Inconsequentiality: some dangers mental disorientation poses to climate action

“The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”     Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Working Group II Contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report February 2022

“Every fraction of a degree matters. Every voice can make a difference. And every second counts.”      AntonioGuterres, United Nations Secretary-General, 28^th February 2022

The urgent situation

These assessments by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the UN Secretary-General draw our attention to both the climate emergency, and that it is far worse than we believed through the media-covered discussions of Cop26 in 2021. The comments therefore also draw us to consider the passage of time. In this time, remedially, very little appears to have been attempted. Whilst it is becoming clear that correcting this inactivity will only come once grassroots organisations (existing, or in need of creation) swing public opinion and (hopefully) local and national elections, it seems to me that we are some way off achieving this. In this short essay my argument is that this grassroots response is not yet at sufficient scale, because we citizens (as activists or potential activists) have to wrestle with losing our sense of time and space. This wrestling often manifests in the tension between two states of mind – consequentiality and inconsequentiality – as they vie with each other for ascendancy. This tension is exacerbated in response to the trauma experienced in the face of such an unprecedently enormous physical, emotional, mental and democratic set of phenomena. These phenomena one can term collectively as the climate emergency.

Survival front and centre

The Gutteres and IPPC warnings trigger the tension between consequentiality and inconsequentiality. Their implicit message - that humanity is currently definitely doing too little and possibly doing it too late - comes nearly four months after Cop26 ended in mid-November 2021.  Readers will remember that, owing to loggerheads about continued reliance upon coal production, it was eleventh-hour stuff but eventually some sort of weak agreement was made.  At the close of the conference the chair, Alok Sharma, seemed battered and yet made the point that COP26 had survived “with a pulse.” In making such a remark Sharma, wittingly or unwittingly, drew attention to the effectiveness of fierce resistance by large corporations. These have a hold on national governments which they appear to be tightening against meeting the desperate need for humanity

dramatically to reduce its carbon footprint. In this way they work against slowing the speed at which the climate’s temperature is rising. To be concerned about this outcome of an international conference one is in the mind state of consequentiality. In this state we can see that the consequences we fear are not held by corporations and governments. Whilst they may be in a state of consequentiality concerning their financial or political survival, they appear to be in a state of inconsequentiality concerning the survival of humans and our non-human living environment. For those of us concerned to know what and when the political classes across the World are going to implement as action to arrest, slow down, and prevent global warming, this new IPCC report can do either of two things. It can emphasise our sense of emergency, or leave us reeling and disoriented in our incredulity as to why so very little seems to have been done thus far. This disorientation threatens our sense of time and can suck us into the timelessness that accompanies a state of inconsequentiality.  

Time gauging

If we consider in this light the timeframe October 31^st to November 13th 2021 (Cop26) and February 27^th 2022 (most recent IPCC Report) we can see near enough fifteen weeks have passed in that period.  The two dates provide markers helping us to gauge this length of linear time. They help us see that something dramatic has occurred within our personal mental space, and that which humans share together. As temporal markers they help us see that the temperature has risen faster than estimated, and within an exceptionally short time frame. It leaves us asking why this has been allowed to happen? Further, why are citizens not being protected against what is coming towards us as the annihilation of our species – and most of the living non-human environment - within just a few generations? Asking such questions arises out of the state of mind I am calling consequentiality. This state of mind, however, is difficult to maintain because, once we ask ourselves and each other these questions, we invariably end up in turmoil. This is a turmoil that disorientates our sense of time such that it becomes at best circular and at worst non-existent.  As a mental phenomenon time has similar qualities to emotional and mental space. Both need reference points in order for their existence to be perceived, and for their consequences or significance to be appreciated. The magnitude of extinction is so overwhelming that, when we allow it to flood our minds, we are in great danger of losing our sense of time and space. When this happens we also loose a sense of consequence, as we enter the state of mind I am calling inconsequentiality.  

 Our perception and experience of space is intimately linked to our perception and experience of time. In commenting about her work with her patient Fitz, Melanie Klein saw the roots of the concept of time, and of orientation in time, as originating in “the change from intra-uterine to extra-uterine existence” (1923.99). This conception of time is therefore dependent upon our conception of space (inside and outside). In this way our personal conception of time is based upon the perception of discontinuity in our spatial experiences. Birth is therefore the prototype for our perception, if not our understanding, of space and time. When we consider the dates October 31^st to November 13th 2021 (Cop26) and February 27^th 2022 as reference points they mark our linear time between two points. We are not in Cop26 time anymore, we are in the time of the latest IPCC report. Both of these are mental spaces in which we are active in following their content. Our anxiety comes because we are uncertain what, if any, relevant activity has occurred in the space between these two dates. The dates are both temporal and spatial reference points that have to be clearly perceived as different, despite their obvious functional similarities, in order to avoid collapsing them as tautologically the same.

The danger of tautology

Keeping the dates apart in our minds allows us to see reality as reality. That is: our perception of space comes just before our conception of time, because the discontinuity of our perception of space brings the discontinuity in our perception of time. The distinction between them is essential to maintain if we are not to succumb to tautology. Hence we have to keep them apart in order not to succumb to repetitively concerning ourselves with the content and significance of each. The repetitiveness inherent in this sort of tautology strips away the significance of the content, and in this it is a form of disavowal (Freud, 1924,1927.1940. Basch,1983.) To keep repeating, in our minds and discussions with others, the perception and significance of the consequences of human behaviour dangerous to our own eco-systems is a tautology to be avoided, as it renders inconsequential the relationship between things. Inconsequentiality is fundamental to climate crisis denial, and we can see this ,in the mind-set Freud (1916) called exceptionalist and Sally Weintrobe (2021) developed as exceptionalism. In this way the exceptionalist denies the existence of the climate crisis through beliefs like – global temperature has been rising since time immemorial, we are part of time immemorial, therefore we are not doing anything that time immemorial is not already doing. This tautology as denial of significance is often accompanied by the denial of content, as in - the insistence that one should feel no moral discomfort about how one’s desires are met through climate-damaging patterns of production, consumption and waste. However far we may personally feel from the exceptionalist way of being there is always the opportunity to slip into denial through tautological repetition. It can also occur because inconsequentiality looms before us when our contact with reality is un-hooked by our not having a firm footing in space and time.

The break-up of the social

That humans are social beings is well known to all of us through experience and a copious academic and clinical literature. In his classic study Social Being the psychologist Rom Harre (1979) carefully illuminated the explicit and implicit frameworks of discourse that we use for our development as individuals, families and groups. To be effective these frameworks need to house normative expectations of ways we communicate, including expectations of who and what we find to communicate with. Continuity of the social, in which and about which we communicate, is fundamental to our maintaining good-enough mental health. As a departure from Harre’s account one can say that if these frameworks are to support good mental health they need to be set in, and thus convey, a sense of space and time that are not only recognisable, but easily connected with by individuals. What many citizens experience today is far from a sense of connectivity with and within the body social.

Looking at the current sense of spatial and temporal disconnection in the body social the French political thinker Bruno Latour (2018) places the climate crisis as the cause of citizens’ mental disconnection from what he calls the common world. This disconnection is due to the social body’s/common world’s unreliability as a source of emotional and mental stability, brought through various responses by what he calls the ruling classes to the climate crisis. In essence he sees that since the 1980s (and without indicating this to us) these classes have abandoned modernity’s goal to raise the living and consumption standards of all humans. This is hand-in-hand with their stopping to lead as members of the societies they rule. Instead, they “shelter themselves from the world” (2018.2). In departing the body social/the common world they leave behind the reality of our deregulated economic and social life that has led to an “explosion of inequalities” (2018.2), and an image of globalisation melting. Latour sees these as creating the “panicky desire to return to the old protections of the nation-state – a desire that is identified …. with the rise of populism.” (2018.2).

The instability of space

When we look to the body social, to make sense of our experience of nothing happening to slow down global warming, we find little to connect with that is meaningful. What we have are social phenomena that are the aftermath of the exit by the ruling classes. They are in the wake of those with the power to do something abdicating without a succession plan. Within this new social space we have to contend with: the end of any levelling up of living standards, and the consequent rise of populism.  But we can contend with these only once we can see them clearly. What accompanies the abdication of rulers is a media industry producing misinformation, and new leaders for whom telling lies is seen as part of the job. In addition, this rise of populism makes things even more fragmented and difficult to understand.  

Lies and misinformation serve to disorientate us. By disconnecting us from the truth they prevent us from seeing that modernity has been abandoned, and that the international and national ruling classes have given up dealing with the climate crisis. In this way insecure space – like land that has dissolved before us – brings us inconsequentiality as a state of mind. We don’t know the consequences as we cannot string together the phenomena in this space. There is no cause and effect that we can be certain of in this miasma of lies and misinformation. We are disorientated and cannot hold onto the idea that the rulers in their gated communities, private islands and yachts have actually left the common world (the common space) with us, to live in another. It seems incredulous to think that these retreats often back-on to where the rest of us live. The rulers and their intentions are invisible to us, but they are living near us in plain sight. We struggle to comprehend and ask - Surely, they must still be with us?  We are disorientated. In our blindness we clutch to the climate crisis as if linking to it as an act of faith, because our belief in the data that alarms us is under such constant attack. We begin to doubt the crisis is an emergency. Our disorientation within the space called the common world leaves us slowly feeling that the emergency is inconsequential. We have lost so many of our anchor points to gauge the relation of phenomena to each other, and to our minds.

The instability of time

This gauging is a major tool of perception. In order to gauge time we need anchors to gain a sense of progress towards and regression away from goals. To return to Klein’s work with Fitz, the roots of the concept of time and of orientation in time are derived through our moving from inside to outside the womb. This move from inside to outside is the prototype for understanding our personal conception of time and is based upon the perception of discontinuity in one’s spatial experiences. This concept of time therefore lays down the basis for time being linear and stable. It is linear between two different events in space – inside the womb followed by outside the womb. This linear progression of time, based upon events in space, is what we struggle to retain when we try holding in mind: that there is a climate crisis, that we have deadlines to reduce the carbon footprint and that very recently we have data indicating we are not going to meet these. Further, that the recent data has come because we have not acted sufficiently on previous data. These facts add up to a horrific reality. The adding up, and the perception of each act itself, is obscured by the misinformation within the body social. The obscurity leaves us unable to draw a line between the facts as temporal anchor points, and thus we do not achieve an accurate perception of time.

Surrounded by the miasma of distorted information from this body social we have no foothold in space or time. Our disorientation in these components of our mental space comes about through our unwittingly receiving, and so not processing, the projections of the body social. In the consulting room this would be like being massively disorientated by one’s patient until one was able to process their communications as projective identification.

Bion (1959) brilliantly illustrated that human society is only possible because we all use one another to project into. His discussions on projective identification (1962.1963.1970) gave us two interesting motives for using this. One is to evacuate unbearable feelings into the object in place to contain anxiety. The second is to project anxiety in such a way that the object receives it as a communication of one’s distress and responds to alleviate it. When the containment of either form of anxiety is not met it is left to the ego to work out how to tolerate the resulting frustration.

The ego might evade the situation of no containment by holding back the projections and letting them run riot within itself. It might find animate or inanimate objects outside the self, and project into them (the animate and inanimate non-human environment). It might face the realisation that there is no object present to contain the projections by developing an idea of the object as absent. The tolerance of frustration implies a passage of time between the belief in the object’s presence and the development of the idea of the object as absent. There is a consciousness of a period of time elapsing. For different reasons, not being able to prevent projections running riot within oneself, or using inanimate objects, leads to problems with a concept of time. The object has been replaced or destroyed in phantasy, leaving the ego without a sense of its presence, now or in the past, and therefore as something present in the future. As Bion says “where the past used to be and is now a not-present (or) where the future used to be there is now a not-present” (1965.100). He is describing the production of a state of nothing - time as nothing, as having nothing to define it. In this state it is impossible to discriminate past from present and future. Patients of mine in this state always convey life as full of boredom and sameness. They are also invariably tautological - constantly repeating a particular idea from me such that it becomes denuded and devoid of meaning. This denuding keeps them stuck in their need for a sense of timelessness - our present not moving towards their future. As concerned citizens, the danger is that we cannot maintain the necessary sense of discrimination in order to ensure we can see time as linear, and thus that there is a consequence in leaving aside the urgency to do something about the carbon footprint.

In summary

From this essay’s point of view, this stuckness through a disorientation within time comes through: not realising that the rulers and the project of modernity have left the mental space, within which a perception of mental space and time are key signifiers of our human presence. There is a sense of absence only of a containing object. This absence is a loss. Our state of loss – even if we are not fully aware of what it is we have lost – adds to the sense of disorientation. In this state there is a danger we will not find out what is lost as the search becomes part of the general search for the link between phenomena; a search that is always poised to be given up. Maybe we will never see that our loss is of that which once contained us. The idea that our economic and political leaders once acted in what they saw as the interests of all humanity is one that maybe difficult to face fully. Until it is, we remain largely unlinked with major social phenomena.  Unlinked like this, we are unable to see how to work together to pressurise decision makers into acting now to save humanity, and its non-human living environment. For the time being our inactivity seems to be based upon our sense of non-linear time giving us no vivid or lasting sense of consequence. The broken links between phenomena in the body social leave us suspended. We cannot place our feet on this shared mental space’s ground. Consequently, as individuals with minds struggling with these broken links, we develop states of mind that are unlinked from each other. Along with not being able to connect with the crisis, and the non-response of our leaders to it, we cannot connect up together. This leaves us unable to develop responses to the emergency. Whilst we may remain aware that there are dramatic events that are climate events, this perception may not lead us to recognise their significance as harbingers of the climate catastrophe. We may see the unprecedented floods, fires and ice melting last year but we may not have the mental traction to see the significance of these perceptions as indicative of the catastrophe not waiting but being underway.  The magnitude of what is to come will be infinitely greater than what we have already seen. These are the consequences, regardless of whether we stay connected with the mind-set of consequentiality and linear time, and whether such connectivity prevails in the face of their enormity.