As I witness the elevated levels of emotionality and irrationality in the world today, I consider the repressed fear of global warming to be a major contributing factor. Called ‘displacement’, it is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind redirects an emotion from its original object (such as fear of global warming) to another (anger over carbon tax) because anger makes one feel strong. It’s the old axiom about fear leading to aggression.
In other words, angry tribal diatribes (ranting and raving, posting hateful comments) are a cover for fearful angst. We distract the focus of our attention away from what really bothers us: anger makes us feel strong and powerful in scary situations. It is an emotion that, also, makes us more irrational.
A metaphor for describing this is “kick the cat”- e.g., man is scared of losing his job and is mad his boss and kicks the cat when he gets home, or blows up and yells at his family.
Note: Those who are sure that global warming is a hoax all too often don’t comprehend the basics of the greenhouse effect; but, instead of watching an 8th grade Earth Science YouTube video of a classroom demonstration of it, they deflect their focus to a video mocking global warming. Though this is likely a reactive defense mechanism, it’s also ‘resistance to change’ — change of life style and an oil based economy.
Greenhouse Gas Demo
(4 minutes)
https://youtu.be/kwtt51gvaJQ
Greenhouse Gas Demonstrations
https://samslair.blogspot.com/2017/07/global-warming-greenhouse-effect.html?m=1
Humor:
https://assets.amuniversal.com/29e4d0301e7c0136284f005056a9545d
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/computers-rant-rants-tirade-lashing_out-lash_out-rfon103_low.jpg
