Anyone who has worked in climate and biodiversity sciences over the last few decades has experienced the deep grief, frustration and helplessness that comes from watching leaders (political, corporate and cultural) ignore the science and intensify the crises we face, as society generally carries on as if the world is not burning around us.
A common argument about why scientists and environmental activists have been largely unsuccessful in getting the message across is that most people can’t see a real danger to themselves from climate change or biodiversity loss. Humans are geared for survival responses to immediate visible threats, so future or distant threats aren’t getting through to us…or so the argument often goes.
The current pandemic shows us this isn’t true. When faced with the very real and very present threat of a serious airborne illness with high rates of death and disability, general society in most parts of the world has largely ignored the threat and is actively supporting transmission and exposure.
Why? Poor leadership. As the pandemic continues to unfold, the evidence of covid’s risks and impacts is continuously minimised, ignored or actively suppressed by politicians, mainstream media and ‘leaders’ in the public domain. Even public institutions that are fundamentally evidence-based operations, like public health and education, are ignoring the science on covid transmission risks and impacts.
There are tight parallels between the public narrative developing around covid and similar narratives that continue to develop around climate change and the biodiversity crisis. These narratives largely minimise the risks and impacts, ostracise those who speak out, and encourage people to prioritise ‘business as usual’.
Political, media and pop-cultural responses to these crises shift the focus from science and facts to values and opinions. ‘You do you’ is the message of modern life.
Outsourcing risk management for a public health crisis onto the individual has created a myth that access to health and wellbeing is a personal choice instead of a human right. People who are trying to live covid-safely in a covid-unsafe world are labelled as overly-anxious social outcasts. People who manage risks to successfully avoid covid are labelled as ‘privileged’ or ‘lucky’.
Some people have lost support networks and are forced to make hard decisions about what rights and opportunities they can afford to forfeit to protect themselves, whether it be social invitations, career opportunities, or routine health appointments. They are unable to discuss the evidence of risks and impacts with friends, family, managers or work colleagues because the issue has become about value differences, not evidence-based risk management. Covid is a dirty word, an inconvenient truth.
Communities become segregated, pitting friends and families against each other in a war of values.
Trying to address the misinformation about covid risks in casual conversations immediately becomes awkward, because people understandably don’t want to feel that ‘they have done the wrong thing’ by getting covid. Sometimes it’s easier not to talk about it if you value the relationship or want to avoid repercussions. And the cycle of silence continues.
We’ve seen this before with global environmental crises. Not too long ago, avoiding talking about climate change became normalised and people who cared, who protested, who tried to galvanise action were labelled as over-reacting. The narrative persists – greenies, activists, environmentalists have become terms with derogatory undertones to suggest that what these people are saying is not worth listening to.
People make decisions based on their own values and the information they have engaged with. The misinformation being communicated about covid risks, especially from official organisations, is well documented. Lack of understanding about the dangers of covid is widespread. Combine this with the continually intensifying cost of living stresses of modern life, and many people have to choose ‘getting on with life’ over ‘avoiding covid’. For them, this is the ‘right’ decision, especially when the official messaging from public health channels tells us ‘it’s just a flu’.
Allowing individuals to manage a community-scale problem doesn’t work. Even with full understanding of the risks and impacts, some people will value social contact, experiences, career opportunities or livelihoods over personal or community health. With no official safety net to support people with different value systems, this results in an unsafe community for all and drives conflict and segregation.
Washing our hands will protect us from an airborne virus. Biodiversity offsets will protect us from extinctions. Carbon offsets will protect us from climate change.
Global problems that affect everyone need coordinated political, corporate and cultural leadership. What we need is less ‘youwashing’ and more leadership on how we can all make the hard decisions that prioritise community-scale wellbeing.
© Manu Saunders 2023