GEORGE MARSHALL: So
I'd like to start
with a question, which
is like a challenge.
And the question is
this-- why is our response
to climate change so weird?
I'm not talking here
even about denial,
I'm just saying,
just downright weird.
I mean, take this, for example.
So these were leaflets
that were given out
by my local supermarket,
a supermarket that
has a whole sustainability
program-- called Tesco,
it's in Britain.
They wanted to encourage people
to fit low energy light bulbs.
They wanted to incentivize
them by giving them
something they could really
make them want to do it.
Fine, let's encourage people.
And this is, weirdly,
what they came up with,
that you could save
energy in one area,
and then you can
blow it in another.
I think that counts as weird.
Here's another example.
This is from The Guardian
website, The Guardian,
the second most visited
news website in the world.
And I noticed this kind of thing
just lurking in the corner.
[INAUDIBLE] In one
corner it said,
support The Guardian's low
carbon plan for Britain.
Right next to it, it
said, give us your tips,
and win a business class
flight for two to Dubai.
Again, these two things sitting
right next to each other.
And this happens
all of the time.
We're able somehow to separate
climate change, the concern
about climate change, from
what we need to do about it.
So live a high carbon
lifestyle, whilst
at the same time being
concerned about it.
Piles of magazines
like this-- this
is taken from a news agent.
I thought it was
kind of interesting.
Like here is a group of
high carbon, high lifestyle
magazines, all
nestling around one
which is talking about
what the implications
and meaning of that
behavior will be.
Now when we see
things like this,
we know that in our brains we
put little frames around them.
Literally we frame them.
We categorize things.
This is part of a
process for us to decide
what to pay attention to, or
what not to pay attention to.
And one of the things that's
very important about climate
change is it's very subject
to these waves of attention
and disattention.
Now psychologists
have for a long time
been really interested
in attention.
What are the things which
make us notice something?
But actually over the
last 10, 20 years,
they've come to realize that
actually disattention is
more important for
our functioning,
more important for our sanity.
If I walk out there and out
front door into New York,
I'm bombarded from all sides by
waves and waves of information.
Not just information, like
data information, like words,
but just buildings, sounds,
noises, people's faces.
And remember, just as
you can do on Facebook,
or on Google, you can
on your smartphone now,
you zoom in on every face
going, ping, ping, ping,
ignoring almost all of them.
There's my friend
walking down the street.
Bang, you can see them.
So there's something
about our brains
that allows us to disregard
all of those other faces, zap--
move in on our friend.
It is that disattention,
the ability
to disregard and throw
away information,
which is so important for us.
And that's what happens
with climate change.
As I will argue,
climate change is not
only something that
does not necessarily
speak to us in terms of the
things we pay attention to,
but it is also very well
set up for being something
but we actively disattend.
It has a bad combination.
Let's take these
magazines, for example.
If we see this pile of magazines
sitting in a news agent,
the reality is that
a lot of us, I think,
would probably block out
the one in the middle.
We know it's there.
We'd say, is there something
here about climate change?
In fact, yeah, there.
They know it's there, and
yet they can block it out.
And similarly, because I happen
to be interested in climate
change and have no interest
whatsoever in rooftop swimming
pools, I'm likely to zoom
on the climate change one.
Just as my son,
disconcertingly, could
look at large movie posters
and just zoom in on the car,
or zoom in on the thing
which interests him,
regardless of whatever
the images were.
So we come in on the
thing which interests us.
This happens a wider sense
of climate change, too.
That when we also people about
climate change-- for example,
like in that pile of magazines,
saying do you see it?
We say to people, climate
change, what's it about?
They can tell us a lot about it.
We say, is climate
change important?
Well, the majority
of people say yes.
The majority of people,
even in America,
say yes, I'm
concerned about this.
However if we don't draw
attention to this, if we just
go out into the streets
and say to people,
what are you concerned about?
For example, there's
lots of surveys
that say things like,
what are the issues which
should be on the President's
desk this coming year?
Climate change is
nowhere on that list.
So climate change is
something that people
know about, something
people continue a great deal
about in some cases, something
that the majority of people
are concerned about, and some
people are very concerned
about.
Yet somehow they can
keep that knowledge
in one part of their brain,
separate from the part
of their brain which is involved
with other issues, or just day
to day life.
And it's this
separation which is
the key between attention
and disattention.
That's what we talk about.
And we talk about climate
change all kinds of ways.
But what about what
we don't talk about?
Because just as there is
attention and disattention,
there's things we say, and
there's things we don't say.
And when it comes
to climate change,
it is not just that we
don't talk about it,
but we actively
don't talk about it.
In the course of
writing my book I
spoke with many people who
were experts in silence.
And there was this whole
world of fascinating research
into things that aren't there.
There's research
into non-information,
the information that
scientists do not get.
And there are people
who are researching
into non-conversations,
the conversations
that people do not have.
There's a lot of
non-conversations
about climate change.
And any of you, if you're
interested in experiments,
social experiments,
try it out yourself.
Try going to somebody you know.
Oh, I do it the whole
time with strangers,
people I meet on
trains and buses,
and say, I think
this weird weather
we're having is climate change.
And just notice how
the conversation dies.
They all stare out the window.
They'll change the subject.
It will go somewhere else.
And I push myself into
there the whole time.
I'm determined to
get this out there.
But most of us know that that
is not a safe place to go.
There's a social
rule that says, this
is an inappropriate
subject for conversation.
I'm almost glad when I get
somebody who actively denies
climate change, cause at
least they want to talk about.
You know, a third of people
cannot remember the last time
they had any conversation about
climate change with anyone,
ever, in their lives.
That's 1/3.
That is a lot of people to be
actively not talking about one
of the greatest
issues of our time.
Now the rest of the
2/3, very few of them
have ever had a conversation
about climate change
with anyone other than
once or twice with friends,
or members of their
immediate family.
And don't be fooled
that just because we've
had huge demonstrations
in New York,
and around the world of people
demonstrating about climate
change, that that
shows that there
is a widespread conversation.
It is certainly
the start of one,
but we know that the people
who have gone on the march
were the ones in
that small number who
are very actively involved.
The silence is
sometimes deafening.
What I think was
curious to me about this
was first of all that
the experts on silence
say that it is remarkably
similar to what
happens around
human rights abuses.
That just as in countries
with human rights abuses,
people know that it's a good
idea not to talk about things.
But I was also very surprised
to find that it is strong,
in fact, in some ways even
stronger in places which
have had extreme weather events.
Maybe that's the equivalent
to a human rights abuse.
It's something you
can see, here, now.
Maybe it's happened
to you personally.
I went and did a
string of interviews
in two places that have had very
major, climate change related
weather impacts.
One of them was in the middle
of Texas, a town called Bastrop.
1/3 of a town burnt down in
the most serious wildfires
in Texan history, 10
times more expensive
than any previous wildfire.
This was compounded or created
by an exceptional drought.
Again, record breaking in
the terms of Bastrop County.
Nobody in that town could recall
for me a recent conversation
that they had had
about climate change,
in regards to the
fire they'd had.
Which I have to say was weird.
Weird because they were talking
about the fires constantly.
Weird because they had a long,
long string of explanations,
including one person who
even tried to tell me
that it was a terrorist attack
that had started the fire.
Not a single person
talking about the fact
that for 20 years the
leading scientists in America
had been warning
that climate change
would bring increased
drought and wildfires.
When I spoke with the
editor of a local newspaper,
she said to me, sure.
Sure we'd cover
climate change if it
was relevant to the
people of Bastrop County.
I said, well, your
state climatologist
seems to think it's relevant.
Every scientist I've spoken
to seems to think so.
And she said, we're
just a small town.
We don't deal with these
big, global issues.
OK, that's Republican Texas.
But even in Democrat New Jersey,
when I went there five months
after Hurricane Sandy--
and we can argue the toss
about whether Hurricane Sandy
was climate change, or not
climate change, or how
much was climate change.
That's not the point.
The point was that we know
climate change is going
to bring extreme storms, and
there was an extreme storm.
Would you not be
thinking about it?
And once again, people when
I asked them said, yeah.
Climate change, that's serious.
Yeah, maybe the storm
was climate change.
I'd say, tell me about the
last conversation you had.
No one could remember the
last conversation they'd had.
The conversations they were
having were all positive ones
about rebuilding
and reconstructing.
There was no room there for this
negative, downer conversation
about what potentially
might be happening--
least alone the possibility that
they and people like themselves
might have contributed to it.
One of the people
who I met there
was the mayor of Seabright
town, a very dynamic leader,
called Dina Long.
Dinah, here with
her sign, "Do," she
found in the rubble of Donovan's
Bar, one of the beach side
bars.
The remains of a sign that
used to hang over its door.
Donovan's Bar, just the
first two letters, "Do."
And do is her talisman.
Do is how she
rallies the people,
saying, we will rebuild, we
will make our town strong again.
So I said, Dina, you're
clearly a very strong leader.
How about you and other mayors
from up and down the Jersey
seashore, how about that you go
to Washington, how about that
you go to the Senate, and
you say, we demand action.
We are the front line
on climate change.
She just laughed.
She said, duh.
Duh.
You've gotta be crazy.
And of course climate
change is happening.
Maybe this was climate change.
But I'm not going to go out
with a message like that, when
I'm trying to
rebuild my community
and make something strong again.
It's divisive.
Some people wouldn't accept it.
I want us to rebuild.
And I have to agree with her.
I say that's good,
strong leadership.
But you know what?
If the people who are severely
affected by climate change
aren't talking
about it, the people
who aren't affected at all
aren't talking about it,
cause they don't
see the relevance.
And the people in between
aren't talking about it,
because somehow it's socially
inconvenient or awkward,
or there's some kind of like
negotiated silence around it.
Well, what are going to do?
Because we get caught between
a rock and a hard place.
We're not moving on this issue.
So what is going on?
Is there something
in our brains which
is operating, which
makes it possible
for us to know something,
yet not to know it?
To accept that something
is a huge problem,
and then yet somehow to
of push it on one side?
That, I think, is
the key question.
20 years, 30 years, we've
been talking about this.
We're still talking.
We have more and
more information,
yet that information
doesn't seem to move people.
Maybe this is why.
We know built into the
architecture of a brain
are different
processing systems.
We've known this well,
since the ancient Greeks.
The ancient Greeks
first talked about this,
about the difference
between mind and feeling.
And in the last 20
years, in particular,
because of the benefits
of brain scanning,
we can actually see
how decisions get made,
and thoughts get
moved around a brain.
We know that one side of
this is very, very interested
in numbers, data,
symbols, logic.
We could call this
analytic reasoning.
It's very good at
evaluating risk.
It's what makes us
think about the future.
It helps us to build strategy.
This is the part that climate
change science speaks to.
This is the culture
of science, too.
But there's another
part of our brains
which is the dominant part, the
one which ultimately moves us
forward.
And that's the emotional
side, what psychologists
would call affective reasoning.
That is concerned with
what's happening here, now,
drawing on our past experience,
what the people around us
are doing.
And if you, for example, started
coming at me now with a knife,
immediately that
side of my brain
would be jumping into action.
Something is happening
here and now, there's
somebody who's attacking me.
Because that's how
we need to survive.
We don't need the
intellectual side going, ooh,
he seems like a nice guy.
I wonder what's going on.
Is there something
weird they do in Google,
when people come in to speak?
I'd be immediately,
click-- danger.
That's why we need that
side of our brain to move.
But of course, if we had
just the intellectual side,
if all of the information
just sits over
on that scientific
and intellectual side
and doesn't move outside,
then we're stuck.
One of the key things,
indeed, is not even somebody
attacking you, but
what happens around us.
If for example, you were to
suddenly start attacking me
and none of the
rest of you moved,
any of you sitting
there going, I
wonder if I should
intervene in this,
would not be likely to move.
Because one of the tendencies,
we look for the social signals,
even when someone
is under attack.
Even when there's a
threat directly there.
Even if there's smoke
coming under the door.
We know from experiments,
if people do not
see others moving, they
do not take action.
Our power of conformity,
to conform to our group,
is so strong that we only
move when I others move.
Unless we're an early
adopter, an early start-up.
There's a small number
of people who are not
bound by these signals, but most
people look for the signals.
So for climate change we're in a
very difficult situation, which
is, if no one is moving and
if no one is talking about it,
the primary signal we take
on that side of our brain
which responds to
those is not to move,
and not to do anything.
Finally, on this dominant
side, the emotional side,
what really works
more than anything
is narrative, metaphor,
images, stories.
And stories are fundamental
to the human brain.
They're things that we shape
our world and our life around.
It's not just a little
bit of icing on the cake,
it is the cake.
It is how we make
sense of a world.
So in the course
of writing the book
I spoke with some of the
top cognitive psychologists
in world.
One of the people I
had the honor to meet
was Professor Daniel Kahnemann.
Kahnemann won the Nobel
Prize for his work
on the way that biases--
our brains are biased
to prefer some
things over others,
even irrationally, even
against our own interests,
when we're making decisions.
Professor Kahnemann has
studied several things
very relevant to climate change.
One thing is he finds
we're very loss averse.
We do not like losses.
We avoid them in
every way possible.
We especially are very
unwilling to lose something now,
even if we are avoiding losing
something in the future.
He also in his
experiments has found
that we do not like uncertainty.
We avoid uncertainty
whenever it's there.
So if something is uncertain,
we try and avoid that.
We tried and postpone it
until it achieves certainty.
And we're also
very bad at dealing
with things in the future.
We have what he calls
hyperbolic temporal discounting.
That literally-- that's a fancy
word for what it literally
means, is the further things
are away, the less interested
we are.
Next hour is far more
important than tomorrow.
Tomorrow is more
important than next week.
Next week is more
important than next month.
And quite frankly, once
you get down the far end,
whether something is 30
years or 40 years away,
really doesn't make
much odds to us,
because it's so far
over the horizon.
Professor Kahnemann said to
me, he said, I'm very sorry.
He was a nice man, he was
very apologetic about it.
I said, nothing personal.
But he said, I'm deeply,
deeply pessimistic about this.
Climate change is for me
the worst kind of problem,
because it contains
everything we're bad at.
I'm not so sure.
I think he's right, we
bad at those problems.
But I think there's something
more to it than that.
I mean, for example, is climate
change really in the future?
No.
It's happening now.
It's been happening for
100 years, 200 years.
Maybe even longer.
The fact that we decide
to put it in the future
is an active choice on our part.
In other words, we tell stories,
but put it in the future.
The vast majority of
people in Britain,
85% of people in Britain
think that climate change
will be a major danger
for future generations.
That is more people than even
believe in climate change.
There are some people out
there, in questionnaires,
who do not believe
in climate change,
but thinks that it's
going to be a huge threat
for future generations.
That tells me something
about they way
that they're constructing
the storyline.
Expensive, uncertain,
requires sacrifice-- around
the world we have
politicians who
will demand any level
of expense and sacrifice
to defend their
countries, for example,
Against the terrorist threat
of extreme uncertainty.
And what gets interesting
is here in America, say,
often the people who are
demanding that we spend money
on defending ourselves against
terrorism are the very same
ones who say we cannot spend
money on climate change,
because it's too uncertain.
And it requires sacrifice.
Clearly what's happening
here is people just arranging
the arguments
around the decision
they've already reached.
Which is why I don't think it's
about the information flow,
either.
There's some people who say,
the thing with climate change
is that the conservative
interests, or the oil companies
have corrupted the information.
And it's true, there is a
major disinformation campaign
out there that is the distorting
the science of climate change.
Is that the problem?
No.
Again, I don't think
it's the problem.
I think it's a problem.
But I don't think
it's the problem.
Because it's clear
that what happens
is that it is not even that
information side of brain which
motivates us in the first place.
So therefore what people are
doing is they have reached
the emotional decision
to oppose climate change,
and then they're drawing from
and finding the scientific ,
arguments or false
scientific arguments,
to justify the decision
that they have already made.
And almost the proof of that
is that when you look at it,
and you ask people
who actually deny
climate change
about science, you
find that they are if anything
slightly better science
educated than the people
who accept climate change.
This is not from a lack of
scientific understanding
on their parts-- it's almost
because they're too clever.
They're using their
cleverness to find the reasons
for not accepting something.
So what is going on?
Well, what I would say is that
the issue for climate change
is that it's about social
facts, not scientific facts.
And these social
facts, these cues
we take from the people
around us, the stories we see
and that we hear,
are constructed
around our values,
our worldview,
the way we see the world.
And that these become the potent
and powerful thing for us.
And we don't want to
accept climate change.
Why would we?
It's challenging
it's threatening
it requires sacrifice.
All of those things we know.
But unlike terrorism, or
attack, or you coming at me
with a knife, or
things which really
speak to us in these
ways, it doesn't
have the necessary things
demanding our attention.
At the same time, there's
a lot of things demanding
our disattention, particularly
the social message
we receive from
people around us,
that this is not a great
thing to talk about.
Or.
Say in those hurricane
affected communities.
And people were saying, you know
what, that's a bit of a downer.
We're not going to go there.
So it's got all of the
marks of disattention,
and very few of the
marks of attention.
And because that we shape it
as a story around our values,
it's about those stories that
then become the issue for us,
not the science.
That means we're then,
that if we like the story,
we might be inclined
to accept it.
If we don't like the
story, we will reject it.
If it is my story, and the story
of people in my group, I'll go,
Yeah.
I'll go with that, where it is--
Accepting it or denying it.
Similarly, if an
opposing group-- imagine,
for example, you're a
conservative, and what you see
is that all of the liberals
are passionate about climate
change.
You react to their story.
You go, this doesn't
speak to my values.
I don't like these people.
I don't like what
they stand for.
And you're liable to pick up
your position in opposition
to them.
It's not about the science, it's
about the reaction and response
to the stories.
Indeed, for many conservatives
they look around.
What are the main
social cues they get?
The people around them don't
believe in climate change.
Should they believe
in it, or not?
Let's face it, the major
message they're getting
is not to pay attention to it.
You know, I was thinking
about all of this a while ago,
and I got a new toy
for me and my son,
and we were playing
around with it.
I'm thinking in particular about
how our brains form stories,
about how we need information
to make sense of things.
And the toy seemed kind of fun.
But it contains
within it a story.
And we like stories.
It's one of these.
It says a lot about the way
that our brains function.
One thing it says is that our
brains yearn for completeness.
So when something has a hole
in it, we fill in the hole
with the information which
makes sense of it, right?
So the whole point of
this optical illusion
is that our brains, on literally
the bit between the two points,
fill in the gap.
And they say, ah, there's a
line there, and a line there.
There therefore must be
something in between.
I realize this probably works
better if you have more hair.
They really like that.
So that's one aspect of it.
Climate change then is
an incomplete narrative.
It does not give us all of
the information we require,
and so we're very,
very tempted to fill it
in with the bits of our
own choosing, our own bias,
to make sense of it.
But what makes this
especially interesting
as an illusion is the
fact that it is an arrow.
And like it or not, we
will compelled by it
to look at it, because it
speaks of an act of violence.
That speaks to this innate
sense of threat, our responses
to threat.
And the question is, of
course, who fired it?
Because even though it's a joke,
we cannot look at this without
thinking that someone out there
there has been an enemy with
the intention to cause me harm
That is truly the compelling
part, which is missing
from climate change.
If there's any
part which is there
in the middle, which our brains
a bit between needs to fill in,
it's a sense of who did
this, and who is responsible?
Climate change has
no external enemy.
There is no enemy.
It's caused by all of
us, from way we live
and the way that we
behave, and what we do.
There's no intention.
We're not intending harm.
We're just putting food on
our table, heating our homes,
driving our kids to school.
They were having a
holiday, but we've
worked hard for that holiday.
We're entitled to it.
So when people say climate
change is really serious,
and look what's causing it,
the way we live is causing it,
not surprisingly
people push that away,
because it is a challenge.
It contains blame.
And of course, they have
no intention to cause harm,
but the point at which they
accept but climate change is
a problem is the point at which
that intention becomes real.
And at that point, they
become responsible.
So it's hardly surprising
that people go,
you know what, I don't
need to know about this.
Why would he?
Why would you want
to take something
on board that makes
you basically feel bad?
So what would
climate change look
like if there was an enemy?
Is that the issue?
Well, I think yes.
Because I think
if it had an enemy
it would be a very
different kind of problem,
and we would respond
very differently.
Imagine, for example,
that North Korea
was responsible for
climate change--
not us, not our actions, not my
driving, not my holiday, North
Korea.
There's North
Korea, pumping gases
into the atmosphere with
the intention of destroying
the world's climate.
There they are.
There's the proof.
That's one of our
drone satellites
took that photo last week.
There they are.
That's what they're doing.
And we know they're
doing it deliberately
to destroy the
world's environment,
because a secret
memo from Kim Jong Un
has been smuggled
out of North Korea.
And he says, yes, haha haha,
with his devilish laugh, ha ha
ha.
He said, with our poison gases
we will destroy wheat and grain
production across the Midwest--
which is, incidentally,
one of the long term
worst scenario outputs
for climate change.
Ha ha ha.
Nefarious chuckles.
If it was that kind of
problem, if we knew that,
and once it was
established, it would
be a very, very different issue.
Wouldn't it?
There would be no debate.
There will be no
right wing opposition.
There will be
nothing, cause there
will be a clear enemy with
the intention to cause harm.
We can zero in on it.
But because of its
diffused responsibility,
because I said of its
missing gap in the narrative,
it becomes extremely open for
us to interpret or reshape it
in our own form.
You know, sometimes people
talk about climate change
as the elephant in the room.
But it's not, really.
Even the elephant in the room
is not even really the finger
that we're ignoring.
Because it's kind of like the
elephant we're all inside.
And when you're
inside something you
can't see it, because it is
literally all around you.
You can only see it
if you then creates
a story of in which you project
those issues on to someone
else.
And that's what we do.
We create storylines
around climate change
to try and make sense of it.
But then the storylines, as I
said, then become the issue.
So is there an enemy?
Well, yes.
Everybody's busy
finding enemies.
That's what we do
to make sense of it.
One of the things I did
when I was writing the book
was I had a day with
the Tea Party, in Texas.
My hostess was lady
called Deborah Medina.
Deborah is a very powerful
Tea Party activist,
and she ran for the
gubernatorial contest in Texas.
One of the campaign
photos was this.
This is Deborah with
her gun that she told me
she keeps always down
by the side of her seat.
I said, why have you
got gun, Deborah?
What are you going to
do with this thing?
She said, you never know
when you might need it.
Bearing in mind that there I
was, as a former Greenpeace
activist, standing in
front of a Texan Tea Party,
I understand we felt a little
bit nervous about what exactly
might define when and where
one might need this thing.
Because it became very clear as
we started talking about this
that the real problem of climate
change was people like me.
You know, Texans,
they're nice people.
They were very open about this.
And it wasn't personal
in that sense.
But clearly, from
their point of view
this was a liberal scam, created
with the objective of removing
their personal freedoms
and opportunities.
That's how they shaped it.
There was an enemy.
In the missing match,
the missing thing
who shot the arrow,
it was people like me.
They were making a sense
of it by imposing an enemy.
And the problem of this was
not that the enemy was related
to climate change at
all, but climate change
was created by the enemy.
But then again,
people on my side
do this all the time as well.
You know, we create our
own heroes and villains,
and bad big oil
of Rupert Murdoch.
And I'm not saying these
people aren't very serious.
They are.
They're serious contributors.
What I'm also saying is that
they shape a story in ways.
If you're a supporter
of Rupert Murdoch,
if you're a supporter of oil,
if you support capitalism,
you look at these stories
and you react against them.
None of this in the end
is about climate change.
It's about the shape
that people give it.
Similarly, if you
oppose big government,
and if you oppose
environmentalists,
you look at the fact that
they hold climate change,
and you say.
I don't like it.
So the big question
is, can we find
a new way of talking about it?
Because given our brains aren't
making sense of a science,
they're just making sense
of what the people around us
are saying, and the
emotions associated with it,
can we break this pattern by
finding new ways of doing it?
I think the answer
is yes we can.
I think the answer is also
that this can give us hope.
Because just as we
have the capacity
to be very, very inwardly
focused, and very,
very in-group minded,
nonetheless we
can also have immense
capacity for cooperation
across boundaries,
when we choose
to find ways of talking
about that and doing it.
Certainly there's no
reason to say that
just because we talk about
climate change this way
that there aren't 1,000 other
different ways of talking
about it.
I'm only going to give you one
example, but there are many.
I had a most
fascinating conversation
with one of the country's
evangelical leaders.
Joel Hunter is the leader of the
10th largest church in America,
a megachurch down in Florida.
And he gets climate change.
Talking with him made me
realize that there were ways
that within the climate
movement and the wider
environmental
movement we've never
thought of talking about it.
Cause he comes from
a different culture.
And it's a culture which
is based on how do we
go out there and mobilize
people around things which are,
let's face it,
uncertain, in the future,
and require people
to make sacrifices?
That's his job.
That's what he does.
And he's hugely
successful at it.
As indeed all of the
main religions are.
They found ways of doing this.
Now don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying for one
second that climate change is
a religion, or
that it should be.
It is not.
It is grounded in
scientific fact.
What I am saying though is
that the way that sometimes we
think about things
have things in common.
The way we think about our
politics, our community,
our families, our society,
and our religions,
have in common a set of
underlying psychological rules.
So I said, Joe, what
are we doing wrong
in the climate movement?
How we do this stuff better?
He said, well, one thing
we do in my church is
we try and create a
community of belief.
We bring people
together to share
their belief and
their conviction.
And he said you guys, you tend
to just give people a leaflet,
or you tell them
to go to a website.
We want to bring them
in, hold their hand,
take them through the steps,
recognize that doubt--
because you know,
you're not allowed
to doubt climate change.
If you believe in climate
change, if you accept it,
you're allowed to say you know
what, I'm not so sure anymore.
You meant to hold that as
if it's some kind of fact,
but of course it isn't.
It's hard to hold on to things.
You need to recognize that.
You need to recognize
your anxiety over it,
because we don't do that either.
And in his church they would.
And this is especially
how we go out
and we reach people is
we witness to the fact
that we believe in something.
We say, I believe.
And this is important to me.
And we go out and
we spread that.
I think again we're
not that great on that.
We always present like--
when we talk about it
we present PowerPoints
and slides.
We keep speaking to that
part of the brain which
is the intellectual side, not
the part which is about saying,
here's a social message of cue.
Do you like me?
I'm like you.
I believe in this stuff.
You should as well.
He also says that-- and I think
this is really important--
but in his thinking you don't
suddenly come to-- belief
develops over time.
But sometimes it moves in
jumps, what in his language
he would call an epiphany.
Sometimes you see something,
you hear something,
and suddenly it changes the
way you think about the world.
And I think we need to recognize
that for climate change, too.
But you don't just suddenly--
it's not like osmosis,
not like you read some
reports that all kind of seeps
in through your fingertips
as you read them.
You know, like Matt
Murdock, Daredevil,
who was-- because he's a
superhero he could read
newspapers, just
at his fingertips,
and it all kind
of like flows in.
But it doesn't work like that.
How it works is that
sometimes you're not sure,
sometimes you are sure.
Sometimes you hear
some inspiring,
sometimes you read
something, sometimes you
get caught in a storm.
Sometimes something happens,
and it shifts who you are.
But you need to recognize that
believing in climate change
is hard, and it's something
which comes in jumps.
In his church they even do
something called an altar call,
where they say, here, have
you heard what we said?
Now's the chance to
change your life.
And we encourage people to
come up and step forward.
I think it's very
important to recognize
that things like a huge
climate marches which
have been happening around
the world, a lot of what we're
trying to do within
the climate movement,
is trying to get people to
have that moment of revelation
and personal change.
Here is the point when can
really do something new,
think differently about it.
Now, step forward.
Be a part of this.
My view is that things
like the climate march
is most important
not for the fact
that it had over 300,000
people on the streets,
but for every one of
those 300,000 people
it was a transformative moment.
So in other words, it was
most important for them,
including many people I spoke
to who had never been on a march
before.
And finally, get learning.
In this peculiar way we
can learn from people
we don't normally ever speak to.
Learning from other
people we could
learn, as Joel said to
me, if you give people
a heavy moral load,
if you say they
have to change their lives,
they have to think differently,
they have to do
things a new way,
you've got to have some
language of forgiveness.
You've got to have the means
to say you can start fresh,
you can start new.
And again, I think in
climate change we don't.
And it's no surprise
that people keep
this stuff at arm's length,
because why would you
want to take something on
board when it's challenging,
and it's not clear what's
going to come out of it?
However, if you can say this
is great this is something
positive, this is a something
that speaks to your values.
This is something-- where
something new will come out
of this, which is worthwhile
and worth going for.
And when you come on board,
we start from square one.
I think that is
a language which,
if it speaks to people's values,
we can really move forward on.
So thank you very
much for coming.
And indeed we have some
time for questions.
Please.
AUDIENCE: Getting back to the
mayor, you know, with the sign
saying do-- it seems to me
that if we were all doing--
the problem is really
what we're doing,
not necessarily
in whether or not
we believe in climate change.
If we were all doing the things
necessary to avoid climate
change, it wouldn't
really be that important
if people knew about
climate change.
Now-- so the thing I think it's
probably the most important to
winning here is to motivate
people to do the right things,
do what that mayor wants.
Now it turns out,
different people
are motivated in different ways.
There may be people who
believe in climate change.
But virtually everything--
but the climate,
the things we do that cause
climate change are part--
are part of also--
and primary causes,
of a lot of other problems.
For instance, I spent
a lot of time-- well,
it's a very painful
experience, talking
to people on the far right
about environmental issues.
And I find that whenever
I mention climate change,
they totally like black out.
They won't even talk about it.
But there are other
things, that the behaviors
we do that cause of
climate change, that
really resonate with them.
For instance, monopolies that's
for the oil companies, that
prevent fuel freedom and
choice at the fuel pump.
The quasi-governmental
organizations
like utilities that restrict
freedom, by putting constraints
on how individuals power their
homes, and things like that.
The fact that we're
being prevented
from using cleaner, cheaper
fuels, and restrictions
on our freedom,
these things totally
resonate with those guys.
And it turns out that the
guys on the right-- I mean,
we saw this recently in Georgia.
In Georgia the Sierra
Club now has a partnership
with the Tea Party to the
force Duke Power to support
more solar.
Sierra Club, left-wing
tree-huggers,
want it cause of climate change.
The Tea Party wants it
because they want freedom
from the power of the
quasi-governmental
organization, which
is the utility.
Instead of trying to
convince people of things
which don't relate
to their issues,
why don't we respect
their issues,
as well, get them to
do the same things,
even though they're for
completely different goals?
If we can get the
climate deniers
to do exactly what the
climate acknowledgers want,
do we care whether
or not they're
both working toward
the same goal,
as long as they're
doing the same things?
GEORGE MARSHALL: So I
think that's a very--
I think that's a very-- thank
you, an intelligent, well
observed comment.
And the question, for
anyone who did not
hear that, if I can
paraphrase it is to say,
do we have to talk
about climate change,
if we can find ways
of mobilizing people
in terms of their own
values, to do the things we
need to do to take action on it?
If climate change
is this toxic issue,
can we step around that,
because there are so
many things that could be done
to move in the right direction.
And I think that the answer
to that is very important.
And yes, for what you've
described, for people,
especially for people
on the right-- and too
have spent a lot of time
speaking with conservatives--
there are many things where
there are opportunities
to change the
structure of society,
especially the kind of
corporate dominance of society,
to change people's lives.
People-- conservatives
often also
are strongly ideologically
opposed to waste,
and waste seems like a very
positive place to start.
They're also very interested
in new investment,
and new opportunities, too.
And there's ways for things
like with renewables, too,
where you can create very
powerful social norms
of action.
If people start installing,
for example, renewables,
it is interesting that it's
something that conservatives
are often very, very
interested in doing,
of having solar
panels on their roof,
for example, as a way to
show personal success,
or it's a nice thing.
Well, it's nice if solar panels
are not about losing things.
It's about gaining.
You gain a bit of money,
you gain a bit of status,
and it looks good.
And I think the answer for
that is absolutely yes.
We can shape climate change
around people's values.
We certainly don't
need to talk about this
as an environmental issue.
I mean, it's been
a huge mistake.
This is about resources,
it's about power,
it's about the future,
it's about morality,
it's about the way we
want to shape the world.
The environmental
label only came to it
because the first people
to come to the party
were environmentalists.
We can reshape it
in different ways.
However we have to recognize
at some point that it cannot be
simply dealt with by a composite
of a number of things doing
the right thing.
We simply cannot deal with
like a little 10% energy saving
there, and more efficient
air conditioning there,
and change for
light bulbs there.
And we also know we cannot
achieve the bottom lines we
need in terms of change, but
we also know that people have
a disturbance and unnerving
tendency to transfer
their behavior from
one place to another.
So people who fit low
energy light bulbs
have a very strange tendency to
drive more, or use more water.
It's sometimes
called moral license,
it's for capacity for
people to use one thing
as a personal offset for
another form of behavior.
So we have to have
something underlying
where we say actually that
there's a bigger goal here.
And what worries me about not
talking about climate change
is we have to
ultimately get some kind
of overarching structure,
even if it operates
in the free market,
even if it's just
a cap on the amount of
stuff that we can use.
And if we do not get enough
people engaged with the issue
to accept it or
believe in it, we
will never have enough political
consensus to put that in place.
So I absolutely
agree with you, but I
think there has to be a
level at which we're up front
and say, yes, this is important.
But we can reach that
from different paths.
And I like the idea of people,
conservatives and conservatives
the absolute priority, we have
to get something broader based
on this, coming at this
from a very different angle,
saying we want to make these
changes and do these changes,
because it speaks to our values.
And we don't give a
damn about polar bears.
Our concern is about our
community, our locality,
or our landscape, our property.
So there are ways
of reshaping this.
Other questions, please.
Yeah, please, sir.
AUDIENCE: Do you think
climate deniers are
more common in the US than
in Europe, and if so, why?
GEORGE MARSHALL: Yes, the
percentage of people in the US
who-- deny is a difficult word.
Can I just say, before
we even go into it,
there's denial at all
levels In the more sort
of common
psycho-therapeutic sense,
there is denial
across the board.
There are ways I'm in
denial about climate change.
There are ways that I
actively seek to defend myself
against the full knowledge of
what is happening by creating
personal psychological
distance from it.
Or weird inconsistencies
in my own behavior.
Just as that was the
beginning of my presentation.
That's maybe small-d denial.
But rather than going
out there and labeling
the people who do not
accept the science,
and say they're the
deniers, and we're
he whatever, the
believers, let's
recognize that right
across the board
you have a range of
people who are trying
to make sense of this issue.
I personally sometimes
think there's
more hope of getting the people
who actively oppose action
on climate change
to swing around
than the people in the middle.
Just as sometimes people
can have sudden conversions
from one political
position to another.
But they're engaging
in the issue,
and thinking actively about it.
Having said that, then,
if we just keep that word
denier for the moment, but
recognizing it's much broader--
is there a higher level of
concern or awareness in Europe
than there is in America?
Yes.
Are there more
people in America who
actively oppose the
silence than Europe?
Yes, there is.
But that also reflects,
I think, a much greater
political polarization in the
States between left and right
than you tend to find in Europe.
Europe is mostly dominated
by social democratic parties,
which occupy the middle ground.
In the US, actually
to be honest,
I think that's probably where
the Democrats are as the Social
Democratic Party.
There is no functioning
left in the same way
that there is maybe
in Europe, but there
is a huge divide between
them and the right.
And I'm always amazed
in America by how
opinionated people
on both sides get,
in terms of their
opposition to the other.
It's extremely polarized.
And of course, then
that makes people
decide that they
want to choose sides.
Are you with them,
or are you with them?
That polarization then
becomes self feeding.
If you sense that the
people around you who
are conservatives, for
example, around you
do not accept
climate change, you
are then much more likely to
get sucked over to that side.
But do not think that there
is something significantly
different happening there.
The political and the
media landscape in America,
and the cultural landscape
and the divides--
it's a huge country between
the center of the country,
between the rural
and the urban-- all
help to feed all of this.
But in Europe we
have similar divides,
and they are maybe less
marked, because we're
less polarized as a society.
But they're getting worse.
Right across Europe
we have the emergence
of an extreme right, which
is happening especially
around migration issues.
But one of the marks of
the extreme right in Europe
is they do not accept
climate change.
What worries me is
when denial-- let's
call it that, outright
denial, saying I do not,
I do not accept the
science, becomes
a mark of people's
political identities.
So it's not just another
attitude they have,
but to be right wing you
have to deny climate change.
My worry is that that's where
America's already reached.
We know that it is now
a stronger prediction--
people's position
on climate change
is a stronger prediction
of their politics
than their position
on birth control,
or their position on
abortion, or gun control,
or capital punishment.
That's to say that more
conservatives do not
accept climate change
than they follow
party line on
those other issues.
That means it's now
become a mark of identity.
You're a conservative,
you don't accept this.
And my worry is we're seeing
the same pattern in Europe.
So it's vital that
we find new ways
of talking which bring
in this other group.
Please, sir.
AUDIENCE: So I find the
hardest aspect of this
to be the sacrifice aspect.
I mean, in terms of my
experiences and conversations
with people, if I
talk to somebody
and even if they're fully
on board with climate change
and the conversations
typically goes
to how are we going to generate
more energy, cleaner energy.
It's never how can we cut back.
Jared Diamond was
here, and I asked
him am I going to have to give
up my massive data centers
to solve this, cause
that's how I have my fun.
And he said no, we
just to make America
more like Europe, which I
thought was a strange answer.
And I think about this, and
I feel like-- so right now
we have a situation where in
countries like China and India
they're racing as
fast as they can
to increase their
consumption, because they're
developing economically.
They have very rapidly
growing middle classes,
and they're saying finally, we
can have the kind of lifestyle
that people in the West have,
like why can they have these
nice lifestyles, and we can't?
Lifting out of
poverty, basically.
And the thought is
like if I'm going
to start making sacrifices,
or if some group is going
to start making sacrifices,
it's going to feel unfair
if not everyone on
the planet is making
the same sacrifices
simultaneously.
And I feel like
that's an obstacle.
GEORGE MARSHALL: So the question
there was one of sacrifices,
and how do we deal with that.
Are sacrifices innate in
the issue of climate change,
and also how do we message that?
How do we deal with it?
You yourself are saying you
feel uncomfortable with it.
Of course, then there's the
issue of recently developing
countries, especially
countries like India and China,
where some people are for
the first time in their lives
having their most
basic needs met.
I agree.
I think, however,
we need to recognize
that the language of sacrifice
or the narrative of sacrifice
is in some ways
created around this.
I think there are ways that we
can meet a lot of our material
needs at a very, very
much lower impact.
And it's not just like a matter
of being more like Europe.
It's a matter
recognizing that there
are ways that we can live
which are more rewarding.
I think the idea of sacrifice
is the idea of ultimately
giving something away.
I think the language
which is more powerful
is the one of regaining
something that we have lost.
People are very
disconnected socially.
There is a strong connection
between high carbon societies
and the destruction of society,
the dislocation, the way
that people just cover
huge distances sitting
in their own cars.
I realize there's a problem in
that American society is now
built and constructed
around hypermobility.
But I think there are very
encouraging signs, for example,
in the way that people
are re-inhabiting
the center of cities, the way
that for the first time ever,
demand for vehicles
and for transportation
mobility amongst young
people is falling.
Not falling because
of money, although we
know that they are
hard times for people,
but also falling for
just simple demand.
People are wondering, do I
really need to have this stuff,
and be locked into this,
or are there other ways
that I can live?
When we talk about where we
need to get to, on many indices,
especially in
terms of transport,
we would be most of a way
towards a low carbon society
if we introduced
new technologies
and we lived at the level
that we lived at in the '70s.
Well, I was around in the '70s.
And you know what, it was fine.
I'll tell you one thing
interesting about the 70s,
was that actually
that was the time when
right across the Western world
personal happiness peaked,
was in the first five
years of the '70s.
That was a time when people
had a combination of having
their lifestyle met,
their needs met,
having holidays,
having fun things,
having toys, having
decent houses,
having jobs-- which let's
face it, is important.
There are other things
which meet people's needs.
But at the same time,
having community,
having society, having family,
having knowing the people
on their street.
And we've lost a lot of that.
But I wouldn't say that
this isn't a problem,
and I also definitely wouldn't
say that we should in any way
be thinking about denying
the other people in the world
a chance to develop.
And given that we're
doing that, that
means we're going
to have to do more.
Indeed, it's a conundrum.
I think ultimately
the only way we're
going to move forward
on this-- and again,
going back to the
previous question--
is we're going to have to
believe that it is vitally
important for our survival
that we let go of some stuff.
And that's going to be painful.
And we're going to
have to grieve that.
It's not as if it's
going to plain sailing.
And we're going
to have to grieve
the loss of the
fossil fuel age, too,
because we're going to
have to walk away from it.
And there's things in
there which are really fun.
There are things in there
which have been really fun,
it's been a great party.
Let's recognize that.
Also, let's recognize
that we can't do it.
Could I have a question
from anybody else?
No, OK, please.
And then that's
the last question.
Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Just a
bit of an objection.
Maybe in terms of
a question that you
can explain why you do it.
The reality is that
the vast majority
of things that we need to do in
order to prevent climate change
are profitable.
It seems to be
bizarre that those
who support climate
change constantly
focus on the subject of
sacrifice, when in fact they
should be talking about profit,
and the things that prevent us
from accomplishing
these profits.
Give an example, here
in New York City, one
of the largest and
cheapest efforts
to mitigate climate impact
is our clean heat program
I helped on, where
we went and we
banned the use of number
six fuel oil in the city.
By doing so we've reduced by
over a million tons per year
the amount of CO2 that's
being emitted, and enough
PM 2.5 emissions,
so that according
to the Department
of Health we've
reduced the mortality rate
in the city by 700 to 800
per year.
And that's in a program
that had been going on
for a four to five year period.
The way we accomplished
it was by modeling
out the alternative
fuels, basically
number six versus
number two, natural gas,
et cetera, for the
buildings in the city.
We went to the
mayor and we said,
mayor, if you force
these buildings--
and there are only
10,000 of them--
if you force these buildings
to stop using number six,
they will all end
up saving money.
We went and we did the
environmentally responsible
thing, the thing that's
good for climate change,
and the way we justified it
was by pointing out to people,
educating them and showing
that they would not only
have a cleaner
environment, but they
would save money if they did it.
Now that is the case
almost across the board.
Why in God's name do the
climate change guys constantly
talking about sacrifice,
when it's a heck of a lot
more motivating to tell people
there's a ton of money to be
made out there, there's a
ton of money to be saved?
You can not only have
a cleaner environment,
but you can have a cheaper
environment, more jobs,
better economy, et cetera.
GEORGE MARSHALL:
Well, there are a lot
of people saying
different things,
and there are
people like yourself
who are saying exactly that.
There's opportunities
and jobs, there's
opportunities and profit.
They are, of course, people
who are environmentalists
who are saying
something different,
and that is because from
their world view-- which
I have to say, in many ways I
share those politics-- we are
skeptical of economic
growth, and we are skeptical,
I think, with good reason,
about whether in the absence
of any cap on our own
behavior, either here
in the developed world,
or around the world--
we should be saying things
can be entirely motivated
by profit.
Because there's going to be
tendency to just do things
more efficiently, and
still have more of them.
But I agree, that the
profit opportunities
are very, very important.
I think that there's
rewards there at all levels.
If I was speaking now to a
room full of business people,
I would probably
be stressing that.
That would be their values.
And I think the obvious
answer to question
is why do some of the
environmental campaigners
or climate change campaigners
not talk about it?
Because it's not their values.
As I said, climate change is
created around the narrative
that we make of it.
But it can be any
of those things.
There's no individual ownership.
There's nothing which says
climate change is this thing.
Climate change can be
an opportunity for jobs.
Climate change can
be an opportunity
for a new kind of morality,
if you're that way concerned.
It can be a way
of building faith,
and it can be a way of profit.
It can be a way of growth.
It can be those things.
So I entirely agree with you.
There is no rule that
says you talk about it
one way or another.
And I think maybe in a way what
you've shown there is exactly
the issue, which is that
people respond to the way
that the thing is
discussed and talked about,
sometimes more often than
actually the core science.
I'm going to close down now if
I may, but thank you so much.
Thank you.
