There were few fears in Buddy’s life — but he was good at recognizing them, pointing them out to us, and taking action.
There’s a quality in the American character — well, maybe a quirk not a quality — which we should exploit to protect us from climate threats.
Last March I wrote we need more Anger. Now I’m talking about Fear.
WE’RE GOOD AT IT
Americans have always been quick to exaggerate and fear certain threats. Foreign terrorism in the US is probably the best recent example. The fear-driven sacrifices we’ve made have been huge! Since the 9/11 attack:
More than 7,000 US servicemen and women, plus another 8,000 contractors, have been killed in terrorist-related war zones. The number of people killed globally is around 800,000, including more than 390,000 civilians.
We decided we needed torture and indefinite detention of terror suspects abroad, and warrantless surveillance and regular violations of Americans’ civil liberties at home.
We sacrificed a lot of pro-American sentiment around the world, because of our fearful reaction to foreign terrorists.
And of course, $8 trillion of our tax dollars have gone to anti-terrorism efforts, squeezing spending on education, poverty, environmental safety, technology funding, and other priorities.
Has it been worth it?
In the twenty years since 9/11, we now know that bathtub drownings, falling furniture, and automobile collisions with animals have posed a far greater risk to Americans than Islamist terrorists. [Atlantic Council]
Since 9/11, there is only one case of a jihadist foreign terrorist attack inside the United States — the attack at the Naval Air Station Pensacola on December 6, 2019, when Mohammed Al-Shamrani shot and killed three people. [New America]
Need another example? How about our fear of criminals? Since 1970, our prison population has increased by 500%, far outpacing crime or population growth. A higher percent of our citizens are in jail than in any other country in the world. The vast majority of those prisoners are convicted of non-violent crimes such as drug offenses.
BUT WE’RE NOT QUIVERING IN OUR BOOTS ABOUT CLIMATE DISASTERS
There are few signs that climate threats can scare us into preventing or even preparing for disasters, let alone locking up and torturing the people working to increase these disasters. Yet:
the chances of our community being destroyed by wildfire or floods are so much higher than by a terrorist bomb.
our ability to predict specific locations threatened by flood, drought or heat is so much better than predicting where an airliner will be blown up.
unlike locating Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri, it’s easy to find the companies and managers who spend billions lying about the safety of fossil fuels while their own research shows its dangers.
Yes, damage from climate change is not often as visible as a bomb crater. Storms, wildfires and floods may make dramatic photo stories, but images of the rise in mental health problems, sea levels, insurance premiums, asthma, and water pollution are less likely to trigger shock and fearfulness.
HOW CAN WE CREATE MORE CHICKEN LITTLES?
There are stabbing visceral fears in the lives of many Americans.
I can’t afford to fill this prescription for my child.
I’m watching the housing market take off. With my student debt, I’ll never be able to buy in.
We just heard they’re automating my spouse’s job.
I can’t face leaving friends and family, but we can’t stay here and let the kids’ asthma get worse.
Most of these fears have a big financial component. And most climate threats do too!
SHOW AND SHARE OUR OWN FEARS
No point in pointing to our thermostat, our car, and our tree-hugging activities — those are aimed at saving the planet, not at protecting us from imminent and local danger.
Maybe we do some public fearmongering. We can check with the technical experts at City Hall and read their internal and consultants’ reports (which aren’t often shared with the public voluntarily). Look for local facts about increased air pollution from western wildfires, rising water pollution from bigger rainstorms, expanding road and bridge erosion - you know, the stuff Buddy and I have been babbling about. Then turn those facts into questions in City Council sessions, letters to the editor, and community meetings.
Privately, we can
Learn and talk about the climate-proof indicators for our town, particularly any worrying ones.
Show others the measurements between our current hometown and some more climate-proof places we might relocate to.
Let our friends see the battery lanterns, 5-gallon water containers and two weeks of canned food we keep for the next storm or power outage. Ask if they want to join in a bulk order for some commercial 72-hour survival kits.
Find our city or county Emergency Management agency; learn their precautions; monitor their warnings; get on their notification list. Find moments to discuss that information with friends and neighbors.
Sign up for CodeRED alerts and use them as conversation starters. (We can get a CodeRED Mobile Alert app for our phone.)
Circulate a cost estimate with photos for flood prevention in our street.
In future wildfire country, we can buy and show a respirator that protects against serious smoke. It will seem like overkill, but it should catch people’s attention long enough for us to show them the rising but unseen wildfire risk in our town, probably a surprise to most neighbors who think wildfire smoke is a thousand miles away. Want to make a BIG impression? We can get the family dog a particulate mask!
Keep in our car and by our front door our town’s escape-route directions in case of wildfire, flood or other disaster. This could influence the thinking of friends in a town that is increasingly threatened but who don’t understand this.
IS IT AN ACT?
Gotta avoid seeming kooky, yes. But we may need to let ourselves feel a little ridiculous at first, raising our friends’ eyebrows about our fears, in order to start them questioning their own knowledge of the risks. If we seem both intelligent and a little fearful, we are far more likely than any climate protest, sustainability organization, or newsletter to scare people into seeing the risks and taking local action.
What else can we do to encourage our fellow Americans’ talent for fear?
READ, LEARN, ACT
We can examine the dollar, human, and indirect costs of protecting American communities against jihadists. And of protecting us against the threats from convicted criminals.
As for climate fears, most are about financial changes. That’s why I wrote Climate-Proof Your Personal Finances, offering 105 to-dos to safeguard our family budgets and lifestyles. At the time I was not trying to scare my readers, just alert and persuade them. Almost none of the threats in the book have changed, but today I’d write a much more be-very-afraid version.
Some may look at America’s negligible foreign terrorist problems today and say, “Look, sacrificing all that money, those lives, that respect — it worked!” Okay, that point of view is a super argument for making similar sacrifices today to fight our climate enemy. When America’s fears grow enough to spark that level of effort, it works!