The Apathy Crisis

At the beginning of her brilliant Planet: Critical Podcast (a must for anyone interested in the planetary crises), Rachel Donald opens with the same question in each episode: Why is the world in crisis?

This brilliant, expansive question inspired this article.

While we often write about greenwashing or climate denial, we think it is time to consider the other factors that are driving the dual Biodiversity and Climate Crises, specifically apathy.

Apathy might just be the single biggest threat to taking action on the Climate Emergency while we still have the opportunity to avert the worst outcomes. While climate denial and greenwashing are concerted efforts to maintain the vested interests of others, apathy is about protecting our own vested interests – but it is also the easiest issue to overcome.

All it takes is for us to confront ourselves and move from a position of apathy to a position of empathy.

And yet, still there is apathy.

We have been told that there is nothing we, as individuals, can do to amend the situation, so we just accept it. And this perpetuates the problem.

Even in the most extreme cases we can see this in action: one hundred thousand Irish people will march calling out the abject horrors of the genocide in Palestine. Many more will also give to charity. But in a nation of five million people, the majority are apathetic to the plight of those suffering in Gaza.

The reality is that it doesn’t even take all of us to care. Repeated social studies have shown that it only takes 25% of the population to reach the critical mass needed to make societal change.

Apathy in Climate Education

Much of this disempowerment and apathy is taught to us through the education system and the press.

For many of us under the age of 40, we will have been taught about the Climate Crisis in school. It may have been framed as ‘global warming’ depending on your age, but the fundamental science was the same.

The issue was that we were taught – and are still being taught – that the Climate Crisis would affect our great-grandchildren, or our great-great-grandchildren.

Yet the effects of the Climate Emergency – floods, crop failures, extreme heat – are already here.

The timescale we were taught in school engendered apathy. It created the idea that we wouldn’t be personally affected, and so we don’t really need to care.

That is still the overriding message being promoted by politicians and the media.

They talk of far-off deadlines like 2050, or how overwhelming the scale of the crisis is, or how tiny individual acts can help solve the problem. They don’t care, and we know it. And this too creates apathy within us.

Don’t forget that these are the same news publications and politicians that helped the oil industry to sell us misinformation for decades while they were fully aware of not only the reality of the Climate Crisis, but how urgent it was – and that rapidly ending fossil fuel use was the most vital component of climate action.

This apathy about the Climate Emergency also extends to those who are already most affected by the Climate Crisis.

Those people living in the Global South who typically have vastly less money than us, fewer means and resources to mitigate the impact of the Climate Emergency, and who stand to lose everything a lot faster than us in the Global North.

From Apathy to Empathy

You need to hear this, internalise this, and accept this:

The Climate Emergency is real.
It is caused by the actions of people.
It is happening at a rapid pace, and we have a few short years to avert the worst outcomes.
People will die, ecosystems will collapse, and the world will never be the way it was.
What we all have control over is just how bad things get, how many will die, how many will be displaced, and what kind of equality there will be in dealing with this ubiquitous crisis.

Once you accept this – and that is no mean feat (why else do you think climate anxiety is on the rise?) – then you need to decide whether you are going to play an active role in being part of the solution or continue to be apathetic, and thereby allow the problem to continue and worsen.

This is the only real choice we have this deep into the Climate Emergency.

As soon as you choose empathy – empathy for yourself, for other people, for other living organisms, and for the living planet itself – then you are already electing to be part of the solution.

The next step is to start living empathetically.

Start by understanding your role in the Climate Emergency. How do your levels of consumption, your climate footprint, compare to the global average – or those in the poorest nations that are already being ravaged by the Climate Crisis.

This will help you understand the so-called ‘Climate Fair Share’.

Within the remaining carbon budget, where can you make effective cuts that free up resources for those in greater need than you. For instance, in Ireland, the average person has a carbon footprint almost three times greater than that of the average person in Earth – and 55% higher than the EU average.

Eat less meat, buy less stuff, fly less (or not at all). Make whatever changes you can, understanding that those decisions aren’t about the loss of options or opportunity; they are about creating a better, fairer, more equal world for yourself and others.

And then, once you are living empathetically and feeling the benefits of the changes that you have made for yourself and others… fight!

Stand up and make your voice heard. Protest on the streets, email your politicians, take part in direct action, vote, do whatever you can to play an active role in creating a better, fairer future on a liveable planet.

Right now, we stand to lose everything. There is no room for apathy or delay, and we simply cannot do enough to avert runaway climate breakdown and the cataclysm that will bring. Are you doing all you can?

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