We are like frogs in a pot of water that warms slowly: we do not realize the danger until it is too late. This is the disturbing but effective metaphor, used by a recent study to describe our collective response to the climatic crisis.
According to researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, the so -called “boiled frog effect” – a psychological phenomenon in which people do not react to gradual and persistent changes – is making the population increasingly insensitive to the climatic emergency.
In practice, the slower, the slower, the more we tend to underestimate it, as if it were normal. And so we don’t alarmed, we don’t act, we do not demand solutions.
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The study
Scientists who conducted the study have discovered that most people react strongerly when the data on the climatic crisis are presented in a clear, binary way, that is, as “Everything or nothing“: for example “The Arctic lost 70% of the ice in the summer“It has a much greater impact that not a series of graphic designers showing a slow decline year after year.
The problem? We communicate the crisis as if it were a documentary, not an emergency
One of the most common errors in climatic communication, according to the study, is precisely the excess of graduality. Showing technical data, curves and long -term projections can paradoxically reduce perceived urgency. The human brain is not scheduled to react to slow dangers and distributed over time.
On the contrary, if the messages were clearer and more direct – as happens in case of immediate calamities such as an earthquake or a flood – we could push people to act faster and more determined.
Record temperatures, fires, droughts, extreme weather events: the signals are all there. Yet too often we consider them “anomalies”, passenger events. It is the typical boiled frog effect. And this is paralyzing us.
The solution? Completely rethink the way we communicate climate change. No longer as a slow catastrophe to be followed with detachment, but as a real global emergency to be faced immediately, together, with awareness and courage.
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