Welcome to my blog.
As the extent of knowledge about the seriousness of the situation increases in our mind, the size of Superego increases. This section of our mind keeps poking us that you are doing wrong when you use your car to go to the office. This creates anxiety in our mind. This is called Cognitive Dissonance. We will discuss that sometime later in detail. But if the desire to do the forbidden thing is too high, as the use of fossil fuels, in this case, the mind sometimes rebels or tries to find a middle path or tries to achieve a settlement between the ID and the Superego. This, it does with the help of certain mechanisms like denial or rationalization or substitution/sublimation.
We will discuss all these individually in subsequent blogs with examples.
Today we will focus on one of them called “sublimation”. In this, the mind channelizes the anxiety invoked, into something socially acceptable. For example, when one realizes that we should give up fossil fuels, instead of giving up completely, he settles for a smaller more fuel efficient car or relieves his anxiety by showing more enthusiasm in recycling plastic or growing his own vegetables in his Balcony. Indeed, nothing wrong in doing any of the above, although one should realize that just doing these is not enough and what they are done just to relieve anxiety, they can have no effect on global warming.
One often finds the recommendation of taking a bicycle to work to reduce individual carbon footprint. If a person can, he should. There is nothing wrong in it, every effort of avoiding fossil fuel usage is welcome.
However, let us imagine what will happen if all the citizens of a city decide to go to their offices by bicycle? Will it make a huge difference? The answer is clearly a big no. If they do it for a day or two, it is completely pointless. But even if they do for a long time (which I agree is almost impossible for most to accept), the impact would be very little. Because the public transport, the trucks, the ships, the flights, the thermal power stations, the huge factories and malls utilizing dirty energy will continue to pollute. Thus even this would be nothing but sublimation and it would not be effective over the long run.
Then what needs to be done?
The answer cannot be accommodated in a single blog.
However, I will try to explain with an analogy.
Imagine that you decide that you are driving and you want to go to Delhi.
What process will your brain follow?
The first step is to find where you are at the moment. The next step, of course, is to find where Delhi is, i.e. how far. Then, probably you will search on a map if you have one, which is the best way to go to Delhi and then you assess if you are going in the right direction or in the wrong direction. Accordingly, you would correct your path and keep driving. Intermittently, you would have to keep re-assessing your location to confirm that you are on the right track. While using the GPS- google maps, the software does all this for you automatically.
How is all this discussion relevant?
This is true in the context of Global warming as well.
However, unfortunately, there is no consensus of the goal we should be headed towards.
Some believe that the goal should be continued growth with some fantasy manmade machines or solely convert to renewables. The extreme demand for resources, which humans are causing to the ecology or ecological annihilation started by humans will not in any way be reduced by this. In fact, complete Decarbonization will actually increase the demand for resources or add to habitat destruction.
The goal, in reality, should be to achieve long term balance in the carbon cycle, in short, to remove all the CO2 we have emitted (or more appropriately restore the natural cycles which are the usual mechanisms by which nature removes CO2) and to stop putting excessive CO2 in the atmosphere.
Once we have our goal, we have to assess where we are and in which direction we are going.
Unfortunately, like GPS, we do not have an accurate means of knowing where we stand and where we are heading. And the human tunnel vision and lack of knowledge is the most important hurdle due to which most are unable to understand, where we stand. In the confines of our bedroom, most of us are completely unaware of what the scientific community warnings include and why a number of kids all around the world, are on a strike refusing to go to school.
Thus the first step in direction of our goal is to realize which location we are in by acquiring the right kind of knowledge. Selecting the right path can save a lot of effort in the future and this is vital.
Today, as per the scientific community, we are living at a very important juncture. In front of us are two roads which lead to a completely different direction. The first road is the one in which we learn to give absolute importance to save ecology and keep Nature while taking every decision and stop giving importance to profit alone at all cost. The other more attractive option being to continue our luxurious lifestyle and do nothing about the current trajectory of warming.
It is pretty clear, with most policies of most governments pointed at development and well-being of just humans, disregarding ecological damage they cause, that we are headed absolutely in the wrong direction completely focussing on economic growth and increasing our emissions and reducing the natural carbon sinks. Do you think we can reach Delhi like this? Certainly not.
Like the GPS, we also do not have a well-defined map to reach our Delhi. And what is the best way to reach our destination is still a heating debate.
Imagine, that you realize that Delhi is in the North direction. But the best way to go to Delhi is by a flight or train. Imagine that the train station or airport is in the south direction. What would you do? Would you say “Delhi is in North, how can we travel south and reach Delhi?” Similarly, in a complex system that we have built in, the aim is to reach our goals safely and efficiently. In doing so if we have to do slightly more greenhouse gas emissions, that is ok as long as you have a good long term plan in place (like catching a train or a flight). Long term policies are more relevant like reducing the number of flights or substituting air travel by a greener means of transport or not putting crores of funds in dirty fuels for electricity like gas or coal-based thermal power stations even if they cost us money. This, however, is possible only if most of us are aware of the significance and most of us are willing to give up our Denial.
Denial and WYSIATI (what you see is all that is) phenomenon are important reasons why people jump onto the conclusion that there is no catastrophe or that there is no need for urgent action or we can continue our addiction for growth for some more time.
Both of them will be discussed subsequently in a separate blog.
To conclude, although going to office by cycle or public transport is a described method, spreading the right knowledge and forcing the governments to implement policies which are nature friendly instead of supporting a government which disregards nature and is on a pathway of destruction of nature in the name of Economic development, is a better method of reaching our goals. Just going to the office by bicycle and then being a part of the devastation done by our government is nothing but Sublimation to reduce anxiety. Unless we know and agree to implement the ugly and difficult to implement steps, we are not going anywhere. Not an easy task to do as we are part of democracy and if the majority are ignorant or in denial about the seriousness of this situation, our government cannot make any policies relevant to reaching our goals. And making people realize that they are in denial is the most difficult part, just because the most important form of denial is “Denial to accept that one could be in denial”.
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Stay tuned.
Dr Rohit Kale
Author of the book: How the Homo Sapiens Blundered
Follow on Twitter: @RohitKale23
Contact on: drkalerohit23@gmail.com
Website: saveourmotherearth.in
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