Step 4: Breaking through Denial and Pursuing Reasonable Solutions
In Step One of the Climate Change and Global Warming cycle of denial we saw how Corporations pour money into shadowy and questionable campaigns that push their self interest in denial. Then, in Step Two, we noted how a specific and coherent set of suppositions have formed that, while based on questionable science or cherry-picked facts, refute climate change. Then, in Step Three, we saw how there is a group of people who look to these “facts” that promote denial in order to get comfort since otherwise the uncertainty proves psychologically overwhelming.
So we now create a new step that does not exist or is not yet strong enough, a step that aims to break through the denial and skepticism about climate change and global warming. This new step must break through the psychological need for some to deny this problem, and/or weaken the efforts of big business who can still pour money into fanning that flame. There are several interwoven ways that this can oocur:
1. Corporations must be encouraged to join the fight against global warming and drop campaigns that promote denial
The motivation for big business and their interests promoting denial and skepticism is a fear that solutions will prove to be too expensive and unwieldy. Business groups think that all-or-nothinng approaches could hurt bottom lines and stifle growth. While a grand goal must be to bring forward the fact that some business groups have used startlingly unethical and dishonest tactics to pursue the promotion of denial, the short-term solution must be to motivate them to stop. To do this, business must be convinced that there are solutions that would not be overly harmful to their bottom lines, or that the long-term effects of climate change will be worse for them.
Many ideas have been promoted that would slow the advance of global warming and climate change. Some have been grand solutions such as international treaties, the best known being the one that would have been signed at Kyoto, Japan. Others have been internal solutions such as carbon “cap and trade” programs for business that would lower the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. In many cases opponents of these grand solutions have made salient points; those against Kyoto have correctly pointed out that it would unfairly ask the larger and more industrialized countries like the U.S. to make large changes too quickly or too deeply while also allowing some larger countries to opt out, and those against “cap and trade” have argued that it might be dangerous to institute such a policy until the economy fully recovers.
Our point here is to welcome this open and honest debate about these and other solutions, while at the same time discouraging the exaggeration of the effects of these solutions that many special interests are promoting. And we are certainly hoping that special interests will stop promoting denial of the entire problem of global warming in order to avoid the debate altogether!
We would also point out that there are solutions to global warming and climate change that are balanced and fair to business interests. For example, even if we don’t want to affect the struggling economy by significantly addressing the amount of fossil fuel we consume, we can still dramatically reduce the amount of trees we cut down each year. Trees absorb carbon dioxide that causes global warming. The ways we can accomplish this are quite reasonable, including: companies replanting as much as they cut down, governments requiring or at least incentivizing the use of more fuel-efficient methods of harvesting, and consumers buying used wooden goods or at least wood certified to have been sustainably harvested. Finally, if tax breaks for oil and gas companies are going to continue, there is no reason tax breaks for companies who plant or replace trees could not exist.
2. The Psychology of Global Warming Denial must be broken
On our “Psychology of Denial” page we explore how for some certainty, cognitive closure, and predictability are strong inner needs. The very idea of global warming threatens those desires and creates a motivation to deny its existence. This denial becomes even easier when the solutions that are being proposed sometimes involve government taking a larger regulatory role, since this group also often has an exaggerated fear of outside groups, especially government, grabbing too much power.
As we also state on the Psychology page, the desire for certainty and predictability are not in themselves bad traits. In this case it is possible that if the Global Warming and Climate Change threats become more real and undeniable, this group could turn toward wanting to fight against this menace that has the potential to disrupt certainty and predictability in a large way. When an enemy is clear and dangerous, most conservatives want to be sure to fight it off, which again is not a bad position. If Global Warming becomes a clearer threat then this reaction could be positive.
Another way to turn the psychology around is to be sure that solutions do not always include government regulation, and certainly do not involve government overreach into the private sector. As much as possible, in fact, private sector solutions should be encouraged. This will tamper the fears of those who worry about big government, and will also help to ensure that the companies involved in solutions to global warming will create at least some if not all of any jobs or revenue lost by the companies hurt by the solutions.
Change can be effectively created if denial is replaced by a desire to tackle a problem that is a more logical and present threat than what many unrealistically fear. Getting big business on board early as partners in this fight, and then respecting private sector solutions is a large part of the solution.