MEnter the earth burns, our mind remains frozen. It is the provocation of Matteo Motterlini, his We do not recommend brains, not the glaciers (Ed.Solferino, September 19, 2025). According to the full professor of Philosophy of Science at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan, theenvironmental emergency is a cognitive problem, even before ecological. To have become unsustainable is our way of thinking.
The climate change is rapid and destructive, yet it does not seem to be of interest
«We know all too well that global redemption is out of control. But between knowledge and acting there is the emptiness in which our brain is jammed, “says Motterlini. We continue to take low-cost flights and to eat red meat and then we console ourselves with steel bottles or organic cotton bags. «We are satisfied with symbolic gestures that make us feel in place. We procrastine and convince ourselves that someone else will solve the problem. In the meantime, let’s sacrifice the future for a more comfortable present ».
The mental traps that block us
“Among the cognitive traps that immobilize us, the most subtle is that of New Normal,” warns the professor. We get used to everything, even the worst. Beaches that retreat, glaciers who disappear, increasingly extreme heat waves. “They seem normal to us only because the change is gradual. The brain adapts, lowers the alarm threshold and stops reacting. So, day after day, we end up accepting an increasingly fragile world as if it were the only one as possible. But it is not”.
Emotional involvement on the environmental issue is weak
“Emotions always play a central role in the choices, but the environmental emergency does not feel on the skin. It is still too far away, slow and impersonal. It does not give us that punch in the stomach that pushes us to act. For this reason, we must find new, visual and immersive ways, to warn the problem”. Before the future fell on us like an announced catastrophe.
“We can’t change anything alone”: is it really that way?
“We are not irrelevant: we are influential. We just have to understand it. Nobody can save the planet alone, but each of us can be the engine of a collective change”, is the author’s message. Any conscious choice, visible to others, can orient those of others more than any alarmism. A solar panel on the roof, a bike instead of the car, or zero kilometer products in the cart can inspire many similar actions. “Sharing triggers a positive social contagion and cooperation, when it takes shape, is the multiplier of the most powerful action that exists.”
Eco-anxiety and atavistic fears
“The climatic crisis touches deep existential strings: it reminds us that we are vulnerable and fatal”. And so a defense mechanism takes place: we don’t think about it, or we convince ourselves that it is too late to do something. “It is the so-called eco-anxiety, a form of paralyzing anguish that, if not channeled, flows into fatalism. The solution is not to repress fear: it is learning to use it. As a compass to change course, not as alibis to stay still”.
The solution is active awareness
The so -called Bias of the status quo It leads us to prefer that things remain as they are, even when changing would be more advantageous. Like the many who refuse to spend 100 euros more for a low -consumption washing machine, despite knowing that in a few months the savings in the bill would compensate widely the outlay. “But if we modify the context – for example, making the predefined one ecological choice – our behaviors will also adapt, almost without realizing it.”
The first step to take: use the brain
We live longer, but we think more and more short -term. Training the critical gaze, building strategies of change, is the only way to really face the environmental emergency. Because, if “our mind is the main obstacle in the fight against climate change”, it is also the only one who can save us.