size doesn’t matter or so they say but with an existential threat: better seems smaller
Light years are difficult to imagine. The idea that our clock measuring time can be seen in terms of an unfathomable distance of miles, is an ask. Six trillion to be precise, meaning, it’s as far as a beam of light travelling in a straight line for a year, will go. Now, reverse the viewpoint to smaller eyes in asking: what does a human mile feel like, to an ant? Well, firstly, all kinds of relativity should be looked at. The tiny creature walks horizontally implying that if we did, an average step would equate to a percentage of our body length. In turn, stand the ant vertically and the length of travel reduces while inputting numbers, gives an answer.
The point is less technical, though, and more fantastical in that if we asked the ant to consider a range of existential threats in space and time, they’d be imperceptible. It’s true, the stretch of a thought experiment reflects our own difficulty in trying to manage our short-term needs with a long-term necessity. So, we need all the help we can get, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a transnational body of the United Nations: producing scientific reports on the human impact and experience of global warming.
‘Climate Change has adversely affected [the] physical health of people globally (very high confidence) and mental health in the assessed regions (very high confidence). Climate change impacts on health are mediated through natural and human systems, including economic and social conditions and disruptions (high confidence).‘
The mere fact that humanity now lies in the grip of what is the most basic definition of an existential crisis, begs many questions. None, more so urgent perhaps than why are so many of us rejecting the urgency to begin with?
A 1999 study looked at short-term thinking under threat conditions, while processing negative emotions. In suggesting that we pick the best possible outcome in the face of jeopardy, regardless of negative long-term consequences: we see how the fight, flight or freeze mechanism carries flaws. It crashed the New York stock exchange, in 1929, before nearly collapsing the global economy, in 2008. So, it works in the immediacy hence our evolutionary success but as a long-term strategy, it seems less useful. Added to that and within a psychological armoury, so to speak, Freud’s psychoanalysis offers maladaptive tools in the form of defence mechanisms, too. As Medical News Today, puts it:
‘This [denial] involves a person not recognizing the reality of a stressful situation in order to protect themselves from overwhelming fear or anxiety.’
It can backfire badly but beyond that, another reason for blinders might be policy and this was memorably expressed in a news conference with Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S Secretary of Defence. As he stood at a podium on the 12th February 2002, he faced questions at a news briefing over the United States’ position on Iraq and potential weapons of mass destruction. His famous answer became the subject of analysis, books and the title of a film about his life.
‘There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.’
The interesting thing over and above a fascinating response was some of the commentary observing that Mr Rumsfeld had omitted another factor: namely, that of unknown knowns. In fact, two German sociologists, Christopher Dasse and Oliver Kressler, wrote:
‘Rumsfeld conceals a fourth category of knowledge and non-knowledge: the knowledge we do not want to know. These are things we could know but rather decide not to know by forgetting, suppressing or repressing them.’
Exactly, and it can be applied directly to the unknown known of climate change. So, when it comes to rescuing the only celestial home we have, it seems our goal-directed behaviour is more of a hindrance than a help which isn’t news where thousands of words have been written on it. For instance, in 2009, the Australian Psychological Association (APS) observed a consensus gap between public insight of scientific unity on human-induced climate change and actual agreement within the science collective and to the tune of 50% and 97%, respectively. Naturally, information and education play a fundamental role when it comes to influence, opinion and action.
Then, almost a decade later, in 2018, a combined report by Cambridge, Bristol and George Mason universities looked at the importance of scientific consensus. On page two of ‘The Consensus Handbook’, seven studies cite the range of agreement between 93% and 97%. In what might then be a reflection of public opinion on scientific consensus, the global market research company, IPSOS, recorded various responses to a global survey, in 2023. With questions like: ‘To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following? Climate change is beyond our control – it’s too late to do anything about it,’ a picture continues to build with 24% in agreement whilst 48% disagreed (page 28). Regarding the figures, the methodology states:
‘When percentages do not sum up to 100 or the “difference” appears to be +/- 1 percentage point more/less than the actual result, this may be due to rounding, multiple responses, or the exclusion of “don’t know” or not stated responses.’
Yet, a percentage of people worldwide are still unconvinced by the science: why, is this? Well, again, knowledge plays a big role but in a 1998 study called ‘Denial and its Reasoning’, the motivations behind ignoring information were looked at, and it found that for disregard to occur, a person must set out on a series of cognitive measures.
‘So, in order to deny such a consequence, one may either deny its premise, or search [for] an alternative consequence, or search [for] an alternative premise, or deny the very relation of implication. Each type of reasoning is logically biased while at the same time, psychologically plausible and convincing. A typical feature shared by all reasoning strategies considered is the identification of ‘unproven’ with ‘false.’
So it goes, and denying outcomes has a clear impact on expectations.
In a 2015 study, human and non-human primates were tasked with trying to anticipate ahead, in navigating a maze. Using children aged between 2 and 6, chimpanzees and Rhesus and Capuchin monkeys: researchers observed the choices made in the face of independent variables, like a dead end or a trap door. The chimpanzees achieved the best results followed by the children and then the monkeys. Again, our basic capacity for future scrutiny starts early but then we’re wired to use it, in timeframes of familiarity.
In thinking back then to our little ant, the thought experiment carries truth because ant colonies will move wholesale, in the face of an existential threat.
‘Overall, these long-term studies have shown that direct and indirect disturbance caused by changes in farmland management and the landscape – as well as the physical disturbance by cattle and humans, has led to movement of nests and a reduction in the ant population density.’
Interesting, and yet if the tiny ant has sense to do something about a threat to life, what does it say about us at the top of the ladder?
Shouldn’t we, in the face of tragic and tangible evidence, year-on-year, be feeling quite ashamed?
If only, ants could speak.
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Images:
Eyes on Pollution, by The Digital Artist, Pixabay – Main Image
Heatwave, by Graphix Made, Pixabay
Climate Change, by Aniceus, Pixabay
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