 So, it turns out that there are a lot of people, young, mostly young, I think, but I think of a variety of ages who are truly psychologically now disturbed because anxious, upset, obsessed, over issues like climate. I mean, I'll just read you a quote out of this article. This is an article that appeared in, what did this article appear? New York Times. This article that appeared in New York Times, and it's called Climate Change Enters the Therapy Room. Enters the Therapy Room. Right? And so this is just the beginning of the article. It would hit Alina Black in the snack aisle at Trader Joe's, a weave of guilt and shame that made her skin crawl. Something as simple as nuts, they came wrapped in plastic, often in layers of it, that she imagined leaving a house and traveling to a landfill where it would remain through her lifetime and the lifetime of her children. She longed really long to make less of a mark on the earth, but she also had a baby in diapers and a full-time job and a five-year-old who wanted snacks. At the age of 37, these conflicting forces were slowly closing in on her like a set of jars. That's good writing, right? That's a New York Times writer. That's good writing. But what the article describes, and what I think we all know if we're engaged with the culture, if we know people out there in the culture, if we read the newspaper, if we look at TV shows, if we see what's going on in the world, there are people out there. They tell how many, but primarily young people who are just overwhelmed with fear, overwhelmed with fear. For a lot of young people, that fear is focused on climate change. They've been told, and they continue to be told, that their actions, that they did their actions of destroying the earth. Indeed, they've been told this since pre-kindergarten that every time they throw away plastic, fish are dying. The penguins are being killed. They always choose the cute animals, like penguins and little furry, beautiful animals that are destroyed by the child's action. Think of the guilt, the fear that that invokes. Alina Black described in the article, spends her evenings after the kids are down to sleep, scrolling the internet and reading scary articles about how the world around the world is collapsing, droughts, fires, hurricanes, all caused by the nuts she buys at Trader Joe's, all caused by her actions, by the cars she drives, by the air she bees out, by the trees that were chopped down to build a house, by the plastic that is created by fuel, by the energy consumed when she turns on the lights. It's all destroying the very place, the very place where her kids are going to grow up, where kids she would hope or is planning for to have a future and their future is gone. In a sense, she, her generation, but she specifically, is killing the future for her kids. They got to go describe a grandfather who is a scientist, who breaks out in tears every time he thinks about the world that he's living for his grandkids. He's a glacier scientist. For, I don't know, how long has this been going on? It's certainly since the early 1990s. So this is 30 years now, 30 plus years. We have been constantly systematically being bombarded with the idea that the world, that we are killing the planet, which we rely on for our lives. We have been fed the myth that we have, we're in this perfect planet that is completely structured to provide all of our needs and that we, through our actions, are destroying it or collapsing it and by doing that committing suicide. And we are convincing them, we're convincing people, have been convincing people, have been non-stop and a whole generation, I'd say probably two generations now have been brought up on this and are convinced that this is true. And what does this do? It creates guilt and fear. It so reminds me of Christianity, which creates guilt and fear. And what is, what is the purpose of creating guilt and fear? I mean, Christianity creates guilt. You know, it's your fault. Jesus God crucified your fault. You know, you are a sinner. You've always been a sinner. You always will be a sinner. And fear of God's wrath, fear of an afterlife in hell, in eternity in hell. Fear that nothing you can do in this world will ever make up for your sins. Sins that you might not even have aware that have been committed, committed in your name before time, fear and guilt. And, you know, this article describes how there's a whole field now of eco-psychology, of psychologists that have become experts at treating people who feel this anxiety. And it turns out that they're not a few. People who, you know, have developed all kinds of psychological techniques. To deal with this now, a big part of this, a big part of this psychological techniques, at least from what I can glean of this article, it's not a very in-depth article, is to tell people that it's not their fault. That they can't control what T.J. Joe sells. They can't control the world. That yes, this destruction is happening. But it's really those evil corporations that are doing it. It's really the evil government that's doing it. It's not them. They have no choice. They shouldn't stress about it because they shouldn't internalize the blame. It's not their fault. And, you know, they just should accept it. This is what's happening. You know, this woman who is getting therapy, she says, obviously it would be nice to be happy. But my goal is more to just be able to function because, I mean, the world is closing in on her. This is real stuff. This is really scary. Why guilt and fear? Well, because guilt and fear are great mechanisms by which we can control people. Guilt and fear is how we control people. They feel guilty. They want to do something. They're afraid they have to do something. Something to make the guilt be a little less and make the fear. And of course, if you make people afraid, one thing fear is very good at doing for most people is it's very good at shutting down reason. It's very good at I have to do something now. It's kind of this, in a sense, survival instinct. We don't really have one. But, you know, these survival emotions come to the forefront. I have to act. I have to do something because I'm afraid. And all you need now is somebody to come and guide you and tell you what needs to be done. And people are willing to do absurd, ridiculous things in the name of climate change, not because they've gone through a rational process of estimating what's happening and what's going to happen and how we can mitigate it and what are the projects that could reduce the effect of this and how they can live a better life and how human beings can deal with it and handle it and support it and survive and thrive and whatever. There's no fear. The whole point of making people really, really, really afraid is to shut that down. Because what the power is to be, what the people who are really pitching this don't want you to do is find solutions. The one thing they're not interested in is actually solving the problem. Because once you solve the problem, they don't have the hooks into you. They don't have the guilt. They can't control. So they want you to be in the state of fear. Because when you're in the state of fear, you're not a good thinker. You're not particularly rational. You're not looking for solutions. You're looking to lash out. Again, not everybody experiences it this way, but yes, and they keep knocking down the solutions. Whenever you propose a solution, a climate change, assuming it exists, assuming it's a problem. Whenever you propose a solution, they knock it down. They find a reason not to do it. They find a reason to do it. OK, let's build lots of solar panels. But what about the rats? What about the cacti? What about, I don't know, make it up? Some worm or something? Let's build a dam. Oh, we can't do a dam. If you do a dam, the trees will be flooded and then they'll suck less CO2 out of the atmosphere. And what about all the habitat for the spotted owl? I don't know. They don't want solutions. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. 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