By Brenda Scearcy

Is climate change real? My family argues both sides; I've searched for common ground so we can celebrate Thanksgiving amicably. What I've realized is that, at bottom, our beliefs don't much matter.

Whether we think global warming is hype or not, we can agree to the same good-for-us-all work.

Our biggest environmental challenges, besides climate change, are habitat destruction and its attendant species wipeout, human overpopulation, pollution, overharvesting of food species, and depletion of sorely-needed fuels. The problems interact, worsening more quickly. For example,

. Overpopulation increases habitat destruction.

To help, we select from a long list: Foster biological diversity in species-rich hot spots. Preserve endangered species' habitats. Educate women, who are local environmental linchpins. Reduce pollution. Protect oceans. Support sustainable farming. Find sustainable replacements for dwindling fossil fuels. Laud conservation.

Climate change belief/disbelief alters these imperatives not a whit.

Finally, label denial what it is: unexamined tribalism, driven by eons of group selection. Understand its psychology and evolution, because this isn't the first time group-think has damaged the body politic. It won't be the last.

, in "The Social Conquest of Earth," writes that group-level natural selection, acting over millennia, rewarded groups that cooperated, communicated efficiently among themselves (perhaps using insignia as quick identifiers), and behaved altruistically. If you showed these traits, your tribe survived and reproduced. Today, this hard-wired urge to belong still rules. Only the insignia change.

So we band together. Our group's teachings don't necessarily have to make sense. By happenstance, accident of birth or parental influence, we adopt our mindset and are welcomed in by like-minded people. Contrary evidence doesn't register because we're comfortably, tribally ensconced. This calls for humility: All tribes wear blinders.

Using this concept, we reassess climate denial as a digging-in-of-heels identifying practitioners as true-blue tribe members, whose group urge trumps, as it can for us all. Their insignia is lockstep disdain for incontrovertible evidence.

What about profits? Don't people disbelieve because they stand to gain? Fourteen percent of all Americans, 44 million, deny climate change,

Most cannot be directly profiting from oil and gas extraction and its accompanying carbon release, because extraction industries employ only about 2.2 million. Many, like my family, scorn it as part of a religious package deal.

Perhaps a few profit-driven individuals are pulling strings backstage, manipulating public opinion. That's a different discussion, also important. Fortunately, we bypass this point by teaching children about tribalism. Understanding where ideas come from is the beginning of changing those ideas, and children lead with new attitudes (For an example, look at how tolerance for same-sex marriage increases the younger the group polled.)

Teach children that we naturally form cliques. But none of us is spared existential angst by swallowing the party line; at some level, we know when our party's line is ridiculous. We're conflicted by our need to belong, with group pressures pushing us to do things our individual selves deem inane, and with altruism confronting selfishness. It's who we humans are. Teach them forbearance; this conflict is universal.

To truly counter tribalism, we'd rig a Martian attack, uniting all earthlings before a common threat. Failing that, understanding tribalism offers a peaceful antidote. We can examine ideas on their merits without fear of becoming outcasts. If we come to new conclusions, we can wisely leap to another group. We can drastically enlarge our tribe.

Children are growing up awash in climate news; they'll have to cope. We can make it easier by speaking openly of tribal mindsets, encouraging the all-specieswide outlook needed to solve global problems, and holding to the image of a blue Earth seen from space, our touchstone.

And those with ossified tribal mindsets? Let them go. Plant a native tree.



Brenda Scearcy is a Portland writer who holds a master's degree in environmental education and is a volunteer naturalist.