Understanding resistance to knowledge and change
Despite the unprecedented accumulation of scientific evidence of staggering sustainability challenges, some of which may even threaten the survival of humankind, there has been so far minimal concrete action taken by policymakers and the general public concerning most of them. How is that even possible? According to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, we are ‘on a highway to climate hell’ and gradually ‘committing suicide by proxy’ in relation to biodiversity loss. Yet, we are still hardly doing anything to save ourselves. At least not on a scale that matters. Similar assessments are made concerning many other sustainability challenges—not only regarding global challenges but also local ones.
Understanding why people fail to pay attention and take concrete action against even the most blatant problem is an essential and difficult task. Lack of information is often considered a main reason since people may not be aware of the extent of the problem, its potential consequences if not addressed or the available solutions. People may, of course, not have access to accurate and reliable information about the problem, or they may not be able to understand it if it is not presented in an accessible way and they have adequate education. However, there cannot be a single policymaker in the world today, at least not on the national level, without access to sufficient information about climate change, biodiversity loss and several other pressing sustainability challenges to grasp their acuteness. Similarly, it is impossible to live anywhere with access to basic education and reasonably free mass media without having access to abundant information about many sustainability challenges and how our leisure travel, local transportation habits, food preferences and consumption choices exacerbate them. Whilst some individuals do change their behaviour when presented with information about their environmental footprint, the assumption that people, in general, are motivated by such ecological knowledge is flawed at best. There are, in other words, other factors than merely a lack of information that make people susceptible to resisting knowledge and change.
The presentation elaborates on a range of factors driving resistance to knowledge resistance and change—including factors related to the problem itself, cognitive and psychological factors, social and cultural factors, political, economic and administrative factors, and technological factors—and on what can be done to overcome them.