Much of the work around seeking to engage people on climate change has been trying to inject a sense of urgency. Creating a catalysing moment to break through the incrementalism. 100 months until x. This is the crucial decade for climate. The doomsday clock is now at one minute to midnight.
Everything, everywhere all at once is understandable and true, but it’s not sustainable for people to deal with, or live like that, on a day by day basis. Most people, even those who agree that climate change is a massive priority, struggle to find enough time in their days and weeks to engage with the issue even briefly.
Reading ‘Fire Weather’ by John Vaillant I was struck by the little moments of relative calm in amongst the terror and carnage. I can’t think of a book I’ve read where I spent as much time clutching at my face, putting my hand to my mouth in shock, shaking my head or willing people to get out. Reading descriptions of people taking their clothes to the dry cleaner and arranging the date when it would be collected next week as they watch the fire advancing outside; people running backwards and forwards from their home to their car to get some last things that seemed somehow vital in that moment; or just standing watching the fire at the end of their road. People comparing stories at the emergency shelters they had escaped to of things they had brought with them that they couldn’t fathom. Even in the midst of that raging fire, the like of which that town had never seen before, nor had most of the firefighters, people still couldn’t grapple with the immediacy of the emergency.
In ‘Scarcity’, Eldar Shafir talks about how it’s difficult to make decisions when you’re in a situation of scarcity. Whatever the source of scarcity, whether it’s financial, time or food, the brain gets frazzled and finds it hard to make any decisions. It’s so distracted by trying to deal with the impact of the scarce situation it can’t justify providing lots of brainpower to address issues, even ones which are seemingly related to the source of scarcity.
Thinking about it now, I wonder whether those moments of seeming relative calm in the book were actually that. Perhaps they were more moments of panic that looked like calm. That people just couldn’t make sense of what was happening or work out what needed to be done, what their options were. The situation had moved from one they could understand and navigate – for the people with their dry cleaning, they could think through what they already knew of their plans and availability, how they could fit their day together to find space to collect their laundry at particular points. Those kinds of situation are ones that are everyday for many, and so the range of options is easily accessible. Even the fact it was a wildfire in that context, it wasn’t the first time they had them in that scenario – just not at that level of ferocity.
For those kinds of situation which are outside our imaginings or the day to day, even in the moment, it’s hard to make sense of them. We can overlay our reactions from the everyday on to them but they don’t fit well – responses that had seemed fine, now seem incongruous, ridiculous. Why arrange to collect the dry cleaning next week when the fire looks like it could engulf the building in the next 10 minutes? But that can be all we’ve got in those kinds of situations. The habitual response. Responding to the social cues – everyone else in the shop is talking about drop-offs and collections and pointing out a particular part of some clothing that needs special attention – so to be the one freaking out would be weird and uncomfortable, even if it might make more sense in that moment.
At a collective level, Vaillant shows how the local firefighters found it hard to understand they were in a different world. They started fighting the fire in the ways they had done with previous smaller, less intense fires and found it hard to adjust. There were indicators around the speed it was moving at, the heat and intensity of it which could have shown them they needed to recalibrate. The structures they were operating in, from the different organisations with overlapping responsibility but no clear way to agree on decisions, mitigated against other perspectives or approaches finding a way through.
And then for situations with less immediacy – the wildfire isn’t rampaging at the bottom of your street – what looks like calm on the outside, or maybe even on the inside too, if we don’t look or think too deeply, can instead be another kind of panic. Wandering along with the same responses that just don’t fit now. Organisational structures which can’t recalibrate for emergencies but keep on with the busy business as usual in the meantime.
A sense of fragility underneath all of that calm and structure and order and process. Just with less reason to sense the fragility or understand the need for change…
We need new stories... 