Why Aren't We Saving the Planet?: A Psychologist's Perspective Book

As the devastation of global climate change reveals itself, Geoffrey Beattie, in Why Aren’t We Saving The Planet?: A Psychologist’s Perspective, presents the basis for collective action (p. 207) as overcoming psychological obstacles to green and sustainable behaviors at the individual level. He begins by discussing attitudes (Part I), and tells readers about how his own mismatched (or “green faker”) responses to climate change-related issues and everyday decisions inspired a lot of this book. Since social desirability is a problem when discussing explicit attitudes toward pro-environmental efforts (p. 36), implicit attitudes are the ones of interest—they represent internal and unconscious motives (not) to act. Beattie finds that through Implicit Association Tests, most (but not all) people are pro-low carbon (p. 74), and through eye-tracking measures, carbon footprint information on consumer products should be made more salient to ensure that it receives more attention (p. 96).Part II, “Notes on habits,” includes two of Beattie’s personal anecdotes—the first about his experience as a tourist in Mauritius, and the second about a childhood incident, tracing his psychological attachment to material possessions. Part III, “Notes on dissociation,” looks closer at differences between implicit and explicit attitudes to identify “people whose underlying attitudes are not conducive to green behaviour” (p. 153). In another study, Beattie assesses how well simultaneous speech and gestures match. He finds a few cases where the gestures reveal less-than-positive attitudes toward green-ness or sustainability, suggesting this is true for a significant proportion of individuals, leading to the implications and importance of trying to understand and change the attitudes of these “green fakers” (pp. 183–4). The last chapter of this section addresses flashbulb images, such as in the popular movie The Day After Tomorrow, as a possible means of emotional persuasion to act in more green or sustainable ways. Part IV, “Emotion and thought,” begins with another empirical study by Beattie, in which participants viewed seven different clips of Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, and completed affective (mood) and attitudinal (about issues of global warming) measures after each one. He noted important differences between some of the clips, as well as the need to determine the long-term effects of exposure to kinds of messages presented (p. 223). In the first concluding chapter, Beattie states that there is no single answer to the book’s title’s question, but rather many possible reasons (p. 226), incorporating the psychological theories and empirical research discussed throughout. The final chapter offers additional concluding remarks and suggestions for future research. Beattie offers important psychological insights about the individual that may enhance discussions of climate change and other environmental issues from more sociological or STS perspectives. This book will be of interest to undergraduate or graduate students studying social psychology, especially in terms of messages from authority and consumer behavior, as well as those interested in applications of psychology in STS. For scholars interested in the social movement toward green practices and sustainability, this book reveals various aspects of the element of human motivation, and offers directions for future research in this important and timely field of study.Read More