Research shows that knowing about climate change does not lead to action. 45 years of research costing around £100 billion has resulted in only about half the developed world admitting that we have anything whatsoever to do with climate change. The evidence is there for everyone to see, but people chose not to believe it. Even those that accept the evidence often do not act, such as climate scientists flying long-haul for holidays.
It seems that there is something more fundamental than knowledge at work here: belief.
Climate change and religion appear to have a lot in common. To those that do not ‘believe’, the idea of belief is extremely scary: to believe is to admit that how you live is wrong and needs changing, which means a radical alteration in lifestyle. It think it goes even deeper, as accepting that there is a God means accepting that all your core principles need to be reassessed in light of how He would want you to act. The same is true for climate change, albeit without the praying.
Now, the truth of both climate change and religion is slightly different from the perceptions of the unbeliever: not all religious people give all their possessions to the poor and go off to become missionaries. This is fairly easy to recognise logically, but the emotion of belief is a very powerful thing. Perhaps it is the danger of losing self respect that is most important, as to truly believe something without acting upon it whole heartedly is incompatible with the ‘I must be perfect’ culture that has arisen lately.
Some may accept the evidence of climate change and accept logically that it is occurring, but many still do not allow it to influence their core belief system and so can carry on life as usual. Others simply deny that it is happening at all and avoid the whole knowledge/belief imbroglio.
Hence Zeta – a way to be content with who you are and what the world has to offer, without fear of fashion and the consequences of following your convictions. After all, Zeta is all about following your convictions to get the best out of life - do that and the rest will fall into place, all the barriers and fears to living the best life you can will melt away; although admittedly it requires some bravery and strength of character to be Zeta.
But more about that later.
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Angus,
ReplyDeleteThe heart of the matter is, perhaps, the 1935-38 mentality of "if we ignore the problem it will go away". So many ignore it, much the same way as there have been pictures of refugees bodies washed up on beaches while people sunbath nearby. The truth, as Al Gore so correctly put it, is inconvenient.
The 'Inconvenient Truth' that smoking caused lung cancer was known in the 1940's but was ignored by many (often I heard people say "well, I'm going to die anyway) and the information was opposed by the tobacco companies. The same mentality now applies to Climate Change.
You are correct about the commonality of Climate change and, in my case, Christianity. You are also correct that not all Christians sell all they have and follow Him, but being a missionary does not mean that you need to go off in order to do it. I am a NSM (non-stipendiary minister) so I do it for love of God rather than money. I support my own ministry and my belief that there is a God and my environmental concerns run together and are indivisible.
I agree with you 100% that if you agree that there is a God, or there is Climate Change, then that is scary. To accept something is correct does mean that there are only two options, do something about the situation, or ignore totally the situation and cling to every bit of Greenwash and disinformation you can in the hope that you may be wrong.
PS. When you do exactly what He instructed, it's quite frightning to be a Christian at times.
I think that the problem with all this talk of climate change is that they seem to focus on CO2, which is relatively benign - in comparison to all that OTHER much more toxic chemical stuff coming out of coal powerplants etc!
ReplyDeleteAlso, many 'average people', don't know exactly what to do or how to do it, or if it would make a difference indeed..
If a country is building a coal powerplant (& possibly another nuclear plant) anyway - why bother saving energy so much? see what I mean?
Thanks for the interesting comments. It all rather suggests that the time is coming for a charasmatic leader to take people through the belief & practical changes needed. Let's just hope one comes along in time & that they turn out to be compassionate.
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