Watching their thermometer exceed, for the first time, 39 degrees in Brest, in July, the Bretons were in shock. The same amazement in Maine-et-Loire, known for its Angevin mildness, where more than 1,500 hectares of forest went up in smoke in August. This summer of 2022, extreme events have accumulated in France. Not without effects on the fauna, the flora, but also the population: in Corsica, violent storms caused the death of five people, on August 18. Some municipalities have faced shortages of drinking water, farmers have lost part or all of their harvest. And 10 million homes are at risk of cracks due to drought.
More and more French people are thus directly confronted with the effects of global warming. But with the start of the new school year approaching, between concerns around purchasing power, energy and the return of warmer temperatures, will this awareness continue?
If we refer to the latest barometer from the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe) published in October 2021, the level of citizen alertness has not really changed in recent years. According to this survey, which has been evaluating social representations of climate change since 2000, the share of French people who believe that “scientists who study climate change exaggerate the risks of climate change” is almost stable (27% in 2021 against 28% in 2011). In twenty years, the proportion of people who think that “Climate disturbances (such as storms or floods in France) are natural phenomena as there have always been” increased (20% in 2021 against 15% in 2001). And in fifteen years, the share of people convinced that living conditions will become extremely difficult in the next fifty years has hardly changed, going from 60 to 64%.
Can this summer nevertheless mark a turning point? LFrench people were exposed to four risks, “extreme heat, falling agricultural yields, water scarcity and effects on our health and terrestrial and marine ecosystems”, list Valérie Masson-Delmotte, climate science researcher at the University of Paris-Saclay (Essonne). According to the specialist, the link between these phenomena and global warming is more regularly done, both in the public and private spheres. “Civil security mentions it more than before, it struck me. I also notice that around me, more people ask me questions”, she points out. Unlike the droughts of 1976 and 1989, or the heat waves of 2003 or 2019, “who have already left many traces” without however causing a major change in policy, the summer of 2022 presents a singularity.
“The climate has invaded vacation spots. Events this summer have left their mark on landscapes that people love. They showed how exposed and vulnerable we are.”
Valérie Masson-Delmotte, climate science researcherat franceinfo
Dried up springs, suffering trees, nature gone up in smoke… Franceinfo has collected numerous testimonies from holidaymakers who have seen their little corner of paradise change due to global warming. But in the opinion of Valérie Masson-Delmotte, it is unlikely that this summer will have the effect of an electric shock. The disconnection from these subjects has already begun, she observes: “While I was sharing an article on Twitter, someone told me ‘I’m unfollowing you, I can’t stand receiving this type of information anymore’. For some, the dimension of grief is very heavy to carry.”
Cases of denial after a disaster are not new. “We experienced the Covid-19 crisis, but we quickly moved on”, recalls Oscar Navarro, professor of social and environmental psychology at the University of Nîmes (Gard). According to him, some people personally affected by global warming could open their eyes and accept the reality. But most are sticking to their positions: the convinced, the worried, feel “more confident”and people “who are in a form of denial simply waiting for it to pass”. But denial has a function: “Protect us.”
“As the mind abhors uncertainty and worry — they cost emotional and cognitive energy, and our resources are limited — the tendency is to try to move on.”
Oscar Navarro, Professor of Social and Environmental Psychologyat franceinfo
Like a machine that would go to sleep when it overheats, as a safety measure, the mind pushes back the information that creates discomfort, even anxiety, explains the psychologist. This denial is facilitated by the way information is perceived in our contemporary societies, he continues. Emotion is lively, omnipresent, while understanding is often relegated to the background. Thus, the attention captured by natural disasters one day can move the next day to other subjects, such as the economic crisis or the health crisis.
Still, anxiety-provoking events linked to global warming have been on the rise lately. And “when this strategy [du déni] no longer works, then comes the risk of falling into depression”warns Oscar Navarro.
However, human beings have long been aware of the dangers of global warming. “The idea that there could be human-caused climate change is very old. Before the 20th century, it was thought to be due to deforestation”, recalls Fabien Locher, historian at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), specialist in environmental history. In the 18th and 19th centuries, administrative inquiries testify to the concern of the political powers in the face of these events. “A drought could lead to a crisis of subsistence, the onset of famine led to peasant revolts and therefore political crises”points out the historian.
More recently, “we believed that we could live disconnected from the climate and the environment. The ability of societies to keep the memory of extreme events has therefore dropped”, deplore the historian, co-author of the The Revolts of Heaven: A History of 15th-20th Century Climate Change.
The historian never uses the singular when he speaks. “It would be naive to say that if people become aware of global warming, things will change. Between the two, there is something: society, with powerful political, economic, geopolitical mechanisms”, he considers. An opinion shared by climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte and psychologist Oscar Navarro. Without wanting to discourage everyday eco-gestures, they warn against systematically individualizing awareness and responsibilities for action in terms of the climate. “By bringing everything back to the individual, we depoliticize the subject”, valued the historian.
“We focus on raising awareness, but we do not question the dependence on fossil fuels. Yet the solutions come into direct conflict with those who depend on them, such as the chemical and petrochemical industries.”
Fabien Locher, specialist in environmental historyat franceinfo
What to do, then, in a context where “many people are disappointed with the state’s inability to respond to environmental issues” ? Fabien Locher draws attention to the proliferation of initiatives at the local level. “It is in the cities, in the territories that the most interesting, the most inventive political struggles are carried out today”, he concludes.