The core of the climate social problem: stubbornness. The mitigating effect of psilocybin is worth a look
The core of the climate social problem: stubbornness. The mitigating effect of psilocybin is worth a look
Most people are unwilling to change their lifestyle significantly in the face of climate catastrophe. In particular:
- refusal to alter their diet
- refusal to ditch their car
Even the idea of simply stopping livestock subsidies is fiercely fought because people would still consider an absence of intervention to be lifestyle intereference. People are hostile toward the idea of changing their commuting and teleworking habits. In the democratic stronghold in California, even democrats voted out a democrat who tried to impose a fuel tax because they are resistant to giving up their car. Examples are endless.
the dominant excuse→ “carbon footprint is a BP invention”
The high-level abstract principle that underpins resistance to taking individual actions is the idea that because the “carbon footprint” was coined by BP in an effort to shift blame, people think (irrationally) that the wise counter move is to not take individual action. Of course this broken logic gives the oil companies exactly what they want: inaction. This has become the dominant excuse people use for not changing their lifestyle.
psilocybin
The deep psychology surrounding the problem is cognitive rigidity-- unwillingness of people to adjust their lifestyles. So how do you make people more open-minded and increase their psychological flexibility? One mechanism is psilocybin, which has been shown induce neuroplasticity and free people from stubborn thinking. It’s a long article but the relevant bit is this:
Other studies have shown increased neuroplasticity through meditation. In any case, we could use a less stubborn population.
Not just for climate, but consider the pandemic where conservatives (by definition the champions of stubbornness) refused to make even the slightest lifestyle change and fought every act of remediation. A population with a higher degree of psychological flexibility would be better to react to changes of any kind.