The Psychohistory of Climate Change: A Clear and Present Danger

The inability of contemporary society to transition from fossil fuels to green energy was engineered by the oil industry, which has worked for decades to stifle the emergence of ecological awareness. Climate change presents a clear and present danger to our society. The present dilemma is the result of the psychopathic corporate system, that pillages the earth for profit (extractivism), evades the real costs of production (externalizing costs), and pursues only self-interest (the best interests of the corporation). The well-being of the environment is thereby sacrificed for profit and our collective future is jeopardized. The corporate practice of creative destruction has gained such Thanatos-like momentum that it threatens the earth in its obsession with profit. Conservatives, under the sway of the unreality principle, dismiss climate change and block efforts to solve climate issues. For them, science is wish fulfillment based on denial. Their willingness to endanger the world results from their authoritarian upbringing. The corporal punishment they endured as children left a residue of rage—the impulse to destroy life—that underlies corporate rationality’s assault on the environment. Fearing death, they inflict death in a perverse ritual to feel alive. Compensating for the narcissistic wounds of childhood through the formation of a grandiose self, they are identified with the omnipotent parent, and alternate between suicidal impulse and escape via godlike technology. Conservative attacks on women highlight the residual wounds of relatedness to their dragon mothers, just as their relatedness to the environment involves a restaging of their encounters with their breast and toilet mothers. Solving environmental problems, however, will require more than overcoming conservative intransigence. The concept of ecological debt accentuates the importance of consumer choice for the environment. The United Nations Human Development Report 2015 regarding CO2 emissions demonstrates the massive environmental debt of Northern Hemisphere societies and suggests the magnitude of the transformation necessary to resolve the problem of climate change.