The Guardian: Climate Denial is an Extreme Form of Avocado Buyer’s Guilt

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

According to The Guardian, people who reject the idea we are in the midst of a climate emergency may be suffering an extreme form of the kind of climate anxiety Guardian readers experience, when wrestling with their conscience over whether to purchase an avocado.

‘Hijacked by anxiety’: how climate dread is hindering climate action

A growing school of psychologists believe the trauma of the climate crisis is a key barrier to change

Jillian Ambrose 
Energy correspondentThu 8 Oct 2020 17.00 AEDT

You’re browsing in a supermarket and fretting mildly about the air miles of some green beans. Or you’re daydreaming of that island holiday you deserve once the pandemic has died down but worrying about whether you should be flying.

Maybe nothing you do will matter anyway.

They call it climate anxiety – a sense of dread, gloom and almost paralysing helplessness that is rising as we come to terms with the greatest existential challenge of our generation, or any generation.

“As that trauma is coming to the surface today we see this as anxiety,” she says.

Those left standing in a supermarket unsure whether they should buy an avocado may be suffering from mild eco-anxiety, according to Hickman. “You’re not falling apart but you feel caught in a dilemma.”

In its most extreme form this inability to engage presents itself as a complete denial of the climate crisis and climate science. But even among those who accept the dire predictions for the natural world, there are “micro-denials” that can block the ability to take action.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/08/anxiety-climate-crisis-trauma-paralysing-effect-psychologists

Who would have guessed that our repressed feelings of extreme guilt for enjoying the occasional chicken avocado salad are what drive us to reject the climate emergency?

The only question, should we seek a resolution to our repressed anxiety by cutting back on Avocado consumption, in the hope that the intensity of our climate guilt recedes sufficiently that we become consciously aware of it?

Or would it be better to provoke a crisis of conscience which forces us to acknowledge our personal climate anxiety, by eating more Avocados?

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observa
October 9, 2020 4:48 pm

How do you feel about climate change denier as I’m very concerned about your feelings?
https://www.msn.com/en-au/entertainment/news/how-to-talk-to-family-members-about-climate-change-so-they-actually-listen/ar-BB19SfVC
Welcome to Popsugar.

Al Miller
October 9, 2020 5:41 pm

The only thing I worry about is the mental health of those gullible enough to believe in the myth of AGW, and sometimes a little worried about what people think when I fall off my chair laughing out loud at such absurdity in public places.

RockyRoad
Reply to  Al Miller
October 10, 2020 3:25 am

I enjoy pestering my adult children with the silly shortcomings of climate models. It should make them reconsider the popular conclusions but instead I’m supposedly the one out of touch!

navy bob
October 9, 2020 6:41 pm

“Journalism” like this is beyond parody. These people are completely insane.

observa
Reply to  navy bob
October 9, 2020 7:07 pm

Apparently an affliction which projects one’s suffering upon others particularly vulnerable children. There is some hope that the sufferer feels inclined not to have any.

October 9, 2020 8:22 pm

Another wonderful avocado idea I stumbled on

Make spicy guacamole
Hand cut thick bacon, fry crisp, cool

Use the bacon as chips for dipping the guacamole

I won a prize for that one

Reply to  Pat from kerbob
October 9, 2020 9:48 pm

From the American Heart Association ??

Reply to  philincalifornia
October 9, 2020 10:06 pm

From a local radio station

An apron

So proud

And animal fat is good for heart and health

Coeur de Lion
October 10, 2020 12:36 am

I’ve always thought that ordinary mayonnaise with a tiny smidgeon of Mrs Gita’s lime pickle juice stirred in does the job.

Ian Coleman
October 10, 2020 2:44 am

All I can say is, some people are prone to harmful levels of guilt. When I was a child guilt was something I felt whenever I disobeyed my parents. Of course, once I became a teenager, I realized that my parents were people and not God Almighty, and that I had some say over the shape of my own conscience. Now I feel guilt over real sins I have committed on purpose, involving harms to other people, and not things I didn’t do myself, like the violent conquest of Canada’s natives by people from Great Britain and France. The first application of guilt has real consequences for my behavior and the second is just a neurosis.

Tom Abbott
October 10, 2020 5:41 am

From the article: “You’re browsing in a supermarket and fretting mildly about the air miles of some green beans.”

It took me a couple of seconds to realize what he is talking about and then I Busted Out Laughing!

Air miles of green beans! Now there’s something I *never* think about.

To think that there are actually people out there worrying about such things is sad especially when there is no evidence that Human-caused Climate Change is real.

Delusions abound in alarmist climate science.

observa
Reply to  Tom Abbott
October 10, 2020 7:50 am

You need to be a human bean to really appreciate such things-
comment image&exph=816&expw=1024&q=mr+bean&simid=608039418059293889&ck=180A376EAA6064FFE91F43FAB7F9C02B&selectedIndex=0&FORM=IRPRST&ajaxhist=0

October 10, 2020 7:53 am

Way to go Guardian. Only a few revealing pics of celebrities and aliens away from replacing the National Enquirer at the checkout.

ResourceGuy
Reply to  Andy Pattullo
October 11, 2020 1:42 pm

+100

Velcro
October 10, 2020 1:27 pm

We introduced our stockman to the delights of avocado a few years ago. He’s a man of few words
Took a bite in silence, then said -“It looks like green pus. Tastes like it too”

ResourceGuy
October 11, 2020 1:36 pm

In the history of the Long March of the Climate Crusades there was one named Brian who smoked some local weeds and departed from the main path of the other wildebeests. He did find a comfortable job at the Guardian to talk fondly of the others who soldiered on. His story was later glorified into a movie production.