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It's funny how life works. Four essays are waiting for me, and now I'm writing a completely different one for you, dear reader. And all because of running into one of our neighbors this morning, when my mom and I put on our rain boots, took our umbrellas and went on a long, wet walk through the woods. It had been raining almost nonstop for two days, and lots of towns in the area and other parts of Styria, as well as parts of Carinthia (both are Austrian states) had been flooded.
Fortunately, our country house is so high up that we don't have to worry about the water, and as I write this, I sit under a blue, sunny sky with some puffy clouds -- Never mind, it's starting to rain again, and I better seek shelter on my roofed porch.
So my mom and I ran into this neighbor, and after admiring the parasol mushroom she'd found, the topic shifted to the many floods. When my mom said that climate change was definitely here, the neighbor replied that climate change was a natural phenomenon, and that there was nothing humans could do to influence the weather. She further said that the melting glaciers had exposed tree stumps, which proved that climate change had always existed.
I couldn't keep quiet anymore and said that it did make a huge difference whether the Earth's climate changed over thousands and thousands or even millions of years, or within a mere 170. Ignoring my argument, she repeated how people could never fix the climate. I responded that if we all worked together toward reaching the same goal, we could be successful. But I also acknowledged that it was highly unlikely to get everyone on the same page. I then stressed that people not being able to successfully mitigate the climate crisis had nothing to do with the fact that they were causing it.
Dismissing my argument once more, she complained about other countries not caring at all, and said that she as a farmer had always worked with nature and was therefore doing everything right. My mom pointed out that according to meteorologists, the ocean now had a temperature of 30 Celsius (86 F), which was the reason for all that rain. The neighbor countered by saying that during her vacation in Croatia last May, the water had only had 18 C (64.4 F). When I threw in that the ocean was a whole lot bigger than just her little beach in Croatia, she moved on to complain about the Green party (Austria's environmental party) being so inconsistent, but telling us how to behave.
I responded that inconsistency was the most natural thing on Earth. She, my mom, I and everyone else were inconsistent by nature. So why should the Green party be perfect? Think about it, dear reader: people love animals but have no problem eating ribs; they condemn abortion but support the death penalty; or they condemn the death penalty but are pro-euthanasia; they condemn littering but throw their cigarette butts on the ground; or they want to protect the whales but then vacation on huge cruise ships whose underwater noise makes the whales lose orientation and can even damage their hearing.
I didn't share these examples with our neighbor, as they wouldn't have made a difference. She lived in her own reality. It was so frustrating. At the same time, it was fascinating to observe how she -- unconsciously -- used a number of psychological strategies to protect her reality.
She complained about inconsistencies in the Green party despite being inconsistent herself. She kept arguing that she did everything right, and that other countries didn't care at all, while declaring again and again that humans couldn't influence the climate anyway.
Equally noticeable was her use of selective exposure, meaning that she either ignored information that didn't fit her own beliefs, or she made it fit, such as dismissing meteorologists (i.e., experts) and claiming that the measured 30 C in the ocean couldn't be accurate because last May the water temperature in Croatia was only 18 C.
Furthermore, she displayed confirmation bias by placing more weight on information that supported her view, and by repeatedly returning to that information. We all know that the climate has changed naturally in the history of the Earth. She used this information to reinforce her beliefs, unwilling to acknowledge, however, that natural changes typically don't happen near as fast as our current human-made climate change.
Both selective exposure and confirmation bias are cognitive processes that help us reduce or even avoid cognitive dissonance, a phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt when facts (such as human-made climate change) don't align with our beliefs. To mitigate the inner conflict between our beliefs and reality, we select and interpret information in ways that confirm our own views.
People typically don't think much about the future beyond their children and grandchildren. Unlike our neighbor, I'm a single child without children and grandchildren. There's no reason for me to care about a good future for my family. But I do care. I care because I believe with all my heart that the dominion we humans were given means to treat this planet, our home, with respect and gratitude -- and not to destroy it. My care is by no means perfect. But I try my best every single day.
Dr. Daniela Ribitsch, a native of Austria, is a resident of Lock Haven.