June 5, 2017 – Today is World Environment Day. Occurring on the 5th of June every year, it is the United Nation’s principal vehicle for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. First held in 1974, it has been a flagship campaign for raising awareness on emerging environmental issues from marine pollution, human overpopulation, and global warming, to sustainable consumption and wildlife crime (Wikipedia).
It’s a bit disheartening that this year the USA pulled out of the Paris Accord just days ahead of World Environment Day :'(
I don’t understand how people can turn their backs on peer reviewed science. I don’t understand how people can reject a direction that addresses risks.
Or…….maybe I do, in a way.
Humans hate to change their behaviour, change takes effort and it involves making the conscious assessment that what one is doing may not be the best way to do things.
And we humans have such fragile egos, and we hate to think that our way might not be the best way, because that means that maybe, just maybe, we are wrong.
And oh do we hate to be wrong.
Some of us anyway. Personally I think being wrong, and recognizing that a line of thought may be wrong, means that one is actually thinking and reassessing a position. Because information does change, and positions on topics should too. So being wrong is kind of of cool actually.
That’s what critical thinking is all about, constantly evaluating and reevaluating the available information at hand, and not outright rejecting information that doesn’t agree with the position you have taken. It takes an open mind to do that.
Not enough humans have open minds about the important things in life.
My favourite quote goes like this:
“In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.” ~ Carl Sagan
117 Photos in 2017: 5. World Environment Day (5th June)
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