Growing
the Caring Economy, Shrinking the Careless One
Don Enss
In chapter two, as I
read Klein’s section “Growing the Caring Economy, Shrinking the Careless One,”
I thought about her approach and how effective it would be with the average
person throughout the world. Many may be experiencing discomfort right now in
varying degrees and those in California and Louisiana to a greater degree with
the recent fires and flooding but here in Tennessee, there is a sense that fall
and football are in the air and soon our attention will be diverted from any
discussion about climate change and certainly if it is introduced not just as a
threat to human survival necessitating a change but one which will require us
to be more conservative and do with less, it will not fly.
I know what she saying
is valid, but how you market it to get citizens’s buy-in is where we may
disagree. If you tell me that you have a
little intermittent pain in your tooth and I tell you that if you don’t have an
immediate dental checkup that your tooth will deteriorate and you will need to
have a root canal and suffer extreme pain, you’ll think about it, but if the pain
subsides, you’ll put it off. All of the
suggested frightening outcome might be true, but I’ll be more successful if I
focus on getting you to the dentist without dwelling on the horror story. Then
once you’ve seen the dentist and the x-rays come back positive, then you will
buy into the proposed treatment and maybe avoid a root canal.
We had that opportunity
back in 1988 and we let it slip away. Then 79% of Americans knew about the
greenhouse effect; that was the time to strike.
Now, those individuals who heard that message are twenty-eight years
older today and many of them don’t see where they have experienced that drastic
of a change. Maybe the winters are a little warmer, but that’s welcomed and the
summers a little hotter, but we have air conditioning so how do you get a
buy-in to alter one’s lifestyle.
I think you have to
start with education and granted we may not have a lot of time, but since Naomi
Klein published her book and held her seminar, how much have we read or heard
about climate change in Tennessee. Conservatives control the majority of radio
talk shows and are very prominent in our state and federal legislatures
controlling one or both chambers so any discussion of climate change legislation
is dead on arrival. I believe that the solution is the social media through a
rational approach focused on first getting buy-in to the problem and then
manageable solutions to begin addressing it. It may not be the best approach,
but right now it would be better than nothing.
I may feel differently
at the conclusion of our course, but based on what I’ve read, that’s where I am
now.
You're right, Don, Klein is not offering an olive branch to induce "buy-in," or softening her stance to win uncommitted hearts and minds. She's rallying the troops, issuing a call-to-arms, declaring war on corporate globalism and its apologists. Ideologists who refuse to acknowledge climate change for ideological reasons are not going to buy in. She wants to defeat them. She's saying they have to be defeated. Are all those distracted football fans, et al, relevant to this battle? As you suggest, that depends on how many of them intend to vote.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post Don, and I can agree with you. Coming into this class I did not have much to say about the climate crisis, because I haven't studied much on my part. But after only reading two chapters of this book I believe that I am already starting to see the whole picture, and the reality of where we are in contrast to the environmental crisis. But, because I am so late in the game and just now starting to join the band wagon I also am confused on where to start and it seems like there are many higher bases to cover before the change can happen. I agree with Don, that maybe somehow social media can jump start the awareness of the problem. Social media is a great tool, and if used wisely I truly believe it can make a difference.
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