Polluted Air May Pollute Our Morality

Exposure to air pollution, even imagining exposure to air pollution, may lead to unethical behavior, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. A combination of archival and experimental studies indicates that exposure to air pollution, either physically or mentally, is linked with unethical behavior such as crime and cheating. The experimental findings suggest that this association may be due, at least in part, to increased anxiety.

We pollute our atmosphere and with that our morality.

“This research reveals that air pollution may have potential ethical costs that go beyond its well-known toll on health and the environment,” says behavioral scientist Jackson G. Lu of Columbia Business School, the first author of the research. “This is important because air pollution is a serious global issue that affects billions of people—even in the United States, about 142 million people still reside in counties with dangerously polluted air.”

Previous studies have indicated that exposure to air pollution elevates individuals’ feelings of anxiety. Anxiety is known to correlate with a range of unethical behaviors. Lu and colleagues hypothesized that pollution may ultimately increase criminal activity and unethical behavior by increasing anxiety.

Read the Science and Technology Research News story - “Polluted Air May Pollute Our Morality.”

On the origins of environmental bullshit

I grew up in the Long Island suburbs of New York and have vivid memories of running behind the “fog trucks”. These trucks went through the neighbourhoods spraying DDT for mosquito control until it was banned in 1972.

Children play in the DDT fog left by the
‘fog truck’ in a New Jersey neighbourhood.

I didn’t know it until much later, but that experience, and exposure, was extended due to the pesticide industry’s lies and tactics – what is now labelled “post-truth”.

Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962. It was a beautifully written, if distressing, bit of what we today call “research translation”. The “silent spring” was the impact of DDT as songbird species were killed off.

Carson tried to expose the chemical industry’s disinformation. For doing so, she was roundly and untruthfully attacked as a communist and an opponent of progress. Silent Spring was one of the most popular and vetted overviews of environmental science of all time. Yet lies and bullshit prevented a decent policy response for a decade.

Read the piece on The Conversation by the Professor of Environmental Politics and Co-Director Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney,  David Schlosberg  -  “On the origins of environmental bullshit.”

The world's okay, but we are 'painting ourselves into a corner'

Rather than God,
we need
Superman.

We are, it seems, quickly “painting ourselves into a corner”.

Our absolutely inadequate response to mitigating events leading to climate change is forcing us into the position of playing “God”.

A carefully crafted response that should have ideally begun late last century has not happened and so the world’s exposure to climate change has worsened, rather than lessened.

Subsequently, as the 21^st century unfolds it appears we are going to have no option but resort to God-like technologies to remove greenhouse gases from earth’s atmosphere.

A report from the Huffington Post headed: “World may have to suck gases from air to meet climate goals” warns that emissions will have to drop by 40 to 70 per cent between 2010 and 2050 to give the world a good chance of restricting warming to U.N. targets.