Knowledge of environmental harm breeds despair, not action
Evidence
When my students learn about the latest environmental threat, they are quick to spread the word. They say, “If people only knew that snow leopards are going extinct,” “If people only knew that rivers are dying.” If people only knew … then they would, what? Stop? I honor their faith in people, but so far the if-then formula isn’t working. People do know the consequences of our collective damage, they do know the wages of an extractive economy, but they don’t stop. They get very sad, they get very quiet. So quiet that protection of the environment that enables them to eat and breathe and imagine a future for their children doesn’t even make it onto a list of their top ten concerns. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1202
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Dread of future environmental risk itself causes physical and economic harm — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 309; Suppressing our emotional response to environmental disaster enables our own destruction — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1195; Local problems motivate environmental action more than abstract global harms — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2949 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Local problems motivate environmental action more than abstract global harms
#complicates(0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2949 - Immediate rewards override distant slowly accumulating environmental harms
#corroborates(0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2546 - Higher environmental risk exposure paradoxically produced less individual worry
#corroborates(0.75) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 281