Source: Self-doubt destroy climate character, institutions – NewsDay Zimbabwe
BY PETER MAKWANYA
THE uncertainties surrounding climate change discourse are not only in communicating scientific issues of the subject and its projections.
These uncertainties manifest themselves in individuals’ capacity to combat climate change impacts, thereby, creating elements of self-doubt, scepticism or myths sometimes leading to denialism.
Doubt and non-believing compromise human character towards climate action and recovery, thereby, compounding climate change impacts.
Climate knowledge and information build strong individual characters.
When people cannot relate local climate impacts and situations to the knowledge they have about climate change, then they begin to doubt.
People destroy their climate characters over the years by doubting if indeed climate change is real, a myth or hoax thereby, contributing to a split personality syndrome.
When an individual splits oneself into several roles or personalities through doubt, then the in-built climate character is destroyed and the environment is threatened.
Building resilient communities does not require people who invest in self-doubt on climate change issues.
Splitting oneself into numerous individuals opposing each other only serves to create conflict and tensions within an individual, thereby, destroying the in-built climate character and environmental stewardship.
Splitting oneself into several roles and characters compromises decision-making and contributes to a psychological war in trying to figure out if indeed climate change is real.
Stakeholders in the climate change discourse and communities of practice need to break the cycle of doubt which give room to denialism, self-serving interests, carelessness and eco-freaky behaviours.
The world is in a compromised situation today because of weak and deceptive climate personalities and characters, some of them make decisions that compromise the environment for their own benefit.
Destroying the climate character within individuals kills confidence-building and disregards the environment and life in general.
Life becomes dull when the environment has been degraded, deforested and stripped-off its valuables.
Any teachings about the environment or climate change adaptation will not be meaningful.
People need motivation and confidence-building to build strong climate characters which contribute to building strong and resilient institutions and communities.
People with a culture of destroying the environment have a tendency of fighting their inner critics.
Sometimes it is difficult to ignore inner critics because they end up sounding like the voices of reason or conscience.
In this regard, it needs strong characters and institutions to fight these inner critics in order to unearth creativity and innovations required to convert dire situations into opportunities.
Creativity, empathy and innovation will boost the climate will, potential and spirit while building character will unearth, shape climate action, strategies and solutions.
Every climate action or effort boils down to the individual’s point of view.
Tame the ego and menace within, deliver oneself from environmental lust and covetousness then you can be delivered from carbon sinning and realise resilience.
Therefore, overcoming the split-personality syndrome in environmental sustainability is key, a requirement and obligation.
Self-doubt is a story in the minds of numerous people in a culture which influences how they think, talk and act.
These stories are key and some need to be deconstructed in order to safeguard human behaviour and redirect them to real issues of resilience building.
The climate crises resulted from the stories we have been living with which we have been telling ourselves.
These are not good stories, they are stories of environmental harm and plunder.
The world requires new stories which are secret reservoirs of climate values and cultures.
The language we use to tell and communicate these stories should be from ecological perspectives, hence, they should not contribute to environmental damage.
Climate change is a global scale violence against places and species, emanating from destroyed climate characters.
It is humankind activities that have given rise to the current climate change predicament.
While a problem from self-doubt has solutions, a predicament normally has very few options for solutions.
Therefore, people should not continue disbelieving, they should come up with responses.
In this regard, ethical revaluations are required to respond to the climate crises before us.
Forms of language which build strong characters are needed because the same language and communication is used to destroy human and climate characters.
Stories that sow seeds of self-doubt should forever be questioned.
These are stories which underpin our current unsustainable behaviour towards the environment.
They need to be exposed and shamed because they do not work.
They are not only destroying human characters but they are leading to ecological destruction and climate injustices. Therefore, humanity should always strive for stories which work better in building strong characters and institutions.
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