Distribution of blankets in Denmark to withstand the 19ºC heating limit set by the Government. Turning off lights in public buildings at ten o’clock at night in Spain. Close up of hot water for hand washing in Germany. They are not plots from series like ‘The Collapse’ or ‘Blackout’, they are energy saving measures for this winter. But scientists, who consider the gas crisis due to ukrainian war as a syndrome associated with climate change –such as the 300 wars waged over water–, foresee more cannibalistic restrictions.
It would not be the first time. Between 1973 and 1974, due to the oil crisis and the coal miners’ strikes, the British Government established the ‘three-day week’ of work, the televisions stopped broadcasting at 10:30 p.m. and people lived in the light of the candles. Only now the matter is more “twisted”, Timothy Morton, author of ‘Dark Ecology’, makes clear, because “we are ‘inside’ the problem – the damaged biosphere –, does not have a limited duration and there is no central authority to make decisions.
If that is so, why do we drag our feet so much? A handful of experts try to unravel the ball.
(informational) trap for the brain
“Human beings react more to the ‘representations of the world’ than to the objective realities in front of us, because we tend to reduce complexity to make it acceptable”, explains Enric Pol, professor of Social and Environmental Psychology at the UB. And the factories of ‘representation of the world’ are the media (from the ‘traditional’ to the channels of Kylie Jenner and Ibai Llanos) .
A study carried out by his department determined that during the 2008 crisis, news about sustainability sought the involvement of people. “Headlines like ‘you have to turn off the tap’ managed to reduce water consumption in the city of Barcelona to 60 liters per person per day, when in Paris it was around 600”, the professor gives as an example. “People had a perception of royal emergency“.
Over the years, the information increased – “intentionally?” “at the time when we start to be treated as ‘clients’?” – the idea that climate change was a technological, global, geopolitical problem. “The human tends to solidarity -enric Pol assures-, but when the emphasis is placed on ‘what the powers dictate’, often with contradictory slogans, there is a perception of deception”. “Nobody wants to be a loser who lowers the heating“, the environmentalist Andreu Escrivà lands on the concept.
Blackout? here there is not
“We avoid cognitive dissonance and, unless we are forced by reasons that affect us very directly, we stay with what we thought before,” explains the social psychologist. That happened when the covid was rampant in China, and then in Italy (he was ‘far away’). But, as then, “the important thing is avoid having the emergency, plan the risk and establish protocols so as not to act in a disruptive way,” warns Marc Martí-Costa, PhD in Public Policy and Social Transformation from the UAB and researcher at the Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies in Barcelona.
That doesn’t happen. Fernando Valladares, a researcher at the CSIC, where he directs the Ecology and Global Change group, tells us that in a meeting with agents from the electricity sector he asked about the possibility of a blackout and a manager from the Spanish Electricity Network, outlining a sardonic smile, told him replied: “In Spain there have never been blackouts“. “The Spanish electrical system is robust, yes; but temperatures of 47ºC had never been recorded in the north of the Peninsula,” says the expert.
churras with merino
“The public message given now is that there is no risk“, confirms Martí-Costa. And meanwhile, populism allergic to changes in the economic model puts the emphasis on the shopping basket and on the fact that people cannot pay the bills. “What use is the basket of buy it if we’re dead?” asks Valladares, warning that churras are mixed with merino.
And this is the case, continues the scientist, for at least three reasons: 1/ “we are capable of not letting go of the accelerator and continue to maintain ‘business as usual’ until we crash, something that has already happened in other civilizations”; 2/ “we do not accept uncomfortable truths, such as that the king is naked or that climate change kills”; 3/ “for the loss of identification and respect for democratic mechanisms“.
Mandeville’s fable
The tonic comes from afar. We continue with our feet in the bucket of the myths of modernity. “We are used to considering the Energy it is abundant and we believe that we can always find new sources through human ingenuity”, explains Dominique Méda, director of the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Sciences Sociales, and recalls ‘The fable of the bees’ by Bernard de Mandeville (1714), which praises the enrichment private as a source of public prosperity, the idea that the love of luxury allows the production of goods to be multiplied by 10 and that simplicity and moderation lead to ruin, and no economic agent is in favor of denying it.
To successfully enter the new cycle – that of “sobriety” in Macron’s words – “we will have to connect to the private and collective values of moderation and self-limitation,” indicates Méda. And he notices that ‘green growth’ is not enough, which extols that we can continue producing and consuming while preserving the natural heritage. “Implementing new regulations –quotas, rationing and prohibition–, promoting the deployment of new modes –veganism, self-production–, and highlighting the benefits derived from these new practices –for health, well-being, work, social relations– does not take to nowhere”.
Truth without hot pads
“There are more and more scientific studies that show that having ‘protected’ citizens with sweetened messages has led to a society that thinks that everything is in someone’s hands,” explains Fernando Valladares. “But there is no one in the wardroom. We are on a collision course with the limits of the planet. We can adapt, which we do quite well, but we have to mitigate, and for it to work we have to start today, in 10 minutes, right now.”
According to the CSIC researcher, degrowth is not an option, as is not the law of universal gravitation. “The only thing we can do is choose what we want to happen: schedule the de-escalation and accompany it with measures for the most disadvantaged, or wait for a cascading collapse.”