DENIAL OF THE PLANETARY CRISIS - A THEORY AND EXPLANATION

 

Denial of the Planetary Crisis:   A theory and Explanation   by David K. Miller

There is a term in modern psychology called cognitive dissonance. This refers to a situation in which a person is confronted with a contradictory belief to his/her main belief system. A cognitive discomfort or dissonance is experienced when there is a clash between a person’s belief system and new information that is presented that does not fit into their old belief system. A person will try to resolve this contradiction or dissonance.  In order to reduce their discomfort, they can either deny that the new information is true and or ignore or suppress the information. Remember the discomfort is called cognitive dissonance. Using this model, we can look at the current planetary crisis and try to understand why there is so much denial among the world leaders that we are now facing life threatening problems.  In the theory of cognitive dissonance, you try to avoid information that conflicts with your belief system. Anthropologists, environmentalist, climatologists, biologists and other scientists are presenting convincing information about this planetary crisis and the sixth mass extinction facing us.  However, despite the overwhelming facts about the sixth mass extinction and the planetary crisis, many people, including world leaders, do not accept these facts because the information is contrary to their belief system. A common technique used to counter cognitive dissonance is to attack the person presenting the new information. If we can attack or discredit the person presenting the new facts then we do not have to change our belief systems and then we do not need to change our actions and we do not have to deal with the cognitive dissonance caused by the new information.  This psychological theory explains how people can maintain denial during the planetary crisis and it explains why people, who are harming the planet, can continue to justify their behavior. They hold onto the belief that the Earth can continue to be abused for our own self-interest. One solution to this problem is that the unbalancing and destruction of the planet could become so overwhelming that the planetary crisis will become more severe and deeply affect every decision maker. In this scenario we have to ask how bad does the planetary crisis have to get before the leaders begin to change to start to repair the planet.  I like to think that this cognitive dissonance will be resolved soon, especially as we are approaching 2021, the year of Planetary repair. To overcome this dissonance, humanity will have to change many belief systems and learn to make and accept hard decisions in order to repair our beloved world.