting conservative groups in the 2011 campaigning for the 2012 election.
Every “socialist” ideology is based upon Marxism that is anti-religion, because it conflicts with the State being the religion the population is to have all faith and fealty with it. This is where the Leftist hate the Constitution of the United States of America that protects religious freedom and the freedom of speech. It’s also why these leftist don’t have any problems with Islamic Fascism that their religion is also their form of government and see them as allies against capitalism and for greater government control over the population.
The Environmentalist organizations are like a religion in the same ways. And they have their radicals and/or zealots that will terrorize those that they feel are not living to their standards. They hold their beliefs so strongly that it’s a 24/7/365 obsession that mankind is destroying the planet and have to be stopped. No amount of proof to prove them wrong will enter into their minds and you’re a heretic if you even suggest they’re wrong.
Correction, Australian Pathological Society.
Why would anyone expect (1) rational thought from a bunch of psychologists and (2) actual useful treatment of mental problems. In the USA, kids are encourage to undergo hormone therapy and surgery so they can be “in the right body”, not the one they were born with. That’s encouraging mental illness. So is the gender garbage. However, if you want to control people, leaving them mentally ill and not able to function is a great way to go. Encouraging useless behavior that may make things worse makes sense. All of this makes sense if it’s not about helping humanity.
Filling my Silverado crew cab with gas and going for a drive makes me feel great. Put over 700 km on one day just driving in the rural areas around Winnipeg, my wife and I had an absolutely great time that day, out exploring.
J-E-T-S…Jets, Jets, Jets….oops wrong sport.
Above all, signal your virtue in as many ways as possible.
Or maybe these imbeciles could read up on the Scientific Method, or actually take a science course.
Cancel – On second thought, these twits are far too stupid to understand basic science.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/08/25/why-i-dont-deny-confessions-of-a-climate-skeptic-part-1/#comment-2439227
[excerpt]
ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD:
Richard Feynman on The Scientific Method (1964)
https://youtu.be/0KmimDq4cSU
at 0:39/9:58: ”If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong.”
At 4:01/9:58: “You can always prove any definite theory wrong.”
At 6:09/9:58: “By having a vague theory, it’s possible to get either result.”
THIS IS THE “CLIMATE CHANGE” ALARMISTS’ DECEITFUL STRATEGY:
“By having a vague theory, it’s possible to get either result.” – Richard Feynman
“A theory that is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific.” – Karl Popper.
The “Climate Change” hypothesis is so vague, and changes so often, that it is not falsifiable and not scientific. It should be rejected as unscientific nonsense.
The “Runaway Global Warming” hypothesis is at least falsifiable, and IT HAS BEEN ADEQUATELY FALSIFIED:
1. By the ~37-year global cooling period from ~1940 to 1977;
2. By “the Pause”, when temperature did not significantly increase for almost two decades, despite increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations;
3. By the absence of runaway global warming over geologic time, despite much higher CO2 concentrations;
4. By the fact that equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures have not increased significantly since ~1982, and corresponding air temperatures increased largely due to the dissipation of the cooling impact of two century-scale volcanoes – El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991+;
5. By the fact that CO2 trends lags temperature trends by ~9 months in the modern data record, and by ~~800 years in the ice core record, and the undeniable reality that the future cannot cause the past.
In summary, there is no real dangerous global warming or wilder weather crisis. In fact, increasing atmospheric CO2 certainly improves plant and crop yields, and may cause some mild global warming, which will be net-beneficial to humanity and the environment.
Regards, Allan
__________________________________________________________
Global warming and climate change alarmism, in a few decades at most, will be regarded as a mass delusion, and its leaders and its followers will be widely regarded as scoundrels and imbeciles.
Quotations from the following text, written in 1841, will be cited in their epitaphs.
“EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF CROWDS”
Charles Mackay (1841)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds
Quotations:
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
“Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder’s welcome.”
Or, better still, read up on the actual science and be COMPLETELY CURED 😀!
Global Warming Derangement Syndrome.
Now apparently in California, “Trump Derangement Syndrome” qualifies as a diagnosis for long term disability. How long before “Global Warming Derangement Syndrome” also qualifies?
Now that 97.3 percent of the population have it, GWDS must not be denied!
But shrinks can’t recommend that their clients “wake up and smell the ruses”—i.e., shed warmist doctrine. That would scandalize their peers and superiors, and bring down a twitter storm on them.
Psychological research on science denial (Cook & Lewandowsky, 2012)
Once you see Cook or Lewandowsky referenced, or as authors, it should immediately go in the garbage where it belongs.
The G.E. Séralini (GES) of climate.
[In French, GHG is GES (gaz à effet de serre).]
Alfred Hitchcock material. Now they’re planning to declare people insane if they question the science. The inmates are in charge of the asylum.