Renee Lertzman writes an interesting article sharing reasons why people are apathetic and not taking action on climate change
Anxiety, mourning, loss, grief, and despair can all lead to not only apathy but active denial and Apathy.
Unnameable terror becomes unthinkable and feelings become fractured. People cope by denial or projecting onto others. We say it’s not happening or it’s somebody else’s fault. Shifting agency from ourselves to others (politicians, billionaires, executives, and other nations) makes us feel better in the short term but only makes us sink deeper into our sense of helplessness and apathy.
Apathy is a defense mechanism against underlying anxieties and a sense of powerlessness against the inevitable.
We simply didn’t evolve to manage long-term, regional or global problems.
We need to take responsibility
How? What can we do?
Lertzman suggests that people want to help, and make change - but they don’t know how to!
They need to find a “home” for their concerns and desire to help.
What we can do
- sharing stories like the one you are reading now on social media.
- Hold events and sharing the outcomes
- Find ways that people can participate creatively,
- It is finding a home for that concern so it doesn’t slide down into projection and defense mechanisms.
- When people do find ways to contribute and feel that they are contributing (have agency), their sense of loss and anxiety melts into pride and joy.
- Another way to make people aware of climate change is to stay engaged with nature. Research shows that, when people feel disconnected from nature, they can lose the need to protect it. When they spend time outdoors, they feel a need to preserve it.
Lertzman, Renee Aron. Myth of apathy: psychoanalytic explorations of environmental degradation. Cardiff University (United Kingdom), 2010.