Climate inattention is a collective failure to dedicate attentional resources

Evidence

Because it begins in the multiple, this model can be transferred without much difficulty from the individual to the collective scale. Christopher Mole mentions the example of a sports team who, when they execute a task with good judgement and by mobilizing all of the necessary resources, can be considered to be demonstrating cognitive unison. We may of course also mention the example of an orchestra or a theatre group – and, by extension, we may now specify the way in which our epoch is dramatically ‘inattentive’ to the threats of climate imbalance brought about by the continuation of our unsustainable lifestyles. It is not a question of ‘being conscious’ of a problem, of thinking about it or even worrying about it, but of dedicating the necessary background resources for solving it. The attunement of echoes here implies both an agreement on certain priorities and a certain behavioural alignment. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 520

Categorization

• XREF: Bridges individual cognitive-unison theory to systemic Frankfurt School-style analysis of collective attention failure. — connects to: Environmental attention includes preventative maintenance against exhaustion of resources.; Selective inattention reframes population growth as decline and erases it as a problem — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2574; The shared crisis unifies otherwise unrelated attentional practices — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 437
• QUESTION: Can ‘attentional unison’ be measured at the societal scale, or is this only metaphor? What metrics would collective attention-to-climate require?

Broader Connections

• Selective inattention reframes population growth as decline and erases it as a problem #expands (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2574
• The shared crisis unifies otherwise unrelated attentional practices #qualifies (0.72) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 437