Do Not Worship the Deities That Came Before the Fire

"Climate denial" has the specific connotation of outright denial such a thing exists, but what about all the other forms of denial? The human mind has a general tendency not to come to terms with overwhelming input. The institutional and grassroots political responses to climate change, in most cases, are also forms of climate denial. Here, we examine the psychology of confronting unbearable truths, searching for cultural systems that can allow us to face our fears and thus affect outcomes. This piece originally appeared in Dark Mountain #15.