Pessimism Has Failed Us

"People have to be persuaded to act on climate change even though the benefit won't be felt for decades", says the opinion piece Positive Thinking for a Cooler World from New Scientist.

"It's hard to find any positive messages: a vegan who doesn't own a car, never flies, takes public transport to work and shares a tiny apartment in a US city would still be told that their lifestyle requires 3.3 Earths. It is hard to see what this is going to achieve, other than disillusioning people who are already doing their bit and telling everyone else that it isn't worth the bother."

Often, negative messages don't work to inspire people to change their behavior.    Intuitively, this has always made since to me.  I went in search of more evidence.  I found this UC Berkeley study.

"Doomsday climate change messages may make the public more skeptical about climate change," says this report published by scientists working at the University of California, Berkeley.  "Far from urging people to take action, such bleak and emotionally-charged warnings over the potential consequences of global warming may have the opposite effect, prompting not only ongoing lethargy but also denial."

"Fear-based appeals, especially when not coupled with a clear solution, can backfire and undermine the intended effects of a message," the report warns.

Study participants were asked to read two distinct versions of a single news article about global warming, each presenting the same factual data on climate change.  One presentation concluding with a positive message highlighting the potential solutions to the problem of global whamming, while the other concluded with a 'doomsday scenario'. 

Notably, those participants who read the more-upbeat version of the story tended to express a greater level of optimism in science's ability to tackle the threat of climate change.

At the same time, those participants who were presented with the pessimistic version of the news story were found to be more skeptical about the threat of global warming - they did not simply respond with a more pessimistic view of the problem, they expressed skepticism that the problem exists!

Pessimism doesn't work; it does not inspire us to action.  NGOs I've worked with have known this for some time.  After all, they read Psychology Today while waiting at the dentists office, just like you and I do.  Still, how to approach thorny nasty problems without being pessimistic eludes most of us, even those of us in the world-changing profession.

Clearly, if pessimism has failed us, what we need is a dose of optimism, fun, and cheer.

Or, as my wife says: "when all else fails, be silly."

I will now go in search of silly approaches to the climate change problem.  I'll report back once I'm laughing hard enough.