Climate Change

By Christel Ernstsen
Psychology 1010

I had the fortune of going to a lecture to hear the author Naomi Klein speak on her new
book titled This Changes Everything. Her book is about the effects on climate change and how
no matter which way people choose to go, climate change is real or not real, the earth and the
way we live on it will change. Naomi Klein gave such examples as; if climate change is real than
we must change our ways of consumption, consumerism, agriculture, behavior towards other
humans on this planet, and more government control over big businesses. A few examples
Namoi Klein gave for climate change not being real; eventually that mindset will lead to our
planet becoming a desert, loss of agriculture, loss of land/ islands as water levels rise and take
over, and loss of species and human life. These are just a few points on which Naomi Klein
spoke about. For the purpose of this paper I will be discussing how climate change and the field
of psychology are connected.
One of the best quotes to summarize the connection between psychology and climate
change " they are ( "climate change") caused by destructive behaviors and the underlying
thought, attitudes, feelings, values and decisions that lead to these behaviors (Psychology
Themes and Variations 2008)". One of psychology major areas of study is on human behavior,
as behavior is a main way of understanding all the things we do and that seems to be the
reason why we are facing climate change.

One of the big talking points for author Naomi Klein was on the economy. I will use this
one point to discuss all of the behaviors we have to change in order to get the planets
temperature down to more normal levels. The United States economy is based on consumerism
through products and food (agriculture) that we buy. If we have enough money circulating
around the country then our economy is strong. In a very simplified description; a strong
economy means that people have money to buy goods and services, and businesses or
manufactures employee more people to produce those goods. Thought the dirt is in the details.
Typically manufacturing plants use a lot of toxic chemicals that get absorbed into the ground and
into our water. Those goods have to be delivered to various residents around the country using a
lot of gasoline (oil) a non-renewable resource. On the side of agriculture the United States
demands such mass quantities of food that our farm land is being over farmed depleting the
nutrients in the soil. The United States eats a lot of meat leading many ranchers to own more
cows then they have land to keep the cows fed. Usually that means that the farmers are granted
(for a fee) access to public lands for cattle to graze on once again depleting lands of its
vegetation.
What is all this consumption doing? The quantities of goods and food that we buy are
typically thrown away. Even the food that we buy is turned into waste; "Americans are throwing
out the equivalent of $165 billion each year, but also that the uneaten food ends up rotting in
landfills as the single largest component of U.S. municipal solid waste where it accounts for a
large portion of U.S. methane emissions (USDA economic research 2002)". The amount of
clothing that we buy and throw out has even been named "fast fashion" for the excess in

availability, low cost, and ease in which we throw them out all raising the levels of methane. Our
consumption of meat brings many ranchers to have many cows and cows happen to be one of
the biggest producers of methane gas.
Sadly our economy is based off consumer spending, meaning if we want to save the
planet we have to change our way of thinking about economics in a big way! How does this
model physically look? There is still money to be made through spending, just not in consuming
goods, rather services. We can spend our money on buying a ticket to see a concert, buying a
pass to local parks for hiking and camping, spending money on taking community classes to
learn a new skill. This kind of less consuming, more experience spending follows a very modern
form of living called minimalism. Basically its living off of the essentials, including housing. The
minimalism housing is called tiny house. They are homes no bigger than a large trailer, with
everything being multi functioning inside of the space. Its aim is to live in an adequate space for
you and your family, buy less "things" consume less and live happier. This is the exact opposite
of what majority of society is doing and of what we are told will make us happy. Most of us
believe that a mini mansion home, two cars, a lot of toys and electronics will make us happy. If
we look and listen to science, it tells us that the more we surround ourselves with things the less
we are in tune with our own self. Our creativity is lessened and our memory shortened as
everything we would need to remember or make our brains work to remember is at the touch of
a screen. The more we surround ourselves with things that may bring us monetary happiness,
as that fades we feel suffocated by our "things". Not everything has to be as drastic as living in a
trailer size home, but a shift away from mini mansions is a good start.

This shift away from our consumer economics to a new version of consuming services
and experiences would be a big help in lowering the planets temperature or at least not letting it
raise any further. If you take into consideration all that goes into making products for us, oil,
water, chemical absorption into the ground, deforestation, wastes production and human life
costs, its easy to see that a shift in our consumption will contribute vastly to change for good.
This may be one topic in which author Nomi Klein spoke of, to me it is the one that stood out as
the biggest underlying cause.

Bibliography

1. USDA economic Research Service, Major Uses of Land in the United States, Pub.
2002/eIB-14, 2002, http://www.ers.usda.gov/ publications/eIB14/eib14a.pdf