The Climate-Ecosystem-Biodiversity Crisis is Accelerating Authoritarianism
Community Engagement in "Mutual Support For All" is Vital to Overcome Authoritarianism and Promote Transformational Change
The climate--or more accurately Climate-Ecosystem-Biodiversity (C-E-B) crisis--is a key factor contributing to the rise of authoritarian bosses like Donald Trump in the U.S. and others worldwide. The crisis will continue to worsen, making it essential to find ways to reverse the trend. Numerous actions will be needed to achieve this. One of the most important will be for communities to actively engage their residents in providing “Mutual Support For All.” The social support networks people form to safeguard each other, and involvement in solutions to local issues, will help them overcome their fears, foster prosocial norms, and generate support for democratic governance.
The Nature of Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism can be defined as support for the rule of a strongman or military that undermines democratic institutions, suppresses political dissent and individual freedom, and demands obedience to a supreme authority. Almost all of the people who engage in these actions have low self-esteem that activates a constant need to exhibit strength, domination, and grandiosity, and receive continual praise and affirmation to feel good about themselves. They are also almost always supersensitive to criticism and will attack those who challenge them.
In different forms authoritarianism has been around for eons. However, support for it has been growing in the past few decades in both the U.S. and other nations.
In the 1990s, about one quarter of Americans supported right-wing authoritarianism. Today, between 32% to 41% of the public appears to do so. Research has found that most of the supporters are Republicans. The same study found that about 30% of the people in the UK, Italy, and other European nations, over 50% in India, and many in African and South American nations also now embrace authoritarianism.
Support for authoritarians often emerges in people with high levels of stress reactivity and low capacity to adapt to and recover from change. These traits can become dominant due to personality issues like low self-awareness, lack of self-worth, or poor emotional regulation. They can also be dominant in people who experienced physical or emotional neglect, abuse, or other adverse experiences in early childhood, and/or if they were raised in strict, rigid, rule-oriented households that emphasized obedience to authority. In addition, people can back authoritarians if they feel continually threatened by economic struggles, constant crime, or different types of social change.
These reactions occur because people who come to embrace authoritarianism typically view the world as a scary dangerous place. When they feel vulnerable due to real or imagined threats, they prioritize safety and security, obedience to rigid rules, traditionalism, and social conformity. This leads to simple black and white thinking that causes them to accept whatever a strongman says, and ignore or reject different information, even if it is factually accurate. It also leads people to embrace an “in-group” of people who hold similar national, cultural/racial, political, or religious identities, as well as common norms and values. Further, belonging to this type of in-group often leads people to fear, and become angry or aggressive toward, “others” who are not part of their pack or hold different perspectives. These reactions can lead anxious and fearful people to support authoritarians that project power, strength, and supremacy.
The Many Ways the C-E-B Crisis is Activating Support for Authoritarians
High Psychological and Emotional Reactivity to C-E-B Generated Stresses and Disasters
One of the ways in which the C-E-B crisis is activating support for authoritarianism is that the stresses, emergencies, and disasters it produces are triggering the high stress reactivity of people with authoritarian traits, leading more of them to embrace autocrats like Trump.
In addition, as mentioned, when they experience threats humans often want to be part of a group with common traits that provides them with a sense of safety and meaning in life. C-E-B crisis-generated damage or loss of homes, injuries and deaths, displacement and migration, and other affects can lead people to fear that the way their in-groups views the world might be threatened or found to be erroneous or even harmful. This can cause people to embrace authoritarian leaders under the hope that they can mitigate these threats.
Loss of Faith in Democratic Institutions and Elected Officials Due to Failed Responses
Another reason the C-E-B crisis is pushing people toward authoritarianism is that more and more are losing faith in existing democratic governments and elected officials if they fail to prepare for or respond effectively to extreme weather disasters. The loss of trust and confidence causes people to support authoritarians who claim the failed responses show democracy does not work and that strong individuals who make all the decisions are the only ones who can fix the problems.
It is well-documented that when any human--not just those with high stress reactivity --experiences actual or perceived threats, their brain’s fear and alarm system (the amygdala and hypothalamus) can be activated and release stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline into the body to help them prevent harm by fighting back, fleeing the scene, or freezing (playing dead).
If their fear and alarm system is in a high state of constant activation, people often withdraw into a self-protective survival mode that leads them to seek simple solutions to their distress like supporting authoritarians. As previously discussed, this seems to be particularly true for those with high authoritarian traits.
Even as the impacts of the C-E-B crisis accelerate in the U.S. and worldwide, the Trump Administration is dismantling federal weather and disaster prediction capabilities, cutting preparedness funds, and gutting FEMA. These actions will make it much more difficult for state and local governments to plan for and respond effectively to extreme weather events. In addition to wanting to slash federal programs, it is very likely Trump and his cohorts know that the harm that results from their actions will cause more and more people to place the blame on incompetent democratic institutions and state and local government officials and embrace his authoritarian approach as the solution.
Fear of the Changes Required to Address the C-E-B Crisis
The C-E-B crisis is also activating support for authoritarians because many people are frightened by the changes in the economy and their lifestyles required to reduce it to manageable levels. The need to rapidly shift from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy and restore the natural environment raises serious concerns among some people. The top worries include rising prices for energy to heat and cool homes, higher costs for everyday goods and services, job losses in the energy sector, and reduced reliability of the electrical grid.
In the U.S. these fears are leading many people to support Trump’s claim that the C-E-B crisis is a “hoax” and “con job.” Polls show that a significant number of Republicans believe this, and independents seem to be split on the issue. This leads skeptics and deniers to cheer his dismantling of government environmental agencies, rollback of climate pollution and energy efficiency regulations, gutting of climate science, and efforts to undermine the growth of renewable energy, because they buy the propaganda that their actual purpose is to exert liberal, socialistic, or communistic control of society.
In addition, the more Trump and what his own Chief of Staff called his fellow “right wing absolute zealots“ do to ensure that fossil fuels remain dominant, the less people need to fear the impacts of a transition to clean renewable energy. This leads many to embrace his authoritarian actions.
Need to Reaffirm the Righteousness of Fossil Fuel-Based Neoliberal Capitalism
Related to the previous issue, the C-E-B crisis also appears to be activating support for authoritarians like Trump among people in the upper 10% of income and wealth—and particularly the top 1%—because he is reaffirming the dominance of neoliberal capitalism powered by coal, oil, and gas.
Scientists say dramatic reductions in greenhouse gasses will be needed to prevent the C-E-B crisis from having catastrophic impacts. This will require the vast majority of fossil fuels to become “stranded assets,” meaning they must remain in the ground unused.
Last week Trump showed he would not allow this to happen when he approved the U.S. abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. By all accounts Maduro is corrupt and violent, supported drug sales to the U.S., and rigged his last election. But there are many authoritarians like this worldwide, and rather than emphasizing restoring democracy and improving the lives of Venezuelans when they announced the kidnapping, Trump and his accomplices openly said a primary reason they did it was to enable American fossil fuel firms to seize Venezuela’s vast crude oil reserves.
This oil is extremely dirty and when burned will release some of the highest greenhouse gas emissions of any type of crude oil. This, however, is not a major concern for the oil and gas billionaires and corporate executives that will benefit from Trump’s actions. In addition to eventually making them more money, many believe having access to the oil reaffirms the basic principles of neoliberal free-market capitalism, which center on minimal government intervention, deregulation, privatization, and the commodification of everything, all of which were violated when Venezuela nationalized its oil reserves years ago.
Even if processing the oil turns out to be problematic, Trump’s snatching of Maduro to give them access to his nation’s oil reserves will undoubtedly increase support among many super rich individuals and corporate leaders for authoritarianism because it seems to be the only way to achieve the rapid decisive changes they want.
The military force Trump used also likely increased his support among people who believe, as his advisor Stephen Miller recently said, “the world must be governed by force.”
All of this is certain to embolden authoritarian strongmen worldwide. In their own way, they will claim the C-E-B crisis is a hoax and, like Trump, relentlessly promote propaganda to convince people to support them. Trump’s aggressive actions have also given authoritarian leaders explicit permission to ignore international and domestic laws, undermine democratic checks and balances, and injure and kill people to get what they want and remain in power. Accelerating impacts from the C-E-B crisis are certain to be one outcome, which without effective alternatives will often feedback to increase support for authoritarians.
Rising C02 Levels Can Affect the Human Brain and Increase Anxiety and Fear
It should also be mentioned that still another way the C-E-B crisis is likely contributing to increased support for authoritarianism is the effects on the human brain of rising levels of carbon dioxide (C02). The global crisis is in large part caused by burning fossil fuels. When this occurs, C02 is released into the air. Last year about 38.1 billion tonnes of CO2 were released into the atmosphere, which was a 1.1% increase from the record set in 2024. This raised atmospheric CO2 levels to more than 425 parts per million (ppm), which is 52% higher than existed before the industrial revolution began.
Elevated CO2 levels have been found to directly affect brain chemistry and, both directly and indirectly, can cause people to experience fear, anxiety, panic symptoms, cognition issues, and other health effects. This is because CO2 acts as a trigger for autonomic arousal and threat-focused attention, particularly, but by no means exclusively, among people with existing anxiety or panic issues. This suggests that rising CO2 levels can form a physiological basis for harmful emotional responses that are different from general psychological anxiety.
The implication is that today’s high CO2 levels are likely activating fear and anxiety within many people, which is producing greater support for authoritarians. More research is needed, but based on the studies I’ve looked at, it seems this will become increasingly evident as humans burn more fossil fuels and CO2 levels increase. (Note: some practitioners believe CO2 deficiencies can cause human health problems. This, however, is a breathing problem, not atmospheric CO2 issue).
Summary
In sum, there are numerous ways in which the C-E-B crisis is increasing support for authoritarianism. Without methods to reverse it, as CO2 levels rise and the damage, injuries, and deaths caused by the C-E-B crisis accelerate, Trump and authoritarian leaders in other nations will continue to exploit the fears, anxiety, and helplessness of people to gain their support and consolidate their power and control.
Community Engagement in Mutual Support for All is Essential to Overcome Authoritarianism
One of the most important actions that can be taken to reverse the rise of authoritarianism is to help people feel part of an in-group that provides them with a sense of safety, common identity, and purpose. This can be achieved by actively engaging residents at the neighborhood and community level in providing Mutual Support for All.
A centerpiece of Mutual Support for All is to actively engage people in safeguarding each other by forming mutual aid groups that provide practical assistance, food, water, shelter, healthcare, and other basic needs, as well as emotional support, to others before, during, and after severe stresses, emergencies, and disasters.
Participating in mutual aid groups can build robust social connections among people of all types living in different neighborhoods. These support networks allow residents to be part of an in-group that helps them feel cared for and gives them the meaning and direction they desperately want.
Most importantly, it is the social networks people belong to that shape their beliefs and behaviors--and transmit them to others. Engagement in mutual aid networks can promote prosocial norms and values that build the collective trust and efficacy communities need to prepare for and respond constructively to adversities.
As residents provide mutual aid, they can also work together to transition their community to affordable clean renewable energy, support existing and enable the growth of new environmentally sustainable businesses that provide living-wage jobs, restore local forests and other ecological systems, and strengthen physical infrastructure such as housing and transportation to withstand and adapt to extreme weather disasters.
When residents see progress in any of these areas they will realize that the transition to clean renewable energy, and other actions needed to reduce the C-E-B crisis to manageable levels, will provide numerous benefits, not harm, to them and their community. They will also realize that people who look, act, or think differently are not evil and can be valuable and cherished members of their in-group. This will help overcome the belief that they should only belong to in-groups based on nationality, ethnicity/race, political affiliation, or religion, and direct their anger and aggression toward people who are not part of their group.
These shifts will help residents calm their fears and anxiety, and motivate them to engage with others in prosocial activities that give them positive new sources of meaning, purpose, and hope. Support for democratic governance as the way to address the C-E-B crisis and other challenges will grow and counter the belief that authoritarianism is the solution.
Community-level activism to provide Mutual Support For All is by no measure the only action needed to reverse the expanding support for authoritarianism. But it is certain to prove to be one of the most important and effective ways to do so, and activate much needed positive transformation change. I urge readers to find ways to engage in this important work in your community.