“Neural impulses typically travel along neurons at a speed of anywhere from 1 to 120 meters per second” – that is to say that we, as human beings, can change our minds in a matter of seconds (think of the last time you stood in front of a cash registry debating whether or not to buy a Mars bar or a lottery ticket). When we respond to the cashier’s question: “Is there anything else with that?” we generally speak – or transform our neural impulses into speech – at around 200 words per minute (much slower than our thoughts – which also explains why we can read faster in our heads than aloud). Specific or generalized behaviours, on the other hand, can take much longer to form as can be demonstrated from the weeks of therapy sometimes necessary to quit gambling or the time needed to “get into” a healthy lifestyle. Now, try to imagine the collective mindset of a population and guess how long it will take an entire society to change its mind. Depending on the issues at hand; this could be a month, a year, or even a few decades.
Take the 1989 Montreal Massacre for example; a lone gunman begins a shooting spree at l’École Polytechnique in Montreal killing a total of 14 women. How long did it take for an entire country to change their minds about firearms and gun control laws? The night of December 6th, 1989? Perhaps longer but this doesn’t change the fact that soon “more than 560 000 Canadians [had] signed a petition calling for a complete ban on military assault weapons”, formal groups such as the Coalition for Gun Control were founded and people all over the country were ready for change. Yet, the Federal administration of the 1991 Gun Control Initiative only saw the light of day approximately two years after the tragedy. This is because in order to pass legislations in our country, a bill (Bill C-17 in this case) has to be a read once, twice, studied by a committee, reported back to the House, read a third time, go through a similar process in the Senate, and “once both Chambers pass the bill in the same form, it is given Royal Assent and becomes law”. Needless to say, the general populace has time to change its mind quite a few times – as well as the context in which society is operating - from the point of impact (ex. 1989 Montreal Massacre) to the official institutional change to finally take place (ex. 1991 Gun Control Initiative).
This is a drastic example of a collective cultural shift to say the least. Now, let’s turn to a more “standard” example of the way we usually deal with a threat facing our country; let’s take a quick look at climate change. The brief history of the climate change crisis facing Canada and the world suggests that over the last century, climate change evolved from a once every thirty years topic of discussion to a several times a year topic of discussion. How did this change happen? We can postulate that in the beginning, scientists or even lay people had a mind shift; their neurons started firing differently. They spoke to one another, conducted research and later disseminated their findings to their peers; the raw information which would eventually make its way to a more general audience and their governments (the media playing a major role in spreading the news). By the early 1970s, people had already begun changing their minds, speaking and behaving differently about the environment (marking the birth of the modern environmental movement). However, we would have to wait until 1990 for the Canadian government to finally begin a coordinated approach to addressing climate change, close to a century after the Swedish chemist, Svante Arrhenius asked the question: “Is the mean temperature of the ground influenced by heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere?”
Finally, almost twenty years after the implementation of the first government strategies and programs to address the climate change, the virtuous cycle of change is still growing strong (and at an increasing rate). More and more people are shifting the way they think about the environment at around 1 to 120 seconds per second; friends and colleagues are discussing climate change issues at roughly 200 words per minute; citizens are recycling and making environmentally conscious choices on a daily basis; interest groups are spawning across the country, eco-friendly faces from all walks of life no longer stand at the extreme left of the ideological spectrum and governments everywhere are finally showing their true commitment by passing legislation to address environmental issues. But are we moving fast enough? No! The current speed of change is simply too slow to cope with today’s demand for quick and comprehensive solutions to our world’s complex problems. We need to start acting as soon as we reach a certain threshold of consensus in our collective mindset (imagine a large switchboard representing all citizens – when the percentage of people who are “switched-on” or “on-board” with a particular stance reaches a certain level, a green light goes off and appropriate actions automatically begin to take place). It’s time to redesign or bypass the legislative process which is slowing us down and give the power back to the people (I believe we, as a collective entity, have long reached the threshold on this issue). In my opinion, this may be the only way to achieve the results necessary for the survival of our planet in a timely manner.
Take the 1989 Montreal Massacre for example; a lone gunman begins a shooting spree at l’École Polytechnique in Montreal killing a total of 14 women. How long did it take for an entire country to change their minds about firearms and gun control laws? The night of December 6th, 1989? Perhaps longer but this doesn’t change the fact that soon “more than 560 000 Canadians [had] signed a petition calling for a complete ban on military assault weapons”, formal groups such as the Coalition for Gun Control were founded and people all over the country were ready for change. Yet, the Federal administration of the 1991 Gun Control Initiative only saw the light of day approximately two years after the tragedy. This is because in order to pass legislations in our country, a bill (Bill C-17 in this case) has to be a read once, twice, studied by a committee, reported back to the House, read a third time, go through a similar process in the Senate, and “once both Chambers pass the bill in the same form, it is given Royal Assent and becomes law”. Needless to say, the general populace has time to change its mind quite a few times – as well as the context in which society is operating - from the point of impact (ex. 1989 Montreal Massacre) to the official institutional change to finally take place (ex. 1991 Gun Control Initiative).
This is a drastic example of a collective cultural shift to say the least. Now, let’s turn to a more “standard” example of the way we usually deal with a threat facing our country; let’s take a quick look at climate change. The brief history of the climate change crisis facing Canada and the world suggests that over the last century, climate change evolved from a once every thirty years topic of discussion to a several times a year topic of discussion. How did this change happen? We can postulate that in the beginning, scientists or even lay people had a mind shift; their neurons started firing differently. They spoke to one another, conducted research and later disseminated their findings to their peers; the raw information which would eventually make its way to a more general audience and their governments (the media playing a major role in spreading the news). By the early 1970s, people had already begun changing their minds, speaking and behaving differently about the environment (marking the birth of the modern environmental movement). However, we would have to wait until 1990 for the Canadian government to finally begin a coordinated approach to addressing climate change, close to a century after the Swedish chemist, Svante Arrhenius asked the question: “Is the mean temperature of the ground influenced by heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere?”
Finally, almost twenty years after the implementation of the first government strategies and programs to address the climate change, the virtuous cycle of change is still growing strong (and at an increasing rate). More and more people are shifting the way they think about the environment at around 1 to 120 seconds per second; friends and colleagues are discussing climate change issues at roughly 200 words per minute; citizens are recycling and making environmentally conscious choices on a daily basis; interest groups are spawning across the country, eco-friendly faces from all walks of life no longer stand at the extreme left of the ideological spectrum and governments everywhere are finally showing their true commitment by passing legislation to address environmental issues. But are we moving fast enough? No! The current speed of change is simply too slow to cope with today’s demand for quick and comprehensive solutions to our world’s complex problems. We need to start acting as soon as we reach a certain threshold of consensus in our collective mindset (imagine a large switchboard representing all citizens – when the percentage of people who are “switched-on” or “on-board” with a particular stance reaches a certain level, a green light goes off and appropriate actions automatically begin to take place). It’s time to redesign or bypass the legislative process which is slowing us down and give the power back to the people (I believe we, as a collective entity, have long reached the threshold on this issue). In my opinion, this may be the only way to achieve the results necessary for the survival of our planet in a timely manner.
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