Fifteen years ago, on this day, January 8 2008, an article appeared on the IEMA website (the article now seems to be missing) under the headline Green Fatigue and Ambivalence in an Overloaded World?
“Analysts say few people are taking action to deal with the threat of climate change, although over the past 12 months the vast majority have come to accept that it poses a real threat to the world. Opinion polls reveal much confusion among the public about what Britain should do to combat the problem. A backlash is now a real threat, said Phil Downing, head of environmental research for Ipsos Mori. ‘There’s cynicism because on the one hand we’re being told [the problem] is very serious and on the other hand we’re building runways, mining Alaskan oil; there’s a lot going on that appears to be heading in the opposite direction.’
http://oldsite.iema.net/news?search_api_views_fulltext=&page=128
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 417ppm. .
The context was that for the previous year and a half, basically since “An Inconvenient Truth” and Climate Camp and so on, the Western media had been having one of its periodic ‘gosh, let’s pretend to care about climate change’, periods, without actually naming any of the root causes because that would be awkward for our owners and advertisers’ waves. And, sure as night follows day, about 12 to 15 months in the “fatigue” pieces start to be written…
What I think we can learn from this
The fatigue is ‘real’, but nobody (to my knowledge) ever says
“gee, it might be that if you present scary information to people and tell them it is their fault, but don’t make it easier for them to find other like-minded people so they can form into sustained and sustainable social movement organisations, that help them make sense of the world and channel that anger, grief and fear into political action, then, you know, after a while, people who are busy, depressed, defeated will in fact stop paying attention to bulletins from the real world. Go figure.”
What happened next
The wave peaked and crashed, as it has done so before (Downs, 1972). By early 2010, the numbers of articles about – and protest activity about – climate change had dropped right off. It would come back in 2018. And then be reduced again by 2022…
See also
AOY post June 26, 1991 “environment is not flavor of the month any more”
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Downs, A. (1972) Up and Down with Ecology: The “Issue Attention Cycle The National Interest.