Implicative denialĮnvironmentalists don’t commonly indulge in ignorant or interpretative denial, but do in implicative denial-accepting and fully understanding the facts, but avoiding the logical conclusions. Global warming “skeptics” employ interpretive denial when they admit industrialism’s warming impact, but claim it will yield net benefits in plant growth and happier days basking in mild winter sunshine.

The denier may honestly believe this unusual interpretation, or may cynically undermine discourse. Interpretative denial accepts the facts, but gives them different meaning than is normal. Accepting prepackaged memes from one’s subculture or political tribe, without employing critical thinking, is as much an avoidance of difficult truths as is refusing to think at all. Distractions include not only TV sitcoms and sports, but also corporate news and political spectacle. Comfortable citizens give in to entertainment and diversions while knowing they’re disengaged from reality. Ignorant denial 1 is used actively, to justify apathy or to shield against reality. We’ll explore some psychological underpinnings of our collective failure to change course, introduce Bendell’s deep adaptation framework, and relate his paper to our goal of stopping fossil fuels. “For instance, discussing progress in the health and safety policies of the White Star Line with the captain of the Titanic as it sank into the icy waters of the North Atlantic would not be a sensible use of time.”īendell wrote the sober “ Deep Adaptation” for colleagues unaware of the likelihood of short term societal collapse or the possibility of near term human extinction, so it’s worth reading in full if those concepts are new to you. Minor progress on an agenda more concerned with industrial development than with true sustainability is pointless if the wins are dwarfed by the losses. Like us, he now deems catastrophic climate disruption and near term societal collapse to be inevitable, rendering his field’s traditional work mostly irrelevant. When he reviewed and grappled with climate science for the first time since 1994, he came to some of the same shocking realizations as have we: the 2☌ warming limit was chosen more for political than scientific reasons we’ve already overdrafted our carbon budget “green” tech and governments and decades of environmentalism “have not produced a net positive outcome.” Bendell has a background in sustainable business and finance, with an impressive list of accomplishments from twenty years in the field.

Deep Adaptation by Jem Bendell