Thread by @SteB777

I want to clarify something about the point I made here. In no way was I criticising @GretaThunberg's excellent point about the crisis not been seen as a crisis. It's been a valuable contribution. I was simply pointing out that the problem goes much, much deeper than this.

https://twitter.com/SteB777/status/1450558568793526279

The whole problem is that politicians, economists, company CEOs, billionaires and a lot of the public TOTALLY misunderstand the climate and ecological crisis, the sustainability crisis. They mistakenly think they understand the problem, when they don't.

This is the huge danger of misunderstandings, over no understanding. If a person does not understand something, a problem etc, it is okay, because they acknowledge that. They will continue to try to understand the situation/problem. Their mind will remain open.

However, if someone misunderstands a situation/problem, they mistakenly think they understand the situation/problem, when they don't. Their minds become closed and they refuse to listen to those with a much better grasp of the situation/problem.

This is what has happened with the climate and ecological crisis. You have senior politicians, world leaders even, senior economists, influential media commentators, billionaires, attacking and criticising much more knowledgeable people than themselves.

Again and again you see Greta being attacked (she is merely asking people to listen to the science, not her), you see leading scientists being criticised, leading environmentalist thinkers, by people with a fraction of their insight - all by the less knowledgeable.

This is the classic Dunning-Kruger effect, where the less knowledge, the less insight someone is about something, the more certain they are about their mistaken views, because they lack the knowledge to even tell them how little they know.

The less knowledge and particularly insight someone has into a subject, the more certain they are of themselves. They then cherry pick only that which appears to support their viewpoint, and ignore that which doesn't, because they have no overall understanding of the situation.

You see, if you lack an overall grasp of a subject, which someone focused on that subject has, you have no idea at all of the gaps in your knowledge and insight.

So we have ended up with the terrifying situation, where those with the biggest misunderstanding about the climate and ecological crisis, are also the most powerful and influential people in our societies. People to arrogant to acknowledge they have got it completely wrong.

@GeorgeMonbiot @GretaThunberg @ClimateHuman @KevinClimate @JKSteinberger

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