dendrite studios

At a dinner on Saturday I was sitting with a group of highly educated, young professionals and somewhere during the course of the evening the issue of climate change got mentioned. I was stunned to hear that several of the guests were rather oblivious to the issue and were very sceptical as to the scientific validity of climate change. One person jokingly referred to a comment Charlie Munger (long-time Warren Buffett associate) made at this year’s Berkshire Hathaway AGM that it would be nice if it were a degree or two warmer.

Despite my amazement, I consoled myself that these are very isolated cases and that owing to the plethora of media coverage on the topic, they were members of a small minority of unreformed sceptics. But then on Tuesday leading financial site Moneyweb  posted an article stating, “If Moneyweb community members are anything to go by, no one in South Africa cares about climate change.”

As the dinner guests, the Moneyweb community are typically well educated, very affluent and above average influential. And the fact that they are ‘community members’ of a media company, mean they are also well read. How can it thus be that they are oblivious to the climate change or not concerned about it?

Part of the problem, I think, is the quality of media coverage given to the topic. For the most part South African media is rather insulting to the intelligence of its audience and instead of in-depth analysis all we get are sensationalist highlights. While this bite-size, entertainment focus serves the commercial interest of the media well, audiences have been desensitised to the point where very little impacts them. Tales of potential floods, droughts and warmer temperatures – they have heard it all before. Even much lauded investigative programme ‘Special Assignment’ that aired a program on climate change on Tuesday evening, barely scratched the surface and did little to promote understanding.

In defence of the media, it must be said that climate change is not an easy topic to report on. It is a true example of a complex system (not just complicated) and its effects are probably only going to be felt several years into the future.

What should happen is that we must move beyond creating awareness to promoting understanding. And despite its complexity, scientists know a lot about the phenomena and there is great agreement  on most salient aspects. We should heed the lessons of the HIV/AIDS campaigns that shock and horror stories do not change behaviour – only true understanding does.

The greatest danger of climate change is the fact that it will take so long to play out. It is in effect a rather slow and silent fall. But, we are capable to positively impact the future and we are capable of collectively coming to terms with climate change’s complexity. We will however need to engage everyone’s minds and hearts and not just play on their senses and emotions.