“We can’t yet imagine the positive future”
Ms van Bronswijk, we know everything about the climate crisis: what is causing it, how to fight it. Why aren’t we getting the climate protection thing done anyway?
Because we are human. And people aren’t always as rational as we’d like them to be. We make our decisions based on emotions and our brain is subject to misconceptions. In evolutionary terms, our thinking is made for acute threats. We are prepared for the saber-toothed tiger that suddenly jumps out of the bush. With long-term thinking, mistakes creep in again and again.
What are these misconceptions?
We fill knowledge gaps with things that fit our worldview. And if a person’s world view is perhaps rather conservative, they classify information for themselves in such a way that it does not conflict with this attitude. This is not ill will or stupidity, but the normal behavior of our brain. Others fall into the optimism trap. They assume that the bad thing that the climate crisis brings with it will not affect them personally.
Is personal concern absolutely necessary for people to do something about the climate crisis?
People are primarily moved by things that are close to them, spatially, temporally and socially. Many people in Germany feel sorry for global injustice. It contradicts their canon of values. But injustice, which is happening to me here and now, will make me act ever more strongly.
