Climate Doom-Ism Isn’t Helping Anybody
All I’ve seen over social media the last few days is how we’re f*cked. How it’s getting hotter, how this will be the coolest summer in the next however many years, how we won’t live long enough to see 2050.
This is terrifying to read.
And this is terrifying to someone already working in the sustainability space, let alone for someone who has not yet dipped their toe into the water and has no idea what action to take.
Most of these posts I saw had no actionable steps. Just scary facts and doom-isms.
These kinds of posts don’t create change.
It’s time to change the way we speak about the climate crisis.
The Problem With This Climate Doom-Ism
Climate change for most of the Global North is intangible and abstract, we don’t usually experience rising sea levels or prolonged droughts, and we aren’t observing melting glaciers or forest fires.
The recent summer heatwave was one of the first times many of us felt the real effects of climate change as it was inescapable. You can ignore predictions of rising temperatures but a heatwave can’t be avoided.
But this also brought about an astonishing amount of doom-mongering headlines and social media posts.
Research has shown the least effective behavioural motivator is fear. When people feel fear, they go into fight-flight-freeze mode, this is not helpful in the fight for our earth.
If they fight: People will often turn to extreme activism to the point where they experience burn-out, often causing them to give up the cause.
If they flight: People will bury their heads in the sand and refuse to believe things are as bad as predicted. This is where climate denial and climate avoidance comes into play.
If they freeze: People freeze when they feel out of control. When we feel out of control we become brooding and unresponsive. This creates resistance and inaction.
Doom-ism demotivates and delegitimises us.
Why should any corporation or government listen to our demands if it’s too late to act? We need to shift the global message to show that there are answers to climate change.
This narrative is not representative of the scientific consensus, change can happen.
We Need Climate Optimism
The former Executive Secretary, Christiana Figueres, for the UN calls herself a “stubborn optimist” when it comes to climate change.
We have two options when it comes to climate change. Take action or die. It is that simple.
The climate crisis is one of the biggest struggles humanity has ever, and probably will ever, face. Hope beats fear, it’s the only option we have.
Solving climate change will involve transforming our industries, changing our daily actions, and inventing new ways to live. The science to combat climate change already exists, we just need to use it.
Be critical of the media you consume. Bad news always dominates the headlines because it sells, but we’re also drawn to it. An experiment found participants were drawn to stories with negative tones rather than positive ones, this in turn gains more clicks and tells journalists and the media that this is the kind of content we want to see.
We can format these articles in a way to still tell the truth, but with an actionable spin to avoid hopelessness. Good news exists, you just don’t get to see it.
We have to avoid creating fear-mongering and doom-ism content. We need to stop assuming it’s too late. We need to safeguard those most affected by climate change.
We also need to start advising people on what to do. People are looking for the answers, for actions to take, for guidance on how to eat, buy, vote, and travel.
Because otherwise we’re just pushing more anxiety into the world and that doesn’t save our earth.
Actions You Can Take Today
I know the best way to reduce my climate anxiety is by taking action. Here are some ways you can take action right now to help our earth.
Tell your Member of Parliament your thoughts on climate change. Here’s the best way to contact your MP.
Join a local group that focuses on climate activism. Find one through Climate Action.
Ditch the meat. Veganism is the number one climate-friendly diet.
Switch to a green bank. Banks and pensions often hold your money by investing them in fossil fuel companies, switch to a greener bank to stop this from happening.
Climate change doom-ism isn’t the answer, encouraging people to take action is.
