This is an excerpt from a new article in a peer-reviewed psychological studies journal that is published by a professional organization of psychotherapists. The excerpt provides critical analysis of some of the most widely cited criticisms of so-called 'doomism' that have been made by research groups led by non-specialists in psychology.
Psychotherapists
and psychologists have a useful role to play in helping scholars explore how
their inner worlds are affecting their contributions to the fields of climate
research and policy. It should be uncontroversial to state that emotions play a
key role in the shaping of scientific study, from the development of questions,
means of analysis, discovering insights, and deciding what to communicate and
how (Thagard, 2002). However, the idea that researchers are like machines, or
aspire to be, is still widely promoted. Such a claim to objectivity is
problematic for many reasons, with one reason being that it means institutions
of scholarship do not help their professionals develop greater self-awareness
so that greater wisdom might emerge. Without attention to how our inner worlds
shape our research, analysis, and communication choices, patterns of experiential
avoidance in the emotionally distressing field of climate scholarship might be
distorting the quality of academic activities. Rather than allow difficult
emotions of fear, sadness, shame and anger, instead the suppression of them may
mean that they unconsciously drive the academic process in some scholars. That
could lead to them projecting their inner worlds onto others, as well as
projecting blame onto them. The existence of people who are openly sharing
their views on worst case scenarios and their painful emotions about that could
be regarded, consciously or (most likely) not, by some observers as threatening
their own coping mechanisms as persons either experientially avoidant or at
risk of depression.
Most academic
research papers on climate issues claim objectivity and suggest an absence of
emotional drivers for their work. That is even the case for most papers in the
social sciences. A close look at one paper will reveal how this approach could
be enabling experientially avoidance amongst researchers, and unhelpful
aggression towards people in society being described by such research. I choose
the paper “Discourses of Climate Delay” (Lamb et al, 2020) as it was widely
promoted amongst both scholars and commentators and is cited as a key text for
claiming there is something called “doomism” which is described as bad. It
reported that “we derive our initial list of discourses from an expert
elicitation of the study co-authors”, which is a complicated way of saying the
co-authors created their categories of discourse by conversations amongst
themselves rather than analysing texts using any methods of discourse analysis.
There is no evidence in this paper of any knowledge of discourse analysis
methods, let alone critical discourse analysis, which would be appropriate for
an attempt to explain influence of discourses on power i.e. policy agendas and
decisions (Gee and Handford, 2013; Bendell et al, 2017). From a theoretical
basis of using the term ‘discourse’ simply as a way of talking, rather than a
huge field of sociological theory and research, and an empirical basis of
discussing together what they want to criticise, this is what the authors wrote
about what they describe as “doomism”:
"Doomism further argues that any actions we take are too little, too late. Catastrophic climate change is already locked-in: “The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it” (New Yorker opinion article). Such statements evoke fear and can result in a paralysing state of shock and resignation (Hulme, 2019). This discourse implies that mitigation is futile and suggests that the only possible response is adaptation – or in religious versions, by trusting our fate to “God’s hands”. As with many other discourses of delay, the surrender category does not favour the difficult work of building climate engagement and deliberating over effective solutions. (p.4-5)"
The only data they use to highlight “doomism” is one article in the New Yorker. They only reference one academic study for the claim of a “paralysing” effect (Hulme, 2019), which was not from psychology or psychotherapy, thereby ignoring a whole discipline. That academic study revealed no references in it to any of the fields that guide the analysis of discourse e.g. cognitive linguistics, narratology, discourse analysis, or critical discourse analysis. The problem with this atheoretical approach to discourse on climate is that they might inadvertently block a deeper consideration of the topics addressed. A short analysis of their statements about “doomism” in the diagram that is contained in the paper reveals the ideological assumptions that produce their claims and limit imagination.
The paper states
that “doomism” implies: “Any mitigation actions we take are too little, too
late.” (p.2) They offer no clarification on what it is too late for. Many
climate activists today, such as those in XR and Deep Adaptation, claim that it
is too late for industrial consumer society, too late for reformism, too late
for incremental change, and too late for imagining that people will escape
further and massive loss and damage in the near future. Some people are also
arguing it is too late for the ideology that underpinned the destruction and
has failed to inform significant change (Bendell and Carr, 2021). Just because
it is too late for certain objectives does not mean it is too late for seeking
to do anything. To not look closely at this issue might suggest an
unwillingness to imagine anything beyond modernity and the progress of
technological consumer society.
The paper next
states that “doomism” implies: “Catastrophic climate change is already locked
in.” (p.2) That is a widespread view amongst many scientists and it is already
happening for many people other than the authors of this paper. The paper then
states that “doomism” implies: “We should adapt, or accept our fate in the
hands of God or nature.” (p.2) Here they
imply that adaptation is inactive, and against seeking emissions reductions and
drawdown, despite the evidence that people are working on this whole agenda.
Accepting one’s fate is assumed to be demotivating by these authors, despite
there being a lot of research and current data to show the opposite – that a
realisation of mortality and a relinquishment of certainty of impact or outcome
can inspire courage and boldness.
By vilifying
people who are seeking to integrate worst-case scenarios of climate change into
their outlook and decisions, some scholars and commentators risk distracting
society from a deeper focus on adaptation. That could constitute a form of
‘Adaptation Delayism’ that leaves the field of collapse risk, readiness and
response to agencies and elites beyond the view, or potential influence, of an
engaged civil society. To help address this problem, psychologists and
psychotherapists could engage with scholars who are making such mistakes in
their assumptions about human psychology, so that delays in engagement with
adaptation are not further encouraged.
The references for this section are found in the full article, by Professor Jem Bendell, which is available for free download and as an audio recording. It has been discussed in articles by leading figures in Extinction Rebellion (Skeena Rathor and Andrew Medhurst).
Full reference:
Bendell, J. (2021). Psychological insights on discussing societal disruption and collapse., Ata: Journal of Psychotherapy Aotearoa New Zealand, 25 (1), 45–63. https://doi.org/10.9791/
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