When DN’s Anna-Lena Laurén reported from Ukraine a few days before the Russian invasion, she wrote a sentence that I had in my head all spring. Many had already left the country by then, in February, but most did not believe in war but continued their lives as usual. And then she added: “It’s human – no one wants to believe in war.”
When you read descriptions of the summers before the two world wars of the 20th century broke out, you find the same somewhat unfaithful attitude to the rumble of war that constantly grew in the background. People sat in their beach chairs and in cafes and talked about the worries of war but had a hard time believing that anything would really happen. For the longest time, we try to maintain everyday life.
It concerns war, but also other disasters. I am writing this chronicle in Skåne. After the work day I take a walk. Everything is still green and lush. But in this area, in recent years there has been a ban on irrigation from midsummer and fields and fields are turning yellow quickly. Still, pools are built on assembly lines that are filled with thousands of liters of water. The sea is only a couple of kilometers away.
On hot days, the inertia disappears and you get direct contact with the horror
Well, the pools are provocative. But I suspect that those who build them have invented their own strategies to justify their way of life. Most people today have protracted climate negotiations with themselves. Personally, I wake up at times every night with horror pictures of what my 26-year-old daughter will have to go through. Still, I keep balancing: I have no car – so I can continue to buy idiotic coffee capsules or order a hammock that I fear is shipped from Brazil.
But when the heat is like that ruthless as it can now be a summer day even in the Nordics, I am ready to change my life immediately. The body feels that something is wrong. It is often said that the human brain has evolved precisely to deal with imminent threats and not dangers that build up over a long period of time or persist in other places. But these hot days, the inertia disappears and you get direct contact with the horror.
If you want to see a sample map of different “slowing” mindsets, you should read Maria Wolrath Söderberg’s report for the Environmental Objectives Committee, “Thought structures that prevent change – and how we can overcome them”. The title may sound abstract, but you are immediately enlivened by someone so effectively sweeping away all areas of fog and showing what we are doing. She goes through lines and explanations that you recognize from yourself and your friends from every other dinner table. The argument is razor sharp, the research thorough, but she has a tone that is not judgmental but shows an almost tender understanding of how people think.
And one thing is clear: the climate crisis must be concrete for us to truly understand that it is real. We must feel how vulnerable our bodies are, writes Wolrath Söderberg. We must feel the rush of panic when we cannot give our children water or realize that the fires threaten houses and landscapes that we love. It is the only thing that can solve the inertia. This does not mean that knowledge and information are not important. On the contrary, research shows how things we read and hear accumulate in us and unfold when we are involved in something that threatens our everyday lives. Then we can also be prepared to make adjustments very quickly.
They knew that understanding often begins in their own experiences and that trust is created when someone sees what they need
That’s why the election in Australia in May was so hopeful. It was a great success for the Greens and various related grassroots organizations. More and more Australians today have experienced, or know of others who have been affected by, fires, storms and floods. The climate crisis has become concrete. Prior to the election campaign, the climate-involved also changed strategy and worked close to people, in their everyday lives.
They knocked on doors and arranged climate meetings all over the country. But they listened instead of lecturing. They did not whip up fear, but collaborated at the local level to make it easier to live sustainably and planned together with the residents how their villages and towns would be protected in the future. When there were major floods in Queensland, they were on site to help people in need.
You could say that they made the climate issue less ideological or party-political, which one can doubt in the long run. But they knew that understanding often begins in their own experiences and that trust is created when someone sees what you need in a situation where you feel exposed. “We are building bridges, not walls”, as a representative of Parents for Climate Action put it.
So the absurdity is that we probably need more incidents and tragedies very close to us for us to wake up. Because no one wants to believe in disaster – it’s human. What is unpleasant about that truth is that the clearer we will feel the effects of the climate crisis, on the body, the longer the crisis has gone and the less time we have. But it seems to be the fastest way for us to voluntarily change our lives.
Read more texts by Åsa Beckman here