The new climate denial? Using wealth to insulate yourself from discomfort and change
While the days of overt climate denial are mostly over, there’s a distinct form of denial emerging in its stead. You may have experienced it and not even realised. It’s called implicatory denial, and it happens when you consciously recognise climate change as a serious threat without making significant changes to your everyday behaviour in response.
Much research has focused on how we intellectually distance ourselves from the unpleasant realities happening around us. What requires greater attention is how we may engage in climate denial by seeking out spaces of sensory comfort and using them to shield ourselves as the world unravels outside our window.
Denial, thought of in this way, is entirely sensible. My colleagues and I asked residents around the Western Sydney suburb of Penrith – famously the hottest place on Earth during the Black Summer of 2019-20 – about their experiences during heatwave conditions. Unsurprisingly, sensory denial is central to how they cope with extremes – primarily by using air conditioning.
poor people can just die I guess white the wealthy causing this make it worse.
I reocognize it. Heck im a doomer. but im going to be in air conditioning as long as I can during massive heat.
Had this discussion with my family recently.
I made a point how the UK heatwaves are proof of climate change and that we needed to act (not a very clued-in family).
They suggested we get ceiling fans.
I started being sarcastic:
“Look outside my window, see a barren lifeless desert hostile to any life, don’t worry, we have ceiling fans!”.
“What’s that? Your car tires melted onto the road? Ceiling fans!”.
“Shall I take a ceiling fan out with me like a little propeller hat everytime I need to go outside?”.
They were amused.
Ha. UK now has tropical summers. It’s insane. Hottest May / June days in like 40/50 years. Hard to deny. I remember when we had two days of sun without rain and that was the entirety of summer.
where I am at weather is mixed but like most rain in the spring/summer was rain and storms where a once in awhile thing. That has reveresed. This year was kinda abnormal for us because we had a winter cold enough to be typical of when I was young and we actually had some just rain for a whole day. A rainy day. Anyway that is not typical now. Now we have storms that come and go and don’t hydrate the soil well and as a matter of fact strip off good soil and leave us in constant drought (sometimes minor but we never seem to get out of it). This area was called the breadbasket of the world. Ugh. Oh and snow in the winter is big on soil hydration to.
Okay
But we cant just go into our homes or offices which are under AC, and then forget about the outside
This is not prevention of the worse, it is ignorancy
And what about people who cant afford AC or the bills that come with it?
You can at the very least cool public buildings, hospitals, trains, and the likes, and keep them open 24/7 during heat waves. This keeps people alive
I don’t think anybody would be against saving lives.
I think the point is, long term solutions need to be worked on along side disaster management.
Yes, thats what I meant
If data centers can create heat islands, heat pumps coupled to ac units at a similar scale can make cool islands? Shove heat into the earth using solar. Wise guys, why not?
I mean yeah. thats geo thermal. we can actually make energy from that to and it does not require sun or wind. The limit is drilling holes is hard and expensive. One bright spot is there is this laser drilling which may make it easier and more affordable. Basically no tip to wear out.
