My new post: I look into “shifting baselines syndrome” and how it lulls human beings into complacency, even in the face of long-term ecological deterioration. It’s working against us on climate change — and Covid-19 as well. We might just get used to them. vox.com/energy-and-env…
A few stray things relevant to yesterday's post (which you should read): First, here's an episode of @99piorg on shifting baselines. It's a combination of storytelling & music that is about 100X more impactful than my blah blah. 99percentinvisible.org/episode/wild-o…
Here's a TED talk from @AriW that is about how to keep the long view in mind when planning (which is not our forte). ted.com/talks/ari_wall…
Finally, one other thing, which I'm surprised didn't come up in the responses. The piece focuses on features of human cognition & emotion as a source of our puzzling indifference toward climate change. It does not focus on organized efforts to confuse/delay the issue. However ...
... a full explanation obviously requires both: "bottom-up" causes, ie, features of the human cognitive/emotional system, and "top-down" causes, like the political power of incumbents & tons of FF money being spent to obfuscate, delay, & polarize the subject.
On that note, it's really worth reading this paper from @jenniferjacquet, Monica Dietrich, & @JohnJost1. It reviews the literature on the partisan divide over climate in the US & charts both top-down & bottom-up causes. A great overview. frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
