Just a few days ago we wrote how the seemingly imperceptible and gradual changes of global warming are easier to ignore than immediate threats - like those of terrorism - even though the effects of global warming are... well... global, and potentially cataclysmic. Reactions to Anthrax scares, for example, despite causing only a handful of deaths, create a state of frenzied fear that some might say would be better applied to the issues of climate change and an increasingly toxic environment (not that a 'frenzied fear' is useful in any context).
Up until recently, despite scientific entreaties for years, even decades - the reaction has, in contrast, been a very slow awakening from a deep environmental slumber. Now, the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy has produced a report from a random poll that clearly indicates a sizeable shift in public perceptions over the last year. Society is becoming increasingly lucid on the subject.
Fully 83 percent of Americans now say global warming is a “serious” problem, up from 70 percent in 2004. More Americans than ever say they have serious concerns about environmental threats, such as toxic soil and water (92 percent, up from 85 percent in 2004), deforestation (89 percent, up from 78 percent), air pollution (93 percent, up from 87 percent) and the extinction of wildlife (83 percent, up from 72 percent in 2005).You can view the Key Findings here (doc file), but a couple of other worthy-of-note points of interest are that more and more Americans believe global warming is human induced - a problem we can do something about - and, perhaps due to mixed messages from television and newspapers on this very point, the American public is also losing confidence in mainstream media reports.Most dramatically, the survey of 1,000 adults nationwide shows that 63 percent of Americans agree that the United States “is in as much danger from environmental hazards, such as air pollution and global warming, as it is from terrorists.” - Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy (via The Sietch)
- More than two out of three (68%) Americans agree that global warming is something people can control. And fully 81% agree with the statement, “It is my responsibility to help reduce the impacts of global warming.”Taking this a step further, a case could be put forward that our environmental problems and terrorism share similar causes, and similar solutions:- Nightly television news is trusted by 50% of Americans, but this is down significantly from 2004, when 69% of Americans said they trusted the television news as a source of information about the environment. 23% say they do not trust the nightly television news at all – up from 13% in 2004.
- Major newspapers have also taken a major hit. In 2004, two-thirds of Americans trusted major newspapers as sources of information about environmental issues. Today, just 45% of Americans say they trust newspapers. Fully 27% say they do not trust major newspapers at all – up from just 16% in 2004
What is happening in nature is happening in society. Economic globalization is creating economic inequality and exclusion. It is increasing inequality, disharmony and conflicts in society. Just as insects and plants are not essentially pests and weeds (under all conditions) but are transformed into pests and weeds because of ecological imbalance, people are not essentially terrorists and extremists. Terrorists are made, not born. Terrorists are the symptoms of societies in imbalance due to injustice, exclusion and inequality.Creating sustainability and justice is the only effective strategy for controlling the emergence of terrorism. The war mentality has failed to reduce pests and weeds in agriculture. The war mentality will fail in preventing youth from becoming extremists and terrorists. It will in fact create more resilient super terrorists just as pesticides, herbicides and genetic engineering have created super pests and super weeds. - Weaving Harmony Through Diversity, Virdana Shiva
It is helpful to pause and reflect on the context which creates violence, and on the causes which give birth to terrorism, because that can help us find ways to build cultures of nonviolence. Violence and nonviolence are not essential characteristics or traits of any particular groups of people or cultures. They are potentials which emerge according to the context.
Why is violence engulfing the world so rapidly? Why has terrorism become the dominant feature of humankind? Could the violence characterising human societies be linked with violent structures and institutions we have created to reduce nature to resources, society to markets and humans to consumers? We need to ponder these questions if we wish to understand the roots of terrorism. - Globalisation & Terrorism, Virdana Shiva
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