Margaret D. Klein Quotes
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I think it's very important to invite and encourage people to talk about climate change who have a lay understanding. In general, there is a lot of confusion among climate activists about the role of science, that scientists should be social and political leaders of this movement.
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Social movements throughout history take place in people's minds. If we got 5,000 Americans who were talking about climate change to their neighbors and to their coworkers, and talking about this pledge, that would change the political and social landscape so much more than if 5,000 people got arrested for protesting a pipeline.
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Climate change is the sine qua non of continued civilization. We either solve this, or it's lights out. Turning into a collective like that is so much more aligned with how humans live and think and change.
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What we accomplished during World War Two is just amazing. We turned our country upside down. African Americans were demanding to be given combat missions. 10% of Americans moved in order to relocate for a war job. We as a country accomplished this heroic, nearly miraculous thing, and we have this legacy of policies and agency - how did they do it? How did they fund it? How did they organize it? It is actually an example that we can borrow from very productively to guide us.
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Psychologically speaking, the rational, healthy response to climate change is to say to oneself, "What can I do about this?" But that question is often answered through individual action.
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I used to be a lot more afraid of climate change. Now I spend my time working, planning, trying to move forward.
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The problem is so severe that trying to say, "First we'll fix the government and then we'll tackle climate change," or, "First we have to figure out alternative systems to capitalism and then we'll tackle climate change," I don't see how those things are possible in the very short term.
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It is rarely comfortable to talk about climate change. Bringing something difficult up, it feels like somehow by mentioning this I'm kind of causing it, I'm hurting these people. But you're not hurting these people; climate change is hurting these people. You're telling them they're being hurt.
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Climate change has been associated so much with a peaceful mentality - obviously peace and love are good, but we need to think about climate as a threat to survival.
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By looking the other way on climate change we facilitate a collective denial, and we do it for each other.
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Online petitions are built around getting as many signatures as possible. But the experience of taking them and forgetting about them degrades the importance.
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I think 99% of climate scientists would agree that we need to reduce emissions as quickly as possible, and then begin removing greenhouse gasses and carbon from the air. And if we don't do that we are looking at some range of catastrophe.
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With climate change, of course there are things to grieve. I certainly grieved that the vision that I had for my life, that I would be a clinical psychologist and write books and have a family, that that was not going to happen, because if the world is collapsing around you, it just doesn't seem that appealing anymore.
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My grandmother is a Holocaust survivor. Some heroes of mine have long been the Jewish Partisans, these young people who just went into the woods with whatever guns and bombs and what not they could get their hands on, and just would fight Nazis, and try to help people escape.
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While the American people have the impression that scientists are hard at work figuring out this complex matter of climate change, it's not actually that complicated.
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There are a lot of reasons people don't talk about climate change. One of them has to do with the language of science, and people feeling not competent about this issue.
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Taking fear seriously is not easy. A lot of people's response to fear is "Don't worry so much, it's crazy." But some things absolutely deserve our fear, and climate change is first among them.
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I argue that I don't think it's a moral position to say that civilization is going to collapse, and that's okay. Because that would cause the deaths of billions of people. It's certainly not something I'm willing to accept.
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Related Authors
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Lester R. Brown Environmentalist -
Marsha Johnson Evans Executive