I’ve avoided watching footage of the woeful wildfires in California. The irony is palpable, some of the most destructive fires in human history will still be smouldering as Trump is inaugurated on 20 January. On numerous occasions in the past, the president-in-waiting has called climate change a hoax and infamously claimed wildfires could be prevented by raking forests of leaf litter. Needless to say, I’m buckled up ready for a bumpy ride and have my rake ready for action although, it’s been so wet or cold in North East England, it’s more likely to be used to prepare beds for spring greens than fighting wildfires.
Post truth trauma
As the climate crisis escalates the billionaire media campaign is also buckling down in their self-declared, post-truth, fantasy utopia. In this foolish new world of media overload, people are more likely to accept arguments based on their feelings rather than on factual evidence whatever thousands of qualified and increasingly concerned scientists are stating. At this rate, my shouting into the void will rapidly escalate into screaming into the abyss and then to wailing into nothingness.
The absence of reality checks means many people are still entrenched in one of the stages of climate denial: it’s not real, it’s not us, it’s not that bad, it’s too expensive to fix, fake solutions work and my least favourite, it’s too late to do anything. Meanwhile I’ve been going through my own steps, but mine revolve around grief: denial that people would follow pundits over experts, anger that so many are burying their heads in the sand, bargaining to beg everyone to take action, depression at the futility of it all (which lasted all of 10 mins as there’s no time for doomism) and acceptance that we’re all human and therefore prone to failure.
As a teacher on the verge of climate breakdown, I try my best to encourage folk to become climate aware and take action as every fraction of a degree matters, even if my own feeble efforts only make less than a trillionth of a degree difference. I’ll give myself an A* for effort but a D for achievement.
Predicting chaos
Entropy is a fundamental concept in thermodynamics that measures the level of disorder in a system. In simple terms, it quantifies how energy is spread out. Higher entropy indicates more disorder and less available energy to do work. A simple example is that, when ice melts, the molecules move from an orderly, low-entropy state (solid ice) to a more disordered, high-entropy state (liquid water). As predictably as an ice lolly melting, in the context of the universe, entropy tends to increase over time.
Nature tends towards disordered systems. Unless you believe alien invasion theories, life on Earth started from incredibly simple organisms and evolved over 4 billion years to become a biodiverse melange of 5–10 million species, excluding microbes. Against nature’s best efforts, humans have a knack of trying to decrease entropy, or increase order. Imagine a forest with millions of individual organisms that have evolved in their own ecological niche. Then chop down the trees for a car park; carbon is released, flora and fauna displaced, soil no longer stores water leading to flooding and a myriad of other cascading complications. Alongside deforestation humans are responsible for pollution, urbanisation, overexploitation, climate change, and the introduction of invasive species, all of which all disrupt the delicate, complex balance of natural systems.
Conservation efforts can restore ecosystems, increasing entropy. In short, we need to work hard to keep the systems that maintain our organised civilisation in check. By embracing nature, and nature-based solutions, we can live more harmoniously on planet Earth. In Nadsat speak, ‘Nature, o my droog, is like a spatchka mesto that never stays veshchized, no matter how many raz you tidy it up’.
Unbuilt environment
Humans have their own idea of order; we remove vegetation, quarry stone, tarmac pavements and build walls. If society were to collapse tomorrow, the built environment would start to deteriorate due to lack of maintenance. Over the years, nature would begin to reclaim these spaces. Vegetation would grow unchecked, roots and plants would destabilise structures.
Weathering from wind, rain, and temperature changes would further degrade materials including concrete, steel, and wood. Eventually, the built environment would slowly blend into the natural landscape, leaving a mix of ruins and rewilded areas. To be fair, I don’t worry that humans will destroy all life on Earth, our smallholding is testament that many plants, slugs, pigeons and rats are almost bound to survive.
Apathy and empathy
In school the week we have a focus on empathy after the whole of KS3 erupted into laughter when Mrs S, from the Maths department, walked into assembly with her skirt wedged into her knickers. I tell my class that empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person, putting yourself in their shoes.
Fleetingly I sometimes try to imagine myself in the bespoke designer brogues of a billionaire. What are they really thinking? What are their hope’s for humanity given 2024 set climate records tumbling and our future is looking more burny red than rosy pink. Unsurprisingly, I have no empathy for fossil fuel billionaires, or actually any billionaire as there is no place for them in my rose-tinted view of the world. Inequality exacerbates division.
It was painful to watch Zuckerberg’s video stating he’s removing fact checking on FaceBook and Instagram whilst wearing a watch worth 4x the average house price in the UK. He believes his Hawaiian bunker will be a sanctuary. Musk and Bezos plan to become immigrants on Mars and the Kardashians will continue to pay private firefighters to protect their home like they did in the 2019 LA fires whilst letting the wider ‘hood burn. Ultimately, money won’t ensure their wellbeing but they’re rich enough not to need any compassion from Mrs Bird.
It goes without saying that CEOs of other destructive companies, such as those producing plastics or industrial farming, are not on my Valentine’s list. Neither are countless politicians who’ve failed to take adequate action despite warnings by scientists or the owners of insurance companies who have made incredible profits but are now removing affordable cover for properties under threat of fire or flood.
For people pouring fuel on the fire by causing denial or delay, and even those who could have a powerful voice but choose not to use it, I struggle to summon up an iota of empathy but I don’t despise them as hating someone gives them power by consuming your attention and energy. Let’s say, at best, I’m apathetic towards them. Ouch, that burns.
Love over hate
To share the love I’ll start close to home. I appreciate my community of friends and family, even if we don’t always see politically eye-to-eye. Care and understanding are powerful tools so we need to support diversity, equity and inclusion, alongside promoting social and environmental justice. Those who are already struggling the most in our brutal new world, and who will be most impacted by climate impacts, are people in poverty, women and children. Like the underdog football team I’ve supported for decades, I’ll use my voice to champion them with continued hope they are not on the losing side in the end.
I might not often cross paths with indigenous peoples but I wholeheartedly support them. Across the globe ancient tribes have been living in symbiotic harmony with their environment for thousands of years. Their lands, covering ~20% of the world’s terrestrial surface, are home to 80% of the biodiversity, so they must be doing something right, and I’m pretty certain it’s not doom scrolling on FaceBook or buying stuff they don’t need off tinterweb. Their perspectives are crucial but their rights are frequently violated in the name of growth.
Indigenous knowledge may help us apply nature-based solutions to address societal challenges including climate change, food security, and water management. For example, terra preta, also known as Amazonian black earth, is a dark, fertile anthropogenic soil found in the Amazon which stores carbon and promotes crop growth. Now that’s the information I want to see on my social media feed, not what shade of orange the president of the US is sporting today (it’s burnt umber rather than pumpkin before you check).
Peak of Mount Stupid
There is a cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge overestimate their competence called the Dunning-Kruger effect. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve started to compartmentalise people into where they might plot for climate awareness. Some researchers suggest that Trump’s assertiveness, despite his lack of expertise in climate (raking forest leaves), exemplifies the Dunning-Kruger effect. Additionally, his supporters may also exhibit this bias, believing they have a better understanding of climate issues than they actually do, making it easier for Trump to deliver unchallenged falsehoods.
The term was coined in 1999 by psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger who conducted studies where participants were tested on logic, grammar, and humor, and then asked to predict their own performance. The participants who scored in the bottom quartile of the tests overestimated their abilities, placing themselves in the 12th percentile on average, instead of the 62nd percentile they predicted. While the effect is supported by research and widely accepted by psychologists, some critics argue that it might be misinterpreted.
Nonetheless, on a plot of climate awareness, is Trump at the peak of ‘Mount Stupid’ with his low competence, high confidence score? Maybe his followers will soon be in the trough of the ‘Valley of Despair’ when their first-hand understanding of climate impacts makes their confidence plummet. Education can help folk safely descend the peak, transcend the trough and climb up the ‘Slope of Enlightenment’ to reach the heady heights of the ‘Plateau of Sustainability’. But, even in a landscape as dry as a tinderbox, as the old adage goes ‘you can lead a horse to water’…
Note to self: Squeeze in examples of indigenous knowledge into the science curriculum. Chief Crowfoot of the Siksika had the right idea ‘Hold on to what is good, even if it’s a handful of earth. Hold on to what you believe, even if it’s a tree that stands by itself’. Or, as Hubster the ever witty orator might say, ‘Stop buying then burning crap you don’t need.’
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