Climate Psychology: On Indifference to Disaster

Description

This book investigates the psycho-social phenomenon which is society’s failure to respond to climate change. It analyses the non-rational dimensions of our collective paralysis in the face of worsening climate change and environmental destruction, exploring the emotional, ethical, social, organizational and cultural dynamics to blame for this global lack of action. The book features eleven research projects from four different countries and is divided in two parts, the first highlighting novel methodologies, the second presenting new findings. Contributors to the first part show how a ‘deep listening’ approach to research can reveal the anxieties, tensions, contradictions, frames and narratives that contribute to people’s experiences, and the many ways climate change and other environmental risks are imagined through metaphor, imagery and dreams. Using detailed interview extracts drawn from politicians, scientists and activists as well as ordinary people, the second part of the book examines the many different ways in which we both avoid and square up to this gathering disaster, and the many faces of alarm, outrage, denial and indifference this involves. Front Matter ....Pages i-xv Introduction (Paul Hoggett)....Pages 1-19 Front Matter ....Pages 21-23 New Methods for Investigating New Dangers (Renee Lertzman)....Pages 25-39 Children and Climate Change: Exploring Children’s Feelings About Climate Change Using Free Association Narrative Interview Methodology (Caroline Hickman)....Pages 41-59 An Integrative Methodology for Investigating Lived Experience and the Psychosocial Factors Influencing Environmental Cognition and Behaviour (Nadine Andrews)....Pages 61-84 Emotional Work as a Necessity: A Psychosocial Analysis of Low-Carbon Energy Collaboration Stories (Rosie Robison)....Pages 85-106 Researching Climate Engagement: Collaborative Conversations and Consciousness Change (Sally Gillespie)....Pages 107-127 Climate Change, Social Dreaming and Art: Thinking the Unthinkable (Julian Manley, Wendy Hollway)....Pages 129-148 Front Matter ....Pages 149-151 Emotions, Reflexivity and the Long Haul: What We Do About How We Feel About Climate Change (Jo Hamilton)....Pages 153-175 Leading with Nature in Mind (Rembrandt Zegers)....Pages 177-193 Attitudes to Climate Change in Some English Local Authorities: Varying Sense of Agency in Denial and Hope (Gill Westcott)....Pages 195-215 We Have to Talk About…Climate Change (Robert Tollemache)....Pages 217-237 Engaging with Climate Change: Comparing the Cultures of Science and Activism (Rosemary Randall, Paul Hoggett)....Pages 239-261 Conclusions (Paul Hoggett)....Pages 263-266 Back Matter ....Pages 267-270