A New Way of Communication

For decades, scientists and people alike have been trying to raise awareness and communicate as unequivocally and emphatically as possible to spur action and the requisite changes in lifestyle that lead to a sustainable existence of our species on our only home planet.

However, after decades of trial and error, it is evident and beyond doubt that the dissemination and communication strategies have not yielded the auspiciousness or efficacy that was hoped for, let alone any substantive results in awareness, at least not on the scale that's required.

Which raises the question...

If people can't learn the way we communicate, then should we perhaps consider communicating the way they learn, so that they understand us, analogous to using a common language ?

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I've often given the following anecdote on this matter:

One day a tourist Englishman, goes astray on a cold, breezy night in Japan and loses his way, which then prompts him to find someone to ask for directions on how to get back to his hotel. However, the streets are empty, it seems that everyone is home except him. Then, out of the blue, a respectable-looking Japanese man is spotted by the English tourist, and so the tourist then rushes to him and attempts to ask him for help. That Japanese person, who happens to be proficient in English, listens to the quandary of the English tourist, but surprisingly, despite knowing how to speak English quite well and being aware that this person who's coming to ask him for help is an Englishman, he still chooses to respond in Japanese, even though he could respond in English and actually be of assistance to that lost Englishman. So, the Englishman stays lost and doesn't arrive back at his hotel until dawn.

The perplexing question then becomes, who's to blame here?

The Englishman who got lost due to circumstances -some beyond his control and some were his fault- and whom only wished to return to his hotel ?

Or the Japanese man whom, despite knowing English and that the approaching man is British and is desperately lost, chose to use the wrong language when he could've chosen to be of actual help to the Englishman?

One could argue that the Japanese man only responded in his native language, and that having known English only meant that he could understand what the English tourist was explaining, and that he still, in spite of that, did the 'right' thing and 'helped' the lost tourist by providing directions to the hotel, even if the help provided to the Englishman was in a language that the Englishman couldn't understand.

Another person may argue that it is silly, unethical and even cruel for the Japanese person to have been able to actually help the Englishman in a language that the Englishman could understand, and that because he wilfully responded in Japanese -when he could've responded in English- , the help that he technically still provided was of no value, and definitely of no use to the Englishman -who couldn't understand a word- , and the help would've actually counted if the Japanese man had made the conscious choice of choosing the option of responding in the language that both him and the piteous tourist would understand -a common language.

Whichever one it is.. It seems the climate and environmental movement, especially scientists, have to act fast to save their planet in time. Whether they succeed in making that shift and saving us all, is something only time will tell...