Report of 21 November CA-WN public meeting
This month we welcomed back Dr Emmie Williamson for the second in her series of three talks on Climate Psychology. Her previous talk1 was an overview of the topic; this time she gave us a deeper dive into the psychological roots of our response to the climate crisis.
Emmie’s slides can be seen here2, and a recording of the meeting is on YouTube3.
Present: Leonie Beale, Alexina Cassidy, Teresa Cox, David Garlick, Claudine Howard, Mick Lorkins, Lisa Louth, Carrie Lynn, Harry Mellor, Lynda Moran, Dave Pearson, Sue Pearson, Inani Samad, Faye Spencer, Jane Wood.
Apologies: Christine Ware, Clare Robertson-Marriott, Clare Slater, David Wragg, Jonathan Harris, Peter Nalder, Rupert Knowles
Climate Psychology Part II: A Formulation
Introduction
The previous talk put together the various aspects of Climate Psychology, which is multi-disciplinary, overlapping with culture studies, political science and other areas of study. In that talk EW covered the psychological roots of the climate crisis, as well as responses, impact and approaches. This psycho-social approach encompasses socio-cultural aspects rather than being primarily about the individual.
Today we are focusing on the psychological roots of the climate crisis: why has this happened and how have we got into such a crisis?
The final talk in 2025 will cover psychological impacts, responses and interventions.
Clinical psychologists carry out clinical super formulation i.e. making sense of complex mental health crises. This requires understanding many factors and how they are interacting, including what has happened to the person. This leads to a narrative that helps to understand what comes next. EW is bringing that approach to this talk, as a mental health crisis has parallels with the planetary crisis or ‘meta crisis’.
How to make sense of something as complex as the planetary crisis or meta crisis?
A psychological formulation is how we make sense of something very complex, and includes biological, psychological and socio-cultural aspects and how they all interact.
This requires balancing the individual with the political and cultural context – including all but not giving too much weight to one over another. In some literature this is referred to as a ‘nature-culture continuum’.
A formulation model that is often used is the 5 Ps and this is what EW has used today. Be aware that this is EW’s personal take, not completely comprehensive and not the only way of looking at this.
5ps Formulation Model
· Problem
· Predisposing factors
· Precipitating factors – when the crisis starts to kick in.
· Perpetuating factors – what keeps the crisis going
· Protective factors – how will we get out of the crisis
The Problem
Outlining the problem is not always straightforward, as there may not be agreement about what the problem is e.g. family/friends see substance use as a problem whereas the individual may feel that this helps them cope. Not everyone agrees on climate change as a problem, but those listening to this talk probably do!
We have had 30 years of warnings but in that time emissions have massively increased.
The uptick on the graph (slide 4) starts at the Industrial Revolution and an earlier impact can be seen at the start of the agricultural revolution when humans moved to farming lifestyles. However ‘The great escalation’ has happened since the 1980s.
Climate Silence - Mentioning the climate crisis is often met by an awkward silence: people don’t want to talk about it. It’s also the case in the media with catastrophes happening all over the globe which are not very comprehensively reported whereas some quite trivial things are covered in detail.
Predisposing factors
EW recommends a George Marshall book – Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change 4, as very accessible.
Predisposing factors for the climate crisis include:
· Going back in human evolution, were we destined to explore, exploit and overshoot? Evolution selects for things that favour species expansion and exploitation is what any species does if there are a lot of resources, resulting in ecological overshoot. We are overshooting by far.
· The ‘Hope Principle’ or continual desire by humans for a better life.
· Risk perception. We seem to have a faulty alarm that doesn’t detect complex, slow moving or distant threats.
· The climate crisis can be defined as a ‘Hyperobject’ – something that is too massive and happening too slowly for us to take on mentally.
· Cognitive biases such as the bias towards conformity, the bystander effect, and confirmatory bias, where we confirm what we want to believe by selecting evidence which supports this.
· Disconnection from nature. This dates back to the agricultural revolution when we began to see nature as something to be used.
· Cultural and/or religious beliefs that humans have ‘dominion’, superior to and separate from nature rather than part of a larger ecosystem.
· Belief in external gods. Some cultures do still have beliefs in the interbeing and internal ’divine’ that we are all part of, rather than having an external god. An external god means we are worshipping something outside ourselves, instead of a nature which we are part of.
· The Enlightenment, when rationalism and empirical science became dominant. This had many positive effects in terms of advancing human civilisation, but the focus on measuring and observing meant a move away from the more expansive aspect of our psyche.
· The divided brain. Book by Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World5. This talks about the nuanced relationship between the 2 hemispheres of the brain and the reciprocal interaction between the brain and culture.
The right hemisphere is about open attention; whole picture thinking; threat detection and vigilance and can be thought of as the more instinctive and emotional part of the brain. This used to be considered the master and the emissary was the part of the brain that would execute what was needed to be done. Human evolution to focus on categorisation, words and language required very focused attention rather than the open attention of the right brain. The brain is very plastic, meaning it can evolve and change rapidly (epigenetics). The book suggests that the culture of rationalism means the left brain has become the master and inhibits the right brain (both sides are capable of inhibiting each other).
Precipitating factors
In mental health this can be a distinct event such as sudden trauma; in the case of the climate crisis these are:
· The discovery of fossil fuels, providing access to huge amounts of energy.
· Greed and power seeking. Lots of things have been made possible by fossil fuels but escalation of use has been at least partially driven by greed.
· Advertising
· Digital media
· Neoliberal culture and capitalism. A key book on this is by Sally Weintraub, Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis6, about neoliberal exceptionalism and the culture of ‘uncare’. Neoliberalism has prevailed since the 1980s and the expansion of capitalism and privatisation. This created a demand for profits and the need to consume.
· This is connected to exceptionalism and individualism. We can all see ourselves as an exception at times, so exceptionalism is in all of us, when we are inclined to let ourselves off the hook. This is particularly prevalent in some sections of society that are not at all reflective about how they are behaving; a cultural phenomenon of entitlement, narcissism and individualism.
· Compulsive consumption and culture of comparison. Everything is designed to be addictive and drive conspicuous consumption, with people made to feel ashamed if they don’t or can’t consume at the same level.
· Competition orientation and masculinisation (meaning masculine and feminine traits generally, not men or women). Our culture is becoming full of more masculine traits such as aggression and domination.
· The culture of uncare is also growing. Uncare is a key concept behind value systems which mean ‘women’s’ or domestic/care work is seen as valueless whereas financial services and digital services are seen as high value and highly paid. People are disconnecting from others as well as from nature.
· Domination-orientated culture, compared with partnership- orientated culture. Goes along with increasing autocracy and masculinisation, not caring about the softer aspects of life.
Perpetuating factors
· Conscious and unconscious psychological defences. There can be absolute denial that the climate crisis is happening or that it is caused by humans, or a softer form of denial. This will be covered in more detail in the next talk.
· Devaluing of the humanities, philosophy, critical thinking and certain right brain types of art. These don’t lend themselves obviously to profit and so it is more difficult for universities to make a business case to offer them. Whereas as a society we need the humanities, critical thinking and spirituality.
· Algorithms and AI.
· Rise of conspiracy theories. There were conspiracy theories being spread that images from the recent Spanish floods were AI generated. Increased polarisation and ‘certainty’; people being very invested in a set of beliefs. Again a very left hemisphere way of thinking. The current move away from X with a lot of people going to Bluesky may mean there will be one platform for leftist thinking and one for more right-wing views.
· Increasing levels of trauma in global society, including being traumatised through the media. Trauma affects our sympathetic nervous systems leading to a fight or flight response. Emotional neglect happens at some level due to disconnection of emotions and feelings from the conscious thinking mind. This results in being out of touch with our own and others’ feelings.
· Increasing levels of emotional dysregulation. This tends to underpin every crisis. Regulation is being calm; emotional dysregulation means losing that calm and fluctuating between disassociation, therefore not reacting, and hyper arousal/ overreaction.
· Reduced mentalising and reflective capacity and empathy. Mentalising is subliminal understanding of how other people’s minds work - when you’re with other people you pick up how they are thinking and anticipate what they might do. This needs calmness to work, otherwise we interpret other people incorrectly, increasing levels of paranoia and reducing empathy.
· The Window of Tolerance. The zone in which we can think calmly and wisely is getting squeezed, so we are more likely to be over-active or distressed, or alternatively numb and unmotivated.
· Reaction Formation, or going to the opposite extreme. For example the Sycamore Gap tree cut down, and reports of EV chargers having their cables cut. Vandalism is not new but this is increasing. It appears that care, love and good things are eliciting violence, vandalism and very angry ‘anti woke’ reactions.
· Discourses of climate delay. The graphic shows how narratives in the media being encouraged or spread by self-interested parties are used in the service of power. Examples are redirection of responsibility (‘whataboutism’); claiming that disruptive change is not necessary or that we don’t need to go too fast; talking about action but not doing anything; emphasising the downsides (‘we’ll go back to the Stone Age’). Surrender and doomism also prevent action by claiming change is impossible.
· Discourses concerning what is means to be concerned about climate change – making people feel they are peculiar for being distressed about climate breakdown, or diagnosing it as a mental health problem.
· The human brain struggles with the concept of incurring certain short-term loss to mitigate against an uncertain long-term loss:
o People don’t want to lose their way of life or status
o Don’t want to feel bad about what they are doing
o Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable so we try avoid it by not acknowledging the consequences of our actions
o It’s easy to accept the diversion offered by powerful elites to scapegoat elsewhere. Entertainment is another major diversion. There’s a view that we are entitled to be happy and entertained.
· The rise of the ‘Strong Man’ in politics exploits all these tendencies
· Recommended film – The Age of Stupid7.
Protective Factors
Identifying protective factors is vital in thinking about what needs to happen.
Sometimes talking about what needs to happen or visions of the future can be met with unhelpful cynicism or doomism. However we need to focus on optimism or deep radical hope:
· In catastrophes people ‘pull together’ and have pride in their community.
· Localism and de-globalisation trends. Supply chains are beginning to fail. It used to be seen as protectionist for countries to favour local supply chains but now this may be essential. Powers needs to be devolved to local communities and councils – not just rely on top down change
· Deep adaption; strategic adaption. A lot of this is psychological – deep acceptance and connecting with others.
· Positive social tipping points, where enough people acting in a certain way leads to those behaviours taking off.
· ‘Lively entitlement’ – being entitled to a compassionate government, and to quality of life
· Protest movements, these are under threat but very much needed. It takes a lot of courage to protest.
· Mushrooming of climate action groups (e.g. CA-WN!). This type of community engagement provides support and validation.
· Scholarly analysis, including a book, Culture, Environment and Ecopolitics, edited by David A Wragg and Nick Heffernan8. Multi-disciplinary approach is growing, with complex critical thinking.
· Climate science and climate psychology.
· Education, for example Carbon Literacy training, which is being offered locally, including by CA-WN (there will be another course in the first half of 2025)
· Methods of communication are being better understood, for example the importance of a positive change narrative (covered in the George Marshall book). Facts are not enough, we need storytelling to engage the emotions, and positivity as well as the message about how serious things are.
· Partnership-orientated cultures (vs domination-orientated). This is already happening in Nordic countries which are exemplifying a framework of care. Childcare is valued, and there is acceptance of high taxes and distribution of wealth. We need to measure well-being instead of GDP.
· The arts – films like Avatar, Don’t Look Up and The Age of Stupid, eco-fiction, eco-poetry, ‘cli-fi’. All engage the right hemisphere of the brain.
· Buddhist philosophy and the power of mindfulness. A philosophy that we are all part of one big divine, with an expanded sense of self. We need more empathy and feeling of connection, which can be helped through practices of mindfulness and meditation.
· Gaia theory and ecopsychology showing us ways to reconnect with nature.
· Building inner resilience. Rupert Read talks about this9 and about outer resilience and coming together.
DONM
16 January 2025 with Milly Fyfe, farmer, blogger, entrepreneur, podcaster. Register here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1027188477387?aff=oddtdtcreator
References
1. https://exchange.ca-wn.org/ca-wn-21-march-meeting-report/
2. Slides http://ca-wn.org/MemberDocs/Climate_Psychology_II_Roots.pdf
3. YouTube link
4. https://climateconviction.org/
5. https://channelmcgilchrist.com/master-and-his-emissary/
6. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/psychological-roots-of-the-climate-crisis-9781501372865/
7. The Age of Stupid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlARhQBGFpQ
8. Culture, Environment and Ecopolitics https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-4438-3201-4
9. https://braveneweurope.com/rupert-read-no-words-on-trumps-triumph