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Awareness and knowledge in balance
By Santi Serrat
The current climate and environmental crisis requires an effort in communication to ensure that public awareness leads to real actions for change. Information does not become knowledge by itself, especially if it is given in excess. A paradigm shift in communication is required that should not only raise awareness but also provide access to scientific knowledge.
There is an avalanche of information on environmental degradation, global warming and the bleak prospects for the future of a planet that will reach 8,000 million inhabitants before 2030 (Statista). The UN hopes that by that date the population of the Earth will have achieved the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
That the current climate and environmental crisis is a threat to the achievement of the SDGs is increasingly verifiable evidence by public opinion, the general media and most governments and companies.
The UN institutions, scientific associations, NGOs, environmental groups and many of the governments that have “awakened”, especially last year 2019, to the reality of the problem, advocate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse and the adoption of production models without residues to achieve the objective of not exceeding 1.5 ° C, as demanded by the IPCC in its Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ° C. [Link to recommended downloads]
To achieve this, it is necessary to educate a sufficient number of citizens to create a critical mass that attracts the interest of governments and guarantees the social responsibility of companies. As citizens, as users, we are the beneficiaries of all the products and services that have created the waste of gaseous and solid waste that threatens to collapse the environment.
In countries, such as those of the European Union, where environmental regulations have put companies in the dark, users are also the main emitters of waste. Whether due to negligence or disinterest (do not recycle, throw away ...) or by accident (floods, gales ...), most of the waste that appears on land, rivers and the sea comes from the end users of the products.
In fact, it is understandable that this happens, since our lifestyle habits, when it comes to the use of consumer products, have an inertia of more than 10,000 years of extracting, burning, transforming, using and disposing of. It is what we now call “linear economy”, a model that considers nature as the beginning and end of an open process: nature will always provide us with raw materials and fuel to get the energy to transform them; and nature can always be used as a sink for waste because the air, the ground and the sea are immense and absorb everything.
Science has shown that this idea is incompatible with the achievement of the SDGs and that it is a sine qua non condition to eradicate it among the public, at least in sufficient numbers to achieve the aforementioned critical mass.
The communication challenge is remarkable, especially with the excess of information that exists in the current digital age, and neuroscience shows that the possibilities for the brain to create knowledge diminish (Reference to Keith Gergen). The excess of information leads to the superficiality of the receiver's conclusions and makes him more vulnerable to demagogic manipulation. And it is important that this does not happen, as this challenge contains complex and delicate matters that require explaining that:
¥ The linear model is finished. To stop this, it is necessary to understand concepts such as "sustainability", and the differences between "economic development" and "economic growth", and others such as "natural capital", one of the most important to disseminate since popular ignorance of the term is one the bases of denial demagoguery regarding climate change and the transition to the so-called green economy.
¥ Urge to change. Science has been warning this for a couple of decades and with special emphasis during the last five years.
¥ The model to which we must migrate is the Circular Economy, the only one that frees nature from the provision of raw materials and the absorption of waste. This communication objective is complex, as it requires explaining to users that:
- Your relationship with the products and their consumption will change, as the products will be designed differently.
- As consumers, they will participate in their own design and in that of the production system.
- The model creates value in waste, which will no longer be called such and will be considered as inputs in the generation of wealth.
Awareness with knowledge
It is a true paradigm shift that requires the development of knowledge and awareness in balance.
Knowledge, which resides in the rational brain, is created with communication based on the scientific method. Sensitization, which resides in the emotional brain, is generated by impactful communication, which creates fear, outrage, or sadness.
A communication based only on awareness, without rational knowledge, leaves the ground fertile for denial or apocalyptic alarm; two states of mind that do not provide solutions and worsen coexistence.
On the other hand, knowledge without sensitization causes inhibition and leads to inaction.
How to achieve communication that sensitizes and provides knowledge in balance? With education in the scientific method, the only one that allows us to explain the complexity of the climate and environmental crisis that we are experiencing.
We will continue talking about it.