Don't even think about it : why our brains are wired to ignore climate change

260 pages

Published April 25, 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing.

ISBN:
978-1-62040-133-0
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OCLC Number:
885302594

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5 stars (1 review)

A witty, insightful, and groundbreaking take on one of the most urgent questions of our time: Why, despite overwhelming scientific evidence, do we still ignore climate change?

Most of us recognize that climate change is real yet we do nothing to stop it. What is the psychological mechanism that allows us to know something is true but act as if it is not? George Marshall’s search for the answers brings him face to face with Nobel Prize–winning psychologists and Texas Tea Party activists; the world’s leading climate scientists and those who denounce them; liberal environmentalists and conservative evangelicals. What he discovers is that our values, assumptions, and prejudices can take on lives of their own, gaining authority as they are shared, dividing people in their wake.

With engaging stories and drawing on years of his own research, Marshall argues that the answers do not lie in the things that make …

2 editions

Review of "Don't even think about it : why our brains are wired to ignore climate change" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

An incredibly important book, which uncovers the numerous ways in which the human mind is programmed to ignore the perilous effects of climate change, while also charting a road ahead that doesn't, well, lead us to drive human civilization off a cliff.

There is so much to take away from this book. The importance of framing and narrative construction, the need to stop viewing climate change as an 'environmental' issue, why activists should learn from organized religions, how limited facts and knowledge are, why we need conviction, how to build compelling narratives that don't let us go astray, and the myriad ways in which climate change is such a complex problem.