book: "Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life"
this looks like an interesting book, quotes below are from reviews.
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Denial-Climate-Emotions-Everyday/dp/0262515857
by Kari Marie Norgaard
Stories in local and national newspapers linked the warm winter explicitly to global warming. Yet residents did not write letters to the editor, pressure politicians, or cut down on use of fossil fuels. Norgaard attributes this lack of response to the phenomenon of socially organized denial, by which information about climate science is known in the abstract but disconnected from political, social, and private life, and sees this as emblematic of how citizens of industrialized countries are responding to global warming.
Norgaard finds that for the highly educated and politically savvy residents of Bygdaby [a real village with a made-up name], global warming was both common knowledge and unimaginable. Norgaard traces this denial through multiple levels, from emotions to cultural norms to political economy. Her report from Bygdaby, supplemented by comparisons throughout the book to the United States, tells a larger story behind our paralysis in the face of today's alarming predictions from climate scientists.
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We gain a rich understanding of how people react to information about climate change. This book shows why information-rich programs are inadequate to get the general populace to take action to address this most serious of issues.
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namely, the cognitive and social tools used to deny or ignore a problem even when the populace agrees it should be addressed. The population of Bygdaby holds a solid national image of itself as a humanitarian, egalitarian, nature-loving people who love their snow. Yet they fail to even think coherently about climate change.
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demonstrates that climate denial is a social process in which collective actions are taken to restore a sense of equilibrium and social stability.