Apocalypse and banality
I'm writing this article in mid-November from 39°N 2°E. In Palma, of course. Today we reached 26°C and the low didn't drop below 20°C. Before this article is published, the high will fall nine degrees below today's low, and the snow level will be at 600 meters. By the end of the week, we'll see another rise above "normal" values. A sprawling summer and a rollercoaster of temperatures—a lethal combination for nature reserves, agriculture, and safety. From my window, I see Christmas decorations, churro stands, and chestnut vendors. People are strolling around in sandals, shorts, and tank tops. They don't seem worried.
The planet is warming and extreme weather events are accelerating: heat waves, prolonged droughts, torrential rains, unprecedented wildfires... The examples are all around us—ignorance is no excuse—but they no longer worry us much. We've normalized it.
Globally, concern about the climate emergency is plummeting: 21 points in just three years. In Spain, it now only represents 37%. All the conclusions of climate surveys point in the same direction: every day more is at stake, but paradoxically, we care less and less about it.
There are several reasons for this tragic contradiction. Obviously, the fact that climate change has become a subject of cultural warfare doesn't help. It's not perceived as an indisputable scientific reality, but rather as a narrative choice tied to a particular ideological position. It's true that the war of narratives hasn't succeeded in increasing denialism, but it has increased confusion. Certainties weaken, and alternatives become dangerously blurred. When there's no clear solution, the mind shuts down.
The information overload of Web 2.0 and biased algorithms, which spread confusion and tension, also contributes to general indifference. If you're unsure, you don't take action. If you're afraid or sad, you don't either.
False or biased information increases our paralysis, but the main threat is information overload itself, even when it is not biased or blatantly distorted. A character created by Joël Dicker explains this lucidly: "Did you know that information is an unlimited flow in a limited space? The volume of information is exponential, but the time we can dedicate to it is restricted and inextensible. It's true. The constant and endless bombardment of stimuli and items of all kinds makes it impossible for us to properly organize information and dedicate more time to what is most relevant. Information overload expands our understanding; it loses ground in our imagination.
The various surveys also agree on a serious finding: the 18-30 age group shows the greatest climate disaffection. The data is devastating. And, at first glance, inexplicable: the generation that is most educated and informed on the issue, the one that has had and continues to have the greatest access to data, and the one that is also especially threatened by climate change over the next 50 years... doesn't feel addressed. And those who don't feel affected are unlikely to get involved.
And this is where the easy solution always appears: greater presence in the curriculum. As if academic syllabi had necromantic properties and the ability to magically transform curricular headings into powerful learning experiences and transformative attitudes. But it doesn't work that way.
Researcher Yayo Herrero laments that many 18-year-olds cannot explain what climate change is or what can be done about it, despite having participated in "a whole host of workshops on the topic throughout secondary school." She even speaks of a kind of "workshop industry"—covering topics like peace culture, the climate emergency, and gender—that fails to achieve its intended goals.
It won't be a matter of curriculum—the current one is based precisely on the SDGs—but of educational coherence. Holding workshops and hanging posters about global warming doesn't make much sense if the main field trip of the first term is a visit to an outdoor ice rink—which consumes the same amount of electricity as an entire hotel, but produced by a generator that runs on diesel 24 hours a day for 40 days. Or if the sacrosanct end-of-year mega-trip is to a water park. Consumerism and irresponsibility during school hours.
Not to mention the environmental committees that organize exchanges with other European centers (4,000 km by plane x 40 students) to end up cycling through a natural area.
Like when Palma declared a climate emergency and then announced a Christmas light display more elaborate, longer, and more extensive than ever before "to stimulate consumption." Exactly, who are we trying to fool? The problem isn't our inconsistency and triviality.
