How have media personnel and others handled the climate issue? On hubris and "natural stupidity"

Climate is something that exists on all planets around the universe. Climate arises in connection with the creation of the celestial body itself. Planet Earth is no exception. To understand the phenomenon of climate there is a point to study physics, geology, stratigraphy and paleoclimatology. Our psyche prizes warnings over rational reasoning. This means that doomsday prophets get more attention compared to experts. Unfortunately, the media collective and others avoid rational reasoning. All in all, the actions of the media collective and others are most similar to what is called hubris and "natural stupidity". I have been told that the people behind these strange developments have become irritated (angry) at my scientific reviews. 8 pages.

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Climate is something that exists on all planets around the universe. Climate arises in connection with the creation of the celestial body itself. Planet Earth is no exception.

In order to understand what climate is, there is therefore a point to study things like physics - the science of nature, geology - the science of the origin, composition and change of the earth's crust's rock and soil types, stratigraphy - the science of the age sequence of soil layers and paleoclimatology. In summary can say that:

• Climate is a process in which trace gases move cyclically between five spheres: the atmosphere, the biosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, and the pedosphere or lithosphere.
  
  
• Central to this complex process is the carbon cycle.
  
  
• visible life arose during what is known as the Cambrian explosion which started as a function of a significant climate change, from the Proterozoic to thePhanerozoic 538 million years before the present.
  
  
• The Chronostratigrachic chart shows that since then there have been more than a hundred significant climate changes. One of these was the climate-affecting event of the Chicxulub impactor which started the Cenozoic - the age of mammals 66 million years before the present.
  
  
• Paleoclimatological observations show that temperature and carbon dioxide vary independently of each other and that since the Eocene it has only gotten colder (Österberg, 2022 a, 2023 a).
  
  
• The most recent significant increases in sea level (>100 meters) occurred via four so-called 'melt pulses' 14 400 - 7000 years before the present.

To understand how our species is affected by information about the climate, there is a point of studying psychology. Our species has a unique ability to elaborate scenarios forward in time (Gilbert och Wilson; 2007; Kaku, 2014). It includes intentional prospection which emerges at 10 months of age (Liu et al. 2017; Trafton, 2017). Intention (goal-setting) triggers motivation which explains performance, learning and social creativity for problem solving and innovation (Locke et al. 1980; Locke och Latham, 2002, Österberg. 2004, 2012). That ability explains all artifacts and why we live in the best of times (Goldstein and Pinker, 2016; Pinker, 2011 a, b, 2018 a, b).

But that ability tends to be suppressed by social influences that trigger our negativity bias (Baumeister et al. 2001). It leads to fight-flight behavior and increases the risk of simulation bias (Kahneman och Tversky, 1977) or Dysrationalia - the inability to think rationally despite sufficient intelligence (Stanovich, 1993). The star psychologist Amos Tversky (1937-1996) called this "natural stupidity".

It is even the case that some individuals go around expecting to be scammed and there are people who are good at identifying these people and take the opportunity to scam them (Konnikova, 2015).

Due to recorded history (about 6000 before the present), some of the warnings about the ending of the world, including sea level rise, have been documented. The first known warning about rising sea levels dates back to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Enki, a God, commissioned Utnapishtim to build an ark - the Preserver of Life - to save 'flora and fauna' from an expected flood. Utnapishtim later appeared in the Bible but was then called Noah.

In the 1950s, housewife Dorothy Martin (1900-1992) claimed to have received a Radio Message from the planet Clarion. Its was a warning that a flood would consume the world. Only those who followed her advice would be saved. Martin only demanded three things:

• They had to sell their belongings.
  
  
• Remove all metal from their clothes.
  
  
• Follow Mrs. Martin to a cave to await the rescue - a spaceship.

25 people decided to join. The general prediction was that the sect would disband when the spaceship failed.

But when the ship failed to appear, Martin claimed she received a new message from the Earth Goddess. Since everyone (n=25) had been so obedient, the Earth goddess had decided to save the planet.

The first explanation for the group's behavior was cognitive dissonace (Festinger et al. 1956/2008). (Turner och Pratkanis, 1998), on the other hand, suggests group think (conformity).

Since at least the 1960s, more savvy speculators have uttered similarly obscure warnings. And an important attribute of their discourse has been how long we have to act - immediately (compare Martin). Another is that they have all been wrong.

For example, in 2006, Al Gore, US Vice President under Bill Clinton (1993-2001), claimed that soon the top of Africa's highest mountain would be free of snow.

“Within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro,” he said to the audience in An Inconvenient Truth. This occurred moments before he makes his prediction for Glacier National Park (Braun, 2023).

2023, i.e. 17 (2023-2006) years after the deadline of Gore's doomsday prophecy, snow is customarily crowning Kilimanjaro's peak:

“However, at the peak, the temperature rarely rises above -3 °C (26.5 °F), so the process of melting there is rare and insignificant” (Altezza travel, 2021).

For some reason:

• we always had 10 years to do something.
  
  
• all doomsday prophecies have been wrong (Ebell och Milloy, 2019).

Several years before the time of Al Gore's doomsday spree, I occasionally met my old high school classmate - Pär "Pärra" Holmgren. We used to talk about this and that and Pärra liked to talk about his great interest - the climate. A few things were especially important to him: calculating the climate impact per capita, flights and food. These three aspects he claimed to be decisive for the climate.

I, on the other hand, thought that one should count per country, that aviation's share of global greenhouse gas emissions (2-4%) is negligible and at that time I didn't have much to say about food other than that as a former elite sports coach believed that food is essential for physical and mental function.

Ergo. We didn't quite agree on all the details, but shared the interest in unconditional conversation. It's called reasoning - speaking without winning (Pinker, 2011) and is counted as one of the success factors for explaining the global development that has existed since the Enlightenment (Pinker, 2018; Österberg, 2021).

In 2015 I received an email from Pärra where he asked if there was something called climate psychology? There wasn't, but the Swedish National Committee for Psychology  has 26 subcategories to psychology and it was of course possible to academically construct a definition. It was after exchanges about these aspects on X (Twitter) that our contact was broken. Pärra for some reason no longer liked the divergence of opinion or Pinker's research!? (Österberg, 2018 a).

In 2018, the following happened:

1. I was recruited to the University of Helsinki to become a research leader for a project aimed at exploring the future of Finnish agriculture from the perspective of entrepreneurial thinking (Österberg, 2021 a), i.e. the kind of thinking that lead us out ot historical crises caused the progress we all can enjoy (Österberg, 2021 b).
   
   
2. When my family and I arrived in Helsinki, there were parliamentary elections in Sweden. At the parliament building, a lonely little girl sat with a placard - School strike for the climate.

Dagens Nyheter employees interviewed the girl.

Link till soruce (Dagens nyheter).

In Finland, the media collective suffered from climate hubris.

In December 2018, Peter Buchert, employed by Finland's largest Swedish-language newspaper -Hufvudstadsbladet (HBL), published a strange column. Buchert claimed at this time that his media activities were scientifically oriented. But the text would rather be compared to an epic - This is how the carbon footprint differs between Finland and China. When I, the researcher, emailed and asked for a copy to review the contents, I was met with a snide response (Österberg, 2018 b).

The climate girl's outing got more attention and as I recognized the content of her outing I took it upon myself to review the whole thing. It turned out that the girl's mother, the entertainer Magdalena Ernman, according to her own statement had mental challenges in the family and that these have now affected the family. Mother Ernman had also let Pärra act as 'pimp' for her daughters (Österberg, 2019).

In 2021 and beyond, there were further outbursts from the staff at HBL with strange, almost theatrical, headlines. In the month of August, for example, one of the employees, Anna-Lena Laurén who also writes for Dagens Nyheter, in her cottage in the archipelago and wondered why people didn't do more for the climate. This was followed by further strange publications from Peter Buchert and a Torsten Fagerholm, eployeed by HBL. The latter also attacked experts worldwide, and defending his personal attacks!? 

Adding to this, theater makers Joachim Thibblin (Svenska teatern) and Dan Henriksson (Klockrike teater) arranged The art of the stage and the climate - a week with environment.

I took it upon myself to review these proposals (I may have missed some of my reviews, in which case I'll add them later):

2018:

• December 7, Så skiljer sig koldioxidavtrycket mellan Finland och Kina (UH). En kommentar.

2021:

• August 19,“Finland kan nå målet, men det finns många hinder på vägen ” (HBL/Buchert). Några kommentarer
  
  
• August 28, 'Att stirra sig blind på detaljer' (Laurén, HBL). En kommentar
  
  
• Sseptember 29, Vindäventyr i potens (Fagerholm, HBL): En kommentar.

2022:

• March 1, Expertpanel: Klimatförändringarna hotar mänsklig välfärd och planetens hälsa (HBL). En kommentar
  
  
• April 27, Måste verkligen Finland skärpa sig på de här sex punkterna för att bli hållbart?
  
  
• July 18, Hur nära klimatkanten kan vi balansera innan vi trillar ner? (Fagerholm, HBL)
  
  
• August 9, Varför gör medelmåttorna i ankdammen plumpa påhopp på framgångsrika människor?
  
  
• August 11, Analys: Vi låtsas att Europa inte brinner (Buchert, HBL). Stämmer uppgifterna? Det verkar inte så

2023

• April 18, “Hon säger ju bara att vi ska lyssna på forskarna” (Dan Henriksson, teatermakare vid Klockrike teater).
  
  
• July 5, 3 juli den varmaste dagen någonsin – “en dödsdom för människor och ekosystemen”. En kommentar

Conclusion. Overall, the actions of the media collective and others are most similar to what is called hubris and "natural stupidity". I have been told that the people behind these strange developments have become irritated (angry) at my scientific reviews.

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