What stage of grief are you in about climate change?

What stage of grief are you in about climate change?

Sun 03 Sep 2017
When it comes to climate change where do you stand emotionally?

"The five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost."

This statement will encapsulates the psychology fraternities attitude towards dealing with loss.

While it is normally applied to the loss of a loved one, pet or something special I have come to appreciate that it's also easily applied to climate change or issues such as coral bleaching.

I was recently invited and attended the movie "Chasing Coral".

The visuals produced and displayed were stunning. The central characters in the story and documentary had the latest and drones and time lapse photography. This enable them to showcase the loss of coral through bleaching with relative ease.

Put simply the oceans are warming faster than everything else because of the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The increasing amount of carbon dioxide is unquestionably the result of fossil fuels being burnt.
The coral is dying because it can only survive in waters of a certain temperature range. The many exotic locations we associated with coral and the world are Equatorial or at least tropical and it's in these locations that the coral is dying.
It's like a deadly wave that has started at the equator and is expanding year-on-year towards the poles.

It's unlikely that anything will happen to turn this around and let me explain why.

With 8 billion people on the planet and out economies oriented towards growth and consumption we continue to accelerate our use of fossil fuels that is creating the carbon dioxide.

It's really that simple and unless we have a Global change in mindset we will continue to Witness The Disappearance of coral it's current locations.

The good news as is already stated is that coral growth in waters of a certain temperature range. Right here in my home city of Brisbane we have Coral growing in our very own Moreton Bay. It's likely that we will have much more in the future as the climate and water temperatures become more optimal for coral to proliferate. Extrapolate the process and we can look forward to Coral appearing in Waters far north and south of the equator. It's not unthinkable that coral will one day appear around the coast of Tasmania if things continue the way they are.

You see I've moved on in the grief process to acceptance. We are not going to see a global changing mindset around consumption, economies and population numbers so we best get used to and look forward to seeing Coral around Tasmania.

As for the creators of the powerful documentary I do have to question the mode by which they made it all happen. While they will cry out that they are raising awareness, they endlessly hopped on and off jet aeroplanes as they traversed the globe to capture coral bleaching events. In doing so these guys instantly represent the worst carbon polluters in the world. Their actions are akin to filming while you shoot your grandmother... Slowly.

What are the central characters, a very likeable young lad would be far better to apply his time around his fish tanks in which he has obviously mastered the ability to cultivate coral in a controlled situation. It would be far more valuable for him to apply the skills and effort around the transplanting and cultivation that we will so desperately need going forward to assist coral proliferating in locations further from the Equator... And I am sure that's where we'll see him.

So when you consider climate change I encourage you to consider which stage of grief grow in?

Denial : there is no question that there are still plenty of people with the head in the sand
Anger : I have a lot of friends and acquaintances and know that there are millions of military green he's out there that want to fight the world about climate change
Bargaining: there are plenty of Greenies out there that are trying to negotiate for a coal mine to not go ahead or it's just that we need to switch to electric cars.
Depression : there is plenty of people that are genuinely sad about the loss of coral and climate change. The central character of the documentary shows a lot of it.
Acceptance : This is why where I consider myself to be. I have moved on the question of what will be done in the future as a result of climate change and a global population growing and consuming.