Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to sustainability PHD candidate Barbara Jane Davy, public nature veneration rituals and dedicating time to appreciating ancestors help people stick to the climate friendly life choices which deep down they really want.
How gratitude for nature can rein in your existential angst about climate change
April 8, 2021 2.24am AEST
Barbara Jane Davy
PhD candidate, environment, resources and sustainability, University of WaterlooWe’re all going to die. This is the repeated warning about climate change in some media: if we don’t change our ways we face an existential threat.
So why haven’t we got a policy solution in place? Reducing emissions is in our best interest, but despite widespread popular support for government action, implementing policies and programs continues to be difficult. Social science research shows that the more we hear about climate change, the less inclined we are to take action.
…
However, participating in rituals that inspire gratitude for nature can reduce the desire to over-consume — and thus reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change. My research indicates that unconscious motivations and ritual practices may be more effective in shifting our behaviour than rational argumentsin the fight against climate change.
…
When talking about environmental concerns, avoiding the use of economic language such as costs and drawing attention to gratitude can help keep environmental values top of mind instead of triggering the psychological effects that stimulate consumerism.
Expressing appreciation for what we have been given and publicly sharing our gratitude inspires a sense of contentment that makes people want to give in turn. Practices of praising ancestors (ancestor veneration) are surprisingly pro-environmental because they prompt people to want to pass on what they have been given rather than consume more themselves.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/how-gratitude-for-nature-can-rein-in-your-existential-angst-about-climate-change-156840
Some of the most fanatical climate activists I have encountered were raised as Christians, but somehow lost their faith. They cling to the increasingly ritualised climate quasi-religion, in a futile attempt to fill the God shaped hole in their lives.
Update (EW): The picture at the top of the post is from the 1973 version of The Wicker Man. Below is one of my favourite scenes from the 1973 Wicker Man, in which Willow (Britt Eckland) torments the buttoned up police officer Neil Howie (played by Edward Woodward). Trigger warning involves nudity.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This lady has to be called “Napoléon”ne, coming from “Waterloo” (University) – lost the fight 😀
Stupidity can’t be stopped…..
Isn’t it Waterlxx?
I could see going to the event pictured, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t notice anything they are blathering about.
It would be better if they’d get on with the game of strip poker and then roast some meat over that fire. And send the lady in her nightgown out to get some beer and wine.
Problem is you would be the roast meat. All that excitement, in the movie at least, required more than a little dancing.
What movie ?
The Wicker Man. 1973 version, I couldn’t get into the remake, just wasn’t as good.
I viewed the remake, didn’t know of the original. The trailer looks interesting.
Nic Cage punching out a woman in a bear suit?
And you must have liked The Bees?
Oh.
No.
Not the bees.
There must be a Vincent Price one without a fire?
Back in the day when we, as a species, venerated “nature”, we didn’t understand it and tried to explain a short, painful life as down to ‘the Gods’ and hence, sacrificed, chickens/goats/virgins to various deities.
Now, after we’ve cracked accessing high density energy sources, we’ve dramatically increased our survival rates/expectancies/fun and we are at the bleeding edge of living on our Earth and exploring other worlds.
This lot want us back in yurts and dead at 40. Perhaps they could show us the way.
The special people always have a long list of reasons why they need to keep their privileges in order to properly serve the people.
“…serve..” the people.”?
Try “… service …” the people – if you’ve lived in cattle/dairy country.
In Commifornia the schools are beginning to teach the kiddies how to pray to the Aztec god of human sacrifice; perhaps they aren’t planning on waiting until we reach 40!
I’ve never thought of human sacrifice by fire and beating heart removal as a “public nature veneration ritual,” but perhaps my edumacation was lacking something that Ms. B.J. Davy found especially fulfilling!
It’s fully explained in Mel’s film.
You just need a Mayan phrase book.
Planned population schemes are indeed forward-looking and take on a progressive air when compliance is ostensibly voluntary. The mortal gods and goddesses are pleased. Secular incentives for the “good” people.
well Prince phillip just died…
so we find out if he can return as covid0.2 to knock the rest of us off…
I’ve read that after they murdered their sacrificial victims they cooked and ate the bodies. Primitive life was a horror.
It is interesting that the ‘yurt’ is building of choice for those railing against such things as patriarchy and misogyny. Wasn’t the yurt also the building of choice for Genghis Khan?
It’s the old paganism in new clothes, with a thin coating of sciency rhetoric to disguise the magical thoughts and the underlying brutality. As a religion, not that attractive to me.
“Yurt”
I thought these people were against cultural appropriation?
Can anyone tell me what the optimum temperature is for the Earth? Can anyone tell me what the optimum CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is?
Thanks for indulging.
David,
That’s SO easy! Optimum temp is about what we have today, maybe a few degrees warmer; optimum CO2 is 800-1,000ppm so all Life can flourish in great abundance! That wouldn’t get us back to the Eocene Thermal Maximum, but it would be close to the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum!
We’re never going to see the halcyon days of the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous; when many modern creatures were evolving, temperate zones extended almost to the poles and the tropics cut a wide swathe around the globe! It is still befuddling to me that a supposedly intelligent tropical species like H. sapiens would actively seek out Ice Age conditions as some kind of benchmark for survival. I’m going to continue to vote for the S.I. Swimsuit Edition; mukluks and parkas are great for hunting snow bunnies but look far better hanging on the coat rack!
There is no optimum temperature for a planet. It could be frozen or have a molten surface and still be a planet. There is no optimum distance from a sun for a planet as any planet will be where ever it happens to be.
There also doesn’t seem to be an optimum temperature for humans as we have adapted to living in all the various climates on this earth, from humid jungles, hot arid deserts, temperate forests, tundra and ice. We also ‘cheat’ by living and travelling inside containers with temperate climate (without rain) anywhere on and off this planet including under the ocean. But I guess you are being rhetorical and I can’ help myself.
Optimum temperature is whatever the watermelons decide they can get away with in their quest to control the sheeple
The optimum earth temperature is whatever it is at this instant, because we are locked into ‘nowism’. (So no more species are allowed to go extinct, but the uncountable ‘gone ones’ are just fine.)
And the optimum CO2 percentage would be at plant starvation levels. That keeps crop production down as far as possible to encourage mass starvation, which would achieve optimum subsistence human population levels – barely enough to support the elites in the lifestyle to which they are entitled.
It really is a cult – the Climate Cult. Prime candidates are people who are relatively well off, and thus have a lot of Climate Guilt they need assuaged. They don’t really want to make any big changes in their lifestyle, though. Cutting back on their lattes, from every day to every other would be “huge”. The virtue signaling and hypocrisy is weapons-grade.
Extinction Rebellion vandalized banks the other day. Could be a win-win.
Jeez! If any more proof was needed that XR are simply off their trolleys.
I am just reading “My Story” by Lorraine Allanson. She stood up against the anti-fracking mob in Yorkshire. Its a self-published book – very good, recommended. If you ever for one moment thought Greenpeace, FoE (and now XR) were the good guys saving the environment she dispels that myth. They are nasty, organised criminal gangs threatening and destroying anyone that dares to disagree with them.
My Story – Ancestral Secrets (ancestral-secrets.com)
I would go so far as to say the eco-loons have most of the characteristics of the brown shirts in the 1930s. They are becoming a very, very dangerous extremist mob and politicians and those in government have sucking been up to them for far too long.
Why were these clowns not arrested for vandalizing the building? Who is going to pay for cleaning up that oily mess? I don’t get why these people are allowed to get away with their antics.
“We’re all going to die” True-ish
Lies are often in what you don’t say.
Didn’t most of our ancestors in antiquity die between the ages of … 30-35 ?
About half the lifespan of modern humans in the first world. People’s who ancestors created societies that “earned” the longer lifetimes for themselves, and their progeny with hard work, ingenuity, and cultural maturity?
There were a lot of diseases and conditions that took many infants and children. It could be a rough life. Childbirth was quite dangerous and even simple injuries like broken bones often led to death.
But a lot of people lived long lives, for instance Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson lived well into their 80’s.
Sendergreen
You asked, “Didn’t most of our ancestors in antiquity die between the ages of … 30-35 ?”
No! The average life expectancy at birth was about “one generation,” but that was because so many women died in childbirth, men died in interminable wars, and children died from all the diseases they had not yet acquired an immunity to. Those who made it past the dangerous years of childhood and their early twenties, often lived long lives. But, only the lucky and toughest became elderly.
Harrison Brown wrote a book called The Future of Mankind, which contained a graph that suggested that any woman in the first-century AD North Africa who made it to what today is retirement age, could expect to live longer than her modern cohort.
Wow. My first glimpse at “Climate Porn”
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x35x301
(from the 1973 Wicker Man – the woman Willow tormenting the straight laced character played by Edward Woodward, who wants to stay true to his fiancé)
Not buying it, lot of my kids ancestors (on my wife side, my lot is perfectly ok) may have been colonial usurpatators or even, god forbid slave traders.
I take it your wife doesn’t read your comments :-).
I’ve never delved too deep into my ancestors. Half or them come from a slave trading part of Britain, and though I look white, my skin never burns in the sun, and tans very easily.
Oh, you must be descended from the Romans who once ruled Britania.
My English ancestors came from the Fens. There’s a tale they could measure 12 inches before the time of rulers.
The ancestors of Sasquatch?
Something like that.
Scissor,
Are you familiar the Vaughn Williams work, “In the Fen Country?” A truly great 20th Century composer!
Just now. Thank you.
Gimme six!
On both hands?
Auto
Just asking . . .
From Liverpool? Or, rather, the Wirral?
Yep. Long line of ancestors who stuck to brigandage and larceny, and avoided most of the gloriously fatal noteworthy events in history.
I’ve traced my family back to the 15th Century.
Some of them were highly likely to be involved in the slave trade, although prior to the African slave trade. Some of the documents I’ve found clearly label people as slaves although this could have been a different name for servants.
Slavery is without doubt wrong and immoral and should be condemned, especially modern slavery, but we also have to recognise many of the people who were slaves were sold into slavery by their own people.
I’m not exactly clear why it’s necessary to get nekkid to remember Granny and Grampa. I find it easier to look at old photographs.
However, I would like to audit that class. Their field trips look interesting.
If you watch The Wicker Man, might change your mind, people sometimes didn’t return from their field trips…
Thems is not actually nekkid.
If you zoom in to 300% it should be apparent.
Yep 🙂
I zoomed in 1000% and you can really tell.
LOL 🙂
I only subscribe, to read the articles.
Just don’t let Joe “sniffer” Biden near that lot.!!!!
The author:
Barbara Jane Davyarbara Jane Davy researches how religion and unconscious or nonrational factors influence human relations with the environment. She holds a PhD in religion from Concordia University, and is currently a PhD candidate in environment, resources and sustainability at the University of Waterloo. Her current research focuses on ritual, environmental values, and the development of conscience. She is the author of Introduction to Pagan Studies and editor of the three volume collection Paganism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies.
Her teaching experience and interests are in the areas of religion and ecology, ecology and mental health, sustainability thought, and Big History. She has taught at Concordia University, Carleton University, and the University of Waterloo.
All said – trash
“Expressing appreciation for what we have been given and publicly sharing our gratitude inspires a sense of contentment that makes people want to give in turn.”
How exactly does she express appreciation for the Industrial Revolution, which created almost all of what we have been given?
Or for the Enlightenment that has given us all of our humane values?
More better than faculty parking =
That’s Green with a capital ‘G’. That said, go green, emit. Release the hydrocarbons, and don’t sacrifice the babies. Extinction Repudiation.
As well they should be!
I wonder who pays her to produce this sort of hogwash or why the public allows their tax to be squandered this way?
Taxpayers “allow” such insanity because most are too busy trying to make ends meet to pay close attention to such things. That is why we elect representatives to take care of legislative activities. We are obviously doing a poor job of selecting our legislative representatives. How else would the likes of AOC get elected?
This all started when equality of opportunity was replaced by equality of outcome.
Community activity, especially ritualistic ones, are a form of brainwashing and collective responsibility. You want to eliminate people being able to think for themselves – this is how you do it.
AGW, the official post-Christian faith of Misanthropic Marxist Malthusians.
I was informed recently that we are returning to paganism. I see they were correct.
Hardly. This is new-age hippy dippy, bunny hugging, vegetarian fantasy of paganism. Any pagan ancestors would be horrified at this travesty and deeply insulted. Ancestor veneration it most certainly ain’t.
“Reducing emissions is in our best interest, but despite widespread popular support for government action, implementing policies and programs continues to be difficult. Social science research shows that the more we hear about climate change, the less inclined we are to take action.”
That’s because the more people learn about climate change the more people realise that the proposed remediation is worse than the threat.
Or that the “threat” is most likely contrived.
Also,
“When talking about environmental concerns, avoiding the use of economic language such as costs … can help keep environmental values top of mind … “
Of course … avoid discussions on cost-benefit to keep environment values on top.
Anyone wanting to do serious anti-global warming rituals might like to buy their very own druid temple:
Amazing Australian Stonehenge up for sale for $2.35 million (7 Apr)
One owner, low mileage. Comes with a nice three bedroom house and 87 Ha of land (about 215 acres). And a gift shop in case you want to sell accoutrements like druid sickles and Stonehenge snowglobes.
What happens in Esperance stays in Esperance. And there are plenty of sharks in the water to take care of any loose ends… :-).
Strewth, Mate! This one’s finished!
I await to see the liturgical form that Global Warming adopts.
I’m an Ancestor that needs Venerating by 13 Luscious Lovelies, (I have a desire to over-consume) where can I get a ticket ??
Watch the movie, you might not enjoy the form their “veneration” takes 😉
Who can possibly be against naked girls sitting around a campfire? Hell, to be 16 again.
Hey wait a minute? Where’s the beer? Who forgot to bring the cooler over from the CO2-belching cars sitting 20 yards away (which we used to drive to this campfire that is emitting CO2).
And who is controlling that annoying Drone flying about snapping pictures? Someone take the controller away and give that person a beer.
or on a balcony…https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/12-models-face-jail-time-for-showing-their-butts-on-dubai-balcony-photo/
I would agree with practicing ancestor veneration if it involves throwing “virgins” into an active volcano to save the planet. PhD candidate Barbara first of course.
Sounds like she’s been watching too many “5 go mad in Dorset” sketches.
I see that the quality of PhD candidates/thesis from UofW have gone down since I got mine from that University.
As an aside, the full body shots are a model and not Britt Ekland and Britt’s voice was dubbed in this film because of her Swedish accent. Coincidentally, I watched it online last week and was astonished at the nudity. I saw it on its release and the scene EW has posted was expunged.
The version I watched certainly wasn’t expunged. How odd.
Until fairly recently, Americans were fairly prudish about nudity. Therefore, it has become the custom to substitute gratuitous firearms violence for nudity, and then the Hollywood actors, who have become rich shooting the guns, attempt redemption by virtue signalling their contempt for firearms.
Why do Canadians always seem to be leading whatever parade of stupid is occurring?
I’m just so embarrassed
Well isn’t that all Deeply Culturally Offensive to someone.
This PhD Elitist does realise that mentioning dead people to Australian Aborigines is deeply upsetting. Best this woman cancels herself before the Woke find out about this.
Also, I know it is Eric’s comment, not her’s, but ‘… the climate (friendly lifestyle they) deep down all really want’?
Nope.
Openly and in public they want a climate friendly lifestyle where they can walk barefoot in the grass and pat the small furry animals while they harvest their sustainable Dark Emu roots and berries.
Secretly they want hot and cold running water, electricity to the door, WiFi, floors that aren’t made of dirt, a warm dry bed, bug spray, refrigeration and to be able to travel without walking everywhere.
If people REALLY wanted to connect more with a carbon free lifestyle all they would have to do is refuse to pay their power bill a few times.
Since we are failing to see people willingly take this path in any significant (or even measurable) numbers, it is safe to conclude that NO ONE wants a Carbon Free Lifestyle unless someone else is first going to create it for them.
Wicker Man – if I remember my movie lore correctly, poor Edward had the misfortune in the end of that movie of having some of the animals also ‘on set’ with him get a bit nervous in the bladder department.
Also, according to the legend, they changed the script somewhat late in the day and Edward didn’t have time to fully learn the new lines. So they painted the new lines on massive boards and positioned them carefully out of the long shots. These are claimed to be the biggest que cards in history.
Give this man a cigar!