Breakfast meeting: Why aren't we humans doing enough for the climate?
On 10 November, Ida Vikøren Andersen and Øyvind Gjerstad from the CLIMLIFE project attended a breakfast meeting together with Espen Gamlund for a conversation about why we are not doing enough in the face of climate change.
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On Thursday 10 November 2022, Bergen global (CMI/UiB) organized a breakfast meeting with the title "How dare we? About people, climate and why we don't do enough". Øyvind Gjerstad moderated the conversation.
Why are we not doing enough in the face of climate change? Disintegration of responsibility, lack of solidarity, the prisoner's dilemma (game theory) and more were mentioned in attempts to explain the lack of action and cooperation. It was also pointed out that Norwegians, who have long been spared the biggest impacts, have recently begun to be exposed to the consequences of climate change - which many others in the world have already experienced for a number of years.
Studies show that first hand experience of climate change can lead to climate action, such as reducing air travel. Nevertheless, recent economic concerns may lead to climate change ending up further down the list of Norwegians' concerns. Here lies a challenge in communicating and conveying how climate change and other challenges are often partially connected, be it economic challenges, war, pandemics or other.
The entire conversation can be seen in a recording on YouTube.
The panel consisted of Ida Vikøren Andersen (Rhetoric, UiB) and Øyvind Gjerstad (Linguist, UiB) from the research group CLIMLIFE (UiB), and Espen Gamlund (Philosopher, UiB). Thea Gregersen (Climate Psychologist, NORCE) was supposed to participate but was unfortunately prevented.