As a climate reporter I have dealt a *lot* with Americans' almost total lack of tolerance for sitting with complex problems. Ours is very much a "hurry up and get to the solutions" culture, a "I'm just trying to stay positive" culture. It's not real helpful when facing deeply rooted complex problems - ThreadSky

amywestervelt.bsky.social • 25 days ago

As a climate reporter I have dealt a *lot* with Americans' almost total lack of tolerance for sitting with complex problems. Ours is very much a "hurry up and get to the solutions" culture, a "I'm just trying to stay positive" culture. It's not real helpful when facing deeply rooted complex problems

Comments

rgatess.bsky.social•25 days ago

We have multi-episode documentary problems trying to fit into 10 second sound bite mentalities.

How do we reverse the rapidly declining attention span and intelligence of an entire society when AI will only make it worse?

julietpatterson.bsky.social•24 days ago

Amen

eunicelehm.bsky.social•25 days ago

So true and so humiliating to have a president who doesn't seem capable of deep thought or any tolerance for complex problems.

anlomedad.bsky.social•24 days ago

Ja. Very true. And the🇺🇸cultural positivity is badly affecting global climate debate. So much so that anti-alarmism is seen widely as promising strategy by many cli-sci. While we're shown time and again that fear works – if played well and supported organically by media news cycle dynamics &clickbait

anlomedad.bsky.social•24 days ago

Fear works. But don't use mis-interpreted fear porn. Stick with the known things. AR6-WG2 (yes, two!) is your GoTo for proper fear-mongering and clickbaiting. Do a fulltext search for example for "by 2030" to read out loud to your cranky uncle. And to your anti-alarmist cli-sci while you're at it.

anlomedad.bsky.social•24 days ago

Start doing this a week before every election https://bsky.app/profile/anlomedad.bsky.social/post/3ljc5cpksrs2n
And keep at it until election day. Don't assume that 1 session would suffice. People's memory is Swiss cheese and voting habits are hard to break. I've seen it with a ~ 70year old lady I supported in the booth.. and was shocked.

suewrite.bsky.social•25 days ago

I see this SO much at the school where I work. Just "trying to stay positive"! Omg! I understand protecting your mental health, but we have to look at the crap if we're going to clean it up!

amywestervelt.bsky.social•25 days ago

How are you ever going to solve a problem if you can't tolerate unease for long enough to understand the roots of it? Yes, this is *particularly* common with folks who have some level of (race, class, sex, etc) protection from said problems or whose identity makes them feel implicated/complicit

eoehwright.bsky.social•18 days ago

hear me out. maybe it’s so widespread bc in much biz allowing for complexity means re-thinking & threatens slim budgets. (Do on yr own time). Better software, even less tolerance. Sitting with complexities w/o having a clear time estimate came to make me physically ill. I left. Took 10 yrs to undo.

amywestervelt.bsky.social•25 days ago

But it's not exclusive to the privileged. In my experience, intolerance for discomfort, complexity, or just bad news is extremely widespread in the U.S. We're gonna have to get over that if we're going to build a better social contract and a world in which everyone gets to have a bit more comfort.

oaklandishdude.bsky.social•25 days ago

This is very true well said

realperrygrossman.bsky.social•24 days ago

Yeah. Also, it is hard to build alliances, given the complexity of issues. Moderates and progressives are both critical of Trump, but have widely different approaches to addressing health care and social services, for example.

jateach.bsky.social•23 days ago

😢

allergill.bsky.social•25 days ago

Yes, more than 3 sentences and they give up reading. Then wonder why their response makes no sense.

prizscisurf.bsky.social•25 days ago

This desire for simple, quick and painless solutions to complex problems is childish.

galesinatra.bsky.social•25 days ago

I'm finding that staying positive about climate action after your house burns down in an extreme weather event is challenging. I'm concerned that too little attention is being paid to rebuilding our community in a more climate resilient manner because "it's complicated" and will slow things down.

kevinleecaster.bsky.social•25 days ago

Amy is mistaken to assert that the desire for quick, painless fixes to complex problems is particularly an American foible imo, but it is certainly true that Joe Biden got barely any support for his Build Back Better policies he was promoting.

amywestervelt.bsky.social•25 days ago

I don’t think it’s *only* Americans but having lived in and reported in multiple other countries it’s noticeably more pronounced in the US

berkeleyeve.bsky.social•25 days ago

i think there is a cultural self-acknowledgement of this fixity of focus that goes back to the self-identity formed after the Civil War... "American know-how" was an export for many years. its one of the components of the "rugged indivualism" cult... see "just plain folks"... etc

galesinatra.bsky.social•25 days ago

Some other countries have done a better job with longer term planning such as Norway and The Netherlands. And BBB did finally pass with some climate provisions which Trump is trying to roll back.

kevinleecaster.bsky.social•25 days ago

Americans on the left side of the aisle chose not to support Joe Biden's Build Back Better initiatives so now predictably the GOP is trying to tear down the progress he was able to make.

amywestervelt.bsky.social•25 days ago

Oof. I’m so sorry!

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply