A question that is frequently asked is how it was possible that over the last three/five decades most people, including our parents' generation, had not been aware of the climate and environmental crisis, let alone its seriousness?
Part of the explanation can be clarified with the following trick of illusionism: an elephant, in broad daylight, in an empty parking lot, suddenly bursts out of nowhere and is close to the observer (in this case the observer point-of-view is that of the video camera).
Watch the following video and go on with your reading:
How to make an elephant appear! Magic Secrets Revealed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-WHR8muZk0
Spoiler alert!
The big secret is that the elephant was hidden nearby behind a theater set, which is rather crude if you look closely.
If the observer had examined the world around him in a meticulous way, he would have realized this “false horizon”. But in the real world, human beings are surrounded by never ending distractions. It is very difficult for us to examine with due attention.
But the most disturbing conclusion we have reached is that each one of us is simultaneosly the observer, the illusionist and an accomplice.
Each one of us is the illusionist. And an accomplice? Yes. We explain briefly how it works inside our brain.
First, our brain unconsciously builds these crude theater sets, ensuring that nothing unsettling for our existence will occur in the near future.
Second, we spread this same constructed view of the world to each other (we are all accomplices in the this trick of illusionism) that for our brains is confused with reality.
Third, any evidence or information contradicting this reality we have constructed is minimized and almost ignored. The censorship process is both individual and collective. We all become, by action or inaction, accomplices as the “witnesses” of the video.
Attention is the most scarce human resource of all - our ability to capture and process new information from the outside world is extremely low - and we tend to spend it almost entirely, either with our daily lives, or with our exhausting professional and school activities or fictions and fantasies that we eagerly consume to take a break from our arduous effort to adapt to reality.
This is how the elephant of the climate and environmental crisis, which has remained hidden very close to us, for the vast majority of us will suddenly erupt and will only become visible when it will be too late…
António Telo and Patrícia Pereira
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