Peak Indifference

Writer Cory Doctorow coined the term "peak indifference" for the moment where activists no longer have to convince others of the reality of a problem and need to switch over to convincing people it's not to late to do anything about it.  Friend and fellow writer Clive Thompson in Wired writes that we are at that point with climate change given the recent polling data due concern about weather related disasters.

As a society, we tend to be indifferent to slow growing problems, but wake up when they perceive it as a current crisis.  The indifference reached its peak and panic begins to replace it.  The big problem becomes the negativity that can quickly set in after such a long period of indifference -- It’s too late. We missed our chance to take action.   This is the despair I wrote about in my post Stop Self Shaming; Don't Despair; Fight Instead.

Clive Thompson elaborates:

That means the current political moment is incredibly interesting. Anyone who wants to deal with climate change may have only a brief window to sell the public on a plan. In his new book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, the writer David Wallace-­Wells talks about the value of panic to pushing collective action; Doctorow says it’s the point “where you divert your energy from convincing people there’s a problem to convincing them there’s a solution.”

This is the reason for the Hot Green Carrots blog, to convince the public there are solutions to global warming now at hand, we only need to help.  But the time is critical and the message needs to be clear, as Thompson notes (emphasis mine):

...the Yale survey question about the Green New Deal was vague and upbeat, and didn’t pose the tough-to-sell policy specifics ... or financial costs that the public might dislike. And even people terrified about climate change don’t always agree on what policies to pursue. But the Sunrise activists, and all of us who want action on this, have to push hard now. It’s only when you reach the peak that you can see where you need to go.

This was the message I conveyed in a different way in the post The New Debate.   It is fortuitous that the new upsurge in public concern is happening at a time when solutions are starting to take shape, tangible solutions we can show people, ones that they will agree to.

What worries me most is psychology, the human brain's often irrational behavior.  I fear taking advantage of "panic,"  of overstating the current disasters, of pushing peoples' crisis buttons too hard.  The other side can find other buttons to push.   It happens all too often in politics.