Feelings of despair about the climate crisis has become so commonplace that “eco-anxiety” is now an emerging field in psychology. Apocalyptic of visions in the near future are prompting some families not to have children. The drumbeat of troubling climate news can lead to doom paralysis.
That was me until just recently – worried about nieces and nephews and the mass of people losing hope on a downward scale. Now I look at it differently. It’s destiny that major climate changes are coming. But what about the successes we don’t celebrate enough. For example, a move away from oil to electrical.
Picture a kid’s hockey game in the Westmeath Arena where the opposing team Beachburg is many goals ahead of the Warriors. It’s impossible to catch up but it’s not impossible for the Westmeath players to enjoy participating and doing their best until the final whistle.
It’s easy to feel pessimistic when scientists around the world are warning that climate change has advanced so far. Societies will either transform themselves to adapt or be transformed. There is always reasons for optimism if you search for them. If only the existing solutions could be nudged a little faster to help people adjust to impacts of climate change that can’t be avoided.
As the uneven effects of global warming are tackled, there is a unique way of giving legal rights to rivers, forests and ecosystems and how they will help. Even the most eco-savvy are likely to learn something by nature combating climate change.
From the industrial revolution to the rise of social media, societies have undergone fundamental changes in how people live and understand their place in the world.
Some transformations are widely regarded as bad, including many of those connected to climate change.
People often resist transformation because their fear of losing what they have is more powerful than knowing they might gain something better. The status quo bias – explains individual decisions, like sticking with incumbent politicians to not enrolling in retirement or health plans even when the alternatives may be rationally better.
As more people experience the harms of climate change firsthand they may begin to realize that the future inevitably involves more and larger climate-related transformations. The question is what the mix of good and bad will be in those transformations. If greenhouse gas emissions are allowed to continue at a high rate and communities adapt only incrementally to the change, the transformations will be mostly forced and mostly bad.
For example, a riverside town with levees adaptable as spring flooding worsens. At some point the levees necessary to hold back the water may become too expensive or so intrusive that there isn’t any benefit of living near the river. The community may wither away.
The riverside community could also take a more deliberate and anticipatory approach to transformation. It might shift to higher ground, turn its riverfront into parkland while developing affordable housing for people who are displaced by the project.. Simultaneously, the community can shift to renewable energy and electrified transportation to help slow global warming.
Optimism resides in deliberate action.
The IPCC reports include numerous examples that can help steer such positive transformation.
For example, renewable energy is now generally less expensive than fossil fuels, so a shift to clean energy can often save money. Communities can also be redesigned to better survive natural hazards through steps such as maintaining natural wildfire breaks and building homes to be less susceptible to burning.
Costs are falling for key forms of renewable energy and electric vehicle batteries.
Land use and the design of infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, can be based on forward-looking climate information. Insurance pricing and corporate climate risk disclosures can help the public recognize hazards in the products they buy and companies they support as investors.
No one group can enact these changes alone. Everyone must be involved, including governments that can mandate and incentivize changes, businesses that often control decisions about greenhouse gas emissions, and citizens who can turn up the pressure on both.
Efforts adapt to mitigate climate change have advanced substantially in the last five years, but not fast enough to prevent the transformations already underway.
Doing more to disrupt the status quo with proven solutions can help smooth these transformations and create a longer future. More people will be focusing on toxic positivity, the belief that no matter how dire a situation is, they maintain a positive mindset.
