Denial runs deep


How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.
--Frank Herbert

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
--Mark Twain

Whether or not Twain or Herbert ever read Freud, both writers would have seen and understood the inability or unwillingness to face reality or admit obvious truths that so characterizes the angry tone of our current debates.

More than just an “inconvenient truth” as Al Gore describes it, human-driven climate change challenges some of the most basic Western assumptions about progress and purpose. Not only does it threaten the dominance of deeply rooted and interrelated economic and political interests but the psychic structures and societal self-images which sustain them as well.

What will we become if our carbon-based economy in its multiple manifestations has to be phased out? What will be left of our identity if the glories of expansion, conquest and mastery have to give way to humble sustainability?

The confluence between powerful vested interests and psychologically driven denial and anger powers the regressive counter-reformation being mounted by climate skeptics, ideologues and their paid media flacks aimed at undermining and discrediting both the science of climate change and its scientific proponents.

Politicians like Sarah Palin and Jim Inhofe are adept at both fomenting and cashing in on this reservoir of frustration and anger, and so are savvy advertisers.

A telling twist to the anti-limits crusade is captured in a recent TV ad for the Mazda3. At the conclusion of the ad, a self-confident, slightly rebellious male voice vows, “I will not sacrifice fun at the altar of practicality.” The Canadian version runs, “Between fun and practicality there are victors and victims.”

The ad captures perfectly the anger aimed at public figures like Al Gore or Bill McKibben when they warn that because of climate change, environmental degradation, peak oil, or other limiting factors, we need to cut back now on our lavish, high consumption lifestyles.

Emotionally, which one do you want to be—fun-loving rebel or drab do-gooder, victor or victim?

Not surprisingly the dominant reaction seems to be to let someone else throttle back. It’s zoom-zoom-zoom for me. Fun as usual. Business as usual. CO2 as usual. Oil guzzling as usual. Environmental catastrophes as usual. And defiant anger at anyone who says otherwise.

What lies under the denial, beyond the anger? Just the quiet voice of that inner self. Hopefully, it will be heard.

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Pinko Polar Bears

On May 22, columnist George Will recast the U.S. government's reluctant decision to protect polar bears as part of a supposed war against all things good, true and American by the "green left," which he then equates with the "red left." He makes a big deal over some worries about global cooling that appeared three decades ago. You can read his rather slimy diatribe here. The institute's response follows:

Dear George,

I think you confuse the assiduous work of the scientific community
with a leftist agenda to establish complete government control.

If you would read the data and reports of the scientists instead of
relying upon your ideological perspective you might find that the
international community has come up with a broad consensus and a few
articles from 33 years ago do not prove them wrong.

When large insurance (and reinsurance) companies, most of the Fortune 500, every
other industrial nation, financial institutions, and stockholders such as
the Rockefeller family agree that climate change/global warming is a
threat that needs to be attacked immediately, one has to wonder why
all of these entities with their own scientific teams have decided
one way, and you with a seemingly impermeable ideological bent have
decided the other.

Perhaps, George, the experts--including the 1700 leading scientists who just published yet another urgent warning on climate change--are right and you are wrong.

Lou Miller, PhD