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George Marshall’s DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change

January 5, 2015

George Marshall’s  DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT:  Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change

Reviewed by Frank Kaminski

That this book is categorized as psychology rather than environmental science is significant. It’s a measure of how intent the author and publisher are on distinguishing it from other books about climate change. The way they make it different is by turning the usual mode of climate change education on its head. Unlike most books on the subject, which try to convince people using science, Don’t Even Think About It examines why the science doesn’t convince people. It delves into psychological processes and even brain architecture that underlie humans’ compulsion to disregard, refute and skew evidence of difficult facts. Drawing on research across many disciplines and presenting it entertainingly, author George Marshall argues that these insights are critical to mobilizing public opinion on climate change.

Marshall says he’s seen a disconnect when it comes to public perceptions about the issue. He’s noticed that many people will agree it’s a serious threat when asked, but won’t mention it when prompted for a list of world crises. Another telling example of this disconnect is the way the Cato and Heartland institutes invest heavily in campaigns to deny climate change while also embracing geo-engineering as a solution to this allegedly nonexistent problem. For Marshall, the key to understanding such contradictions lies in a cognitive psychology phenomenon known as framing. Framing describes how we apply preexisting schemas of interpretation–or “frames” composed of our values, life experiences and social cues–to new information we encounter. This involuntary process gives us selective snapshots of phenomena, which we compartmentalize in ways that allow for much contradiction and dissonance.

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