ONLINE FIRST
published on August 7, 2024
Matthew Altman-Suchocki
https://doi.org/10.5840/socphiltoday202485110
Death, Shame, and Climate Change
This paper¡¯s main aim is to illuminate how climate activism¡ªwhich seeks to address the collective existential crisis that is climate change¡ªuniquely intersects with the individual existential crisis that is one¡¯s own death. Addressing climate change seems to minimally require more cooperation and less environmentally unfriendly behavior. However, in virtue of the way discussions on climate change can make nature¡¯s vulnerability¡ªand, relatedly, our own mortality¡ªpsychologically salient, climate discourse is capable of engendering existential anxiety. This poses problems for climate activism, as attenuating existential anxiety often relies on forms of self-esteem striving capable of undermining cooperation and exacerbating environmentally unfriendly behavior. I take these problems to have implications for a certain style of discourse made famous by Greta Thunberg: climate shaming. Because of shame¡¯s potential to induce moral maturation/motivational revision, some take climate shaming to be a justified strategy for promoting climate activism. Yet empirical research suggests that climate shaming may often catalyze various self-esteem striving behaviors that lead to the exact opposite of climate shaming¡¯s intended effect(s). In my view, this is because of climate shaming¡¯s problematic potential to engender existential anxiety. If so, climate activists have good reason to abandon the climate shaming strategy.