(WHO WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT) DENIAL...

OIL & WATER DO NOT MIX from Happiness Brussels on Vimeo.

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Engaged posters with BP petroleum

Found an older post from my teaching blog, on a series of posters printed in 2010, with petrolium based oil from BP's Mexican Golf Spill, collected on a a Louisiana costal beach. An ecodrama awhich gave life to an engaged project from the British graphic designer Anthony Burrill. I thought it suited this purpose well enough to share it here as well. You can also watch the making-of, from the links.

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WHO COULD DENY THAT
I learned a new English word again today. Urban dwellers -citadin-. That is what I am. I mean, part of what I am, in terms of where I live. The image I had, reading those 2 words was -people who dig the earth like miners would, but in the city...wow.  I hate that image of myself, but I accept it's close to reality.  Actually I associated Dwelling to digging wells...I should have known, since there is an architecture magazine called Dwell that it had to do with habitat.  So now knowing I am an -Urban dweller- I must say I have always been very concerned with urban environmental realities.

Here we want to bring children in the woods. In the city, we are trying to bring back a layer of nature over the cement. We should wonder why we cemented in the first place. We should make that LINK.

So...
For some reason, although I can only agree -proof in our faces-, that Global warming, or ozone hole mistaken for climate change is hard to think our politicians and economical structures would not be able to measure the importance of the impacts of the ecocide(1) we are slowly, but not blindly (I don't believe that), very consciously perpetrating. Denial. What I say here seems a -vérité de laPalisse- (truth Lapalisse?) or so basic, but I often think Climate Skeptics are not skeptic at all. They can't be. Impossible. My own denial of deniers? It feels like saying we -westerns, to narrow the boundaries- didn't know that pouring toxic products in a river could kill fish. Really? Who does? Can we meet one for real? Has anyone wanted to jump or just try sticking his hand in Cyanide to see what it does? Then it means they would without any problem (well few have lived to say perhaps). It simply suits our (we are allowed saying -their- I feel) anthropocentric + wealthy purposes far better, and meanwhile, others have and will get, not the dirty job done, but the dirty world passed on.

I do find echo, though, in terms of the general public we represent, in the author's third assumption of «dissonance» of «inconsistent» thoughts can be so «unpleasant» that is hard to deal with, which could also be influenced by her second assumption : due to «corporate control of media and powers limits and molds» the info surrounding Global warming. As she say «we don't really want to know». As some mothers of abused children didn't. (And if I wanted to bring a little esoteric twist I could add - except we are the children closing their eyes on mom Gaia's abuse.) But Gaia is not a concept that people want to hear either. So we have to find other ways...

If it is easy mixing everyone up with the message over Climate change, it seems absurd that one would not see -the Missing LINK- (working on this title for my thesis at the moment...before deepening my investigations) between us and massive destruction of the Earth. How could one ignore or not make links of our own impacts on Earth. It seems impossible, and it is.  Do our politicians really «block information to maintain a coherent system» (p.495) as a person, or in reality, within the media sphere. Sounds like a nice metaphor.  Is it even denial or pure betrayal? I think we know very well, just as Norway in the article did.  I am sure the poorest would be happy to know we are responsible for a large part (if not mostly all, but we just didn't invent deadly snakes) of their miseries. They could finally say... -Just wait and see how it feels, honey-!

Who would want that for their children, or future beings? is that all that works? our little selfishness?

As for the Norway's way to move on with poor policies when it had all it took to show the (nor)Way, with the claim to virtue -in comparison with the worst we can all find ourselves virtuous, even Harper probably does.   Perspectival selectivity... that sounded like forced natural selection to my ears. The advantage of not knowing the exact meaning of a word but guessing it, is letting it evoke images :-)

To make «sense of why people don't want to know about Climate Change» felt it was even more insidious then retaining information. Almost like a horror movie, a manipulation never seen before. Well, it does feel like a movie we are in. (Reminds me of a great book...I forgot the title will come back to post it. A filmaker employed for writing USA president's speech over fear to install a false  war, felt like a reality show. I wonder if that wasn't the title actually.)

Reading that «one is knowing he is doing the wrong thing» and not taking measures to change that felt true but that our world, our societies we're in their early years of their own development or int the lack of confidence from their relationship with the Earth. Hadn't the Earth provided them enough for them to trust her?  I liked how she presented that «knowing or not knowing» could in itself be a political act. Or «people rising up when others do not?». I figured I wanted to know as much as I could then, which is why realism appeals to me more -so far-, then hope (and why I am here as well I figured.)

Will be back with more, after reading other texts on denial which will bring light to other perspectives.

Norgaard, K. (2011). Chapter 27: Climate Denial: Emotion, Psychology, Culture and Political Economy. In J. Dryzek, R. Norgaard, & D. Schlosberg (Eds), The Oxford Handbook on Climate Change and Society (pp.399-413). New York: Oxford University Press.

(1) See Polly Higgins, Eradicating Ecocide.