ACT I
Scene 1
We know about the religious, economic, and political opposition to climate science and environmental activism.
But there are a couple others that I’ve encountered in my years of activism, which no one seems to want to talk about much.
One is anti-science attitudes among environmental activists, and activists in related movements.
I’ve met a lot of people who love to talk about scientific concepts as long as they disprove what conservatives believe. But the moment I start talking about scientific discoveries that prove anything they don’t want to hear it’s like they have an intellectual gag reflex and automatically reject anything they don’t like.
This was a mystery to me for quite a while. Why would people who claim to support people expanding their minds so they can understand the world better and find a better relationship to the environment be so opposed to environmental science?
Scene 2
There are several parts to this problem.
First, it’s harder to get past the “What do you feel is supposed to happen in life?” question than many people realize.
These people have gotten past believing we’re supposed to get what we want according to ancient beliefs and theyunderstand that we’re part of a world that’s bigger and more powerful than us.
But then they’ve bought into different misinterpretations of our relationship to the environment and assumed they’re supposed to get what they want that way.
Scene 3
I’ve heard several different versions of this.
Hunter gathering people in the state of nature were perfect until farming was invented and ruined everything.
Life in the British Isles was perfect until Christianity came along and ruined everything.
Life in the Americas was perfect before the White people came and ruined everything.
Life in any idealized place at an idealized time was perfect until one historical event happened and ruined everything.
And if everything was so perfect in these mythical places, it must mean everyone there were peace loving vegan feminists too.
All of these are just new stories of the Garden of Eden with some of the words changed.
Or the environment is so powerful it can probably recreate species that have gone extinct.
Or science doesn’t really work because the scientific method was developed by Francis Bacon and he was a misogynist.
Or science doesn’t really work because scientists used to believe something that was eventually proved wrong.
Or people give two or three examples of things scientists were wrong about.
Or better science education won’t help the environment because science is just another belief system and that would indoctrinate everyone into thinking the same way.
Let’s use the Web of Human Behavior to look for clues…
ACT II
Scene 1
If you compare people’s reasons for environmental activism to the list of nine motivations, you can findall of them.
Survival and safety because the environmental crisis threatens all of us.
Family because it threatens our families also.
Social because it threatens our friends and communities.
And because we get to work with other people to try to solve a problem that affects all of us.
Sex for people who are romantically attracted to other environmental activists.
Self gratification for people who feel good about environmental activism.
Self actualization because it’s empowering to people to actively create their own futures.
Self fulfillment and fulfillment of self fulfillment because to some people it feels like the most important thing they could do.
Both science and anti-science environmental activists can do all of these things.
Scene 2
If you look at the list of six variables, you can see why some people decide to be environmental activists while most people don’t.
All of us have things in our personal history that make us want to help change the world. At the very least, we’ve heard inspiring stories of other activists and we’ve heard convincing stories about the danger of the environmental crisis.
We have abilities we can use.
We have favorable environmental factors, like time, resources, and opportunities to use for activism.
We either have skills to use for activism or we believe we can learn them.
Activists have created a cultural background of activism, so we can support each other and future activists. Also, we have a broader cultural background in the histories of our countries, because we’ve followed a path toward self-determination and inclusion, from monarchy being replaced by democracy, to the abolition of slavery, to equal rights for women, to the defeat of Fascism in World War II.
And our personal combinations of motivations give us goals that are consistent with environmental activism.
Again, all environmental activists can say all of these things.
Scene 3
When you look at the variable factors between science- and anti-science environmental activists, you can see why they go off in different directions.
We all have something in our personal histories that make us feel like something is wrong and make us want to help change the world.
Some activists— probably a relatively large number compared to the population as a whole— feel like things are wrong with the world and want to change them because they have a personal history of abuse, bullying, or surviving violent crimes. I’m just going to lump all those things together here and call them abuse.
Abuse is the act of trying to make someone feel like they don’t have any choices. It means someone wants you to do something that you don’t want to do, or they want something from you that you don’t want to give them, so they hurt you one way or another until you give up resisting and do what they want.
You might notice that this definition of abuse also describes both the history of slavery and modern sex trafficking. Just because we use three different terms for them doesn’t make them three separate things. Slavery doesn’t function without abuse.
Scene 4
The other variables diverge from there.
Abuse survivors might come from a cultural background of abuse, like homosexuals or transgender people who grew up in fundamentalist Christian homes or communities.
They’ve developed skills for dealing with abuse.
It might affect their abilities, if they’ve suffered emotional injuries that they can’t undo without the help of mental health professionals.
Their environment probably affects them somehow. If they’ve escaped their abusive situation they probably try to surround themselves with supportive people now. If they’re still in a hostile situation, like people who have good homes but are still surrounded by hatefulness outside their homes, the problem is still affecting them.
And they have goals of counteracting the kinds of abuse that have affected them specifically.
These things lead to anti-science when scientific discoveries, or the way they’re presented, conflict with their anti-abuse life strategies.
Scene 5
Science depends on facts.
Facts are true whether anyone believes them or not. Facts are things people can make definitive statements about.
Many kinds of abuse depend on people making definitive statements also. Because to force someone to do what you want depends on you making it clear what you want them to do.
Religious fundamentalism depends on people making definitive statements about cause and effect wrapped up in morality. If you use morality and threats about the afterlife to make someone feel like they have no choice but to do what you want, that’s abuse too.
So if you’ve spent most of your life hearing people threaten you that homosexuals and perverts are going to suffer and burn in the fires of hell forever and ever and ever and ever, you’re probably glad to get away from that and hear people talk about the world in terms of the environment being a huge interconnected web of life, where living things go about their lifecycles without being punished in an afterlife, and where you have the freedom to think and feel and live the way you want.
But then when you hear scientists making definitive statements about life, like, “Evolution is the result of replication, variation, and selection,” that can sound to you so much like someone telling you what to believe that you instantly stop listening and say something like, “We don’t actually know that. It could be many things. There are so many things about the world we don’t understand.”
Scene 6
If the person has PTSD or some other type of emotional injury or mental illness, they might not have the ability to listen to scientists make definitive statements about life, or about certain parts of life.
If abuse has been part of their environment, they’re trying to create an environment now that doesn’t have abuse in it. Or anything that seems abusive.
If they’ve survived abuse they have skills for dealing with abuse.
If they’ve been involved in the environmental movement very long it also means they have social skills for fitting into it. That means they’ve learned how to use the language and cultural values of the movement to counteract things they perceive as abuse.
They can say things like, “I don’t feel that people try to maximize the survival rate of their genes. So for you to expect me to believe it just because you said it is emotionally insensitive.”
And, “If science really makes you understand the world so well, why hasn’t it taught you better communication skills?”
These people’s goals aren’t just to struggle for a healthy global environment, but also to struggle for a healthy social environment for themselves. But their idea of a healthy social environment is one where no one does anything that reminds them of the abusive environment they’ve come from.
Even if that means trying to help save the global environment by discouraging or preventing anyone from talking about science.
ACT III
Scene 1
These are just some examples I’ve seen of how anti-science gets wrapped up in the environmental movement.
We can say more generally that anti-science environmentalism confuses cause and effect with morality.
We got into the environmental crisis in the first place because people did what they felt was right without looking at the evidence surrounding the choices they were making. Now people have been talking for so long about how the environment is good that anyone who equates cause and effect with morality can assume they must be helping the environment, no matter what they do, because they feel like a good person.
This is not to say that people with emotional health problems should be shut out of the environmental movement. This is to say that nobody deserves to take over the environmental movement to use as a substitute for emotional therapy.
Many religious fundamentalists, economists, and politicians have decided that the environment must work in whatever way is most convenient for them.
If you feel like the environment is supposed to work in whatever way is most convenient for you, you’re not solving the fundamental problem.
Scene 2
The role of science in remaking society goes far beyond scientific discoveries.
The five steps of science— observability, self-consistency, universality, reproducibility, and debatability— are also the most direct route to a diverse and inclusive society.
If we talk about our ideas in terms of facts as much as possible, which includes talking about the facts that go into our feelings and opinions, and if we can trust each other enough to generally agree on morality, and if we can give each other the space to agree or disagree, then we can all say what we have to say and come to agreements we all feel are beneficial to us overall.
But when anyone starts acting like their unsupported feelings or opinions are the only acceptable ones, and they find ways to force you to accept them, or theythreaten to punish you until you do, people stop cooperating and the plan breaks down.
Scene 3
We need strong, resilient, adaptable societies to deal with climate change and its effects.
Strong, adaptable societies depend on cooperation.
Cooperation depends on trust.
Trust depends on a shared worldview.
And the only way to create a worldview we all share is by building it up from the facts we have in common as humans who live on Planet Earth.
