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How Human Psychology Holds Back Climate Change Action
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Cass R. Sunstein writes at Bloomberg that an understanding of human psychology — specifically, what human beings fear and what they do not — helps to explain why nations haven't insisted on more significant emissions reductions even as scientists warn that if the world continues on its current course, we will face exceedingly serious losses and threats including a significant rise in sea levels by century's end. First, people tend to be especially focused on risks or hazards that have an identifiable perpetrator, and for that reason produce outrage. 'Warmer temperatures are a product not of any particular human being or group, but the interaction between nature and countless decisions by countless people. There are no obvious devils or demons — no individuals who intend to create the harms associated with climate change.' The second obstacle is that people tend to evaluate risks by way of 'the availability heuristic,' which leads them to assess the probability of harm by asking whether a readily available example comes to mind. For example, an act of terrorism is likely to be both available and salient, and hence makes people fear that another such event will occur. A recent crime or accident can activate attention and significantly inflate people's assessment of risk. Finally, human beings are far more attentive to immediate threats than to long-term ones. They may neglect the future, seeing it as a kind of foreign country, one they may not ever visit. For this reason, they might fail to save for retirement, or they might engage in risk-taking behavior such as smoking or unhealthy eating that will harm their future selves. 'All the obstacles are daunting skepticism about the science, economic self-interest, and the difficulties of designing cost-effective approaches and obtaining an international agreement,' concludes Sunstein, 'But the world is unlikely to make much progress on climate change until the barrier of human psychology is squarely addressed.'"
This is the same guy that thinks animals should have a right to sue people:
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/cass-sunstein-proposes-that-animals-should-have-legal-right-to-sue
Nothing this guy says should be taken seriously.
Because there must be something psychologically invalid about the people who do not 'believe' as you do...it could not be, I don't know, that you have not made a strong argument for the position you are taking.
I am John Hurt.
You know what holds ME back?
I work hard. I worry about retirement, about having kids. I can't AFFORD to spend "extra" to go green. I will do what is cheapest. If, in the long run, a 30 mpg car helps my pocketbook over a 50 mpg car, I'll get it. I make no apologies.
Until it's actually CHEAPER to go green, why the hell would people, who are generally underpaid and overworked by Multi-Corp Corporatoin, go green. They can't AFFORD to. If it was cheaper for me to buy a Prius (without contemplating how green the batteries are but purely looking at it from a MPG view), I would. When you see the people in North America driving around with their inefficient pickups in this day and age of impending doom, you realize that we as a species are generally screwed anyways. You want small business to go green? It has to be in their best financial interest.
Westerners want cheap goods. They simply DO NOT CARE about the environmental footprint involved in making those goods in third world countries. They might even SAY they would pay more to get them made Green... but they're generally full of shit. Me going green doesn't make one shit tonne of difference to the world, especially when I see the absolute insane amount of waste of people around me. I could write a whole post about the shit I see on a daily basis that just makes me shake my head. What's holding people back, you ask? They don't care. Try telling some third world person shitting in a river trying to make ends meet on a daily basis that he has to go green.
We are at the top of the population graph, or will be very soon.... and it's all downhill from there. I have absolutely no faith that we can come through this, unless we get somebody who makes the decisions who isn't paid by Multi-Corp Corporation.
...people are smart enough to look at a graph of temperatures over the last 100 years and see that things aren't that clear. And however many statistical methods are applied to that same data, perhaps people conclude that a lot still isn't known. Perhaps people's psychologies view taking 'significant' action against carbon emissions in a similar way to taking 'significant' action against Syria. In other words, we doubt whether the 'experts' know what the hell they are talking about.
Maybe Cass can use the same explanation to explain our $16 Trillion debt.
The same explanation does hold in both cases. The main difference is that climate is a real physical phenomenon, whereas money is purely psychological. It's a measure of intention that people try to keep track of using rewriteable magnetic patterns on spinning disks.
I concluded long ago that due to human nature, nothing will be done about climate change until the resulting unfolding disasters force people to make desperate feats of geoengineering to attempt to reverse the damage. The cost of those efforts is probably going to make $16T look like a drop in the bucket.
"I'm gonna get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames."
-Jim Morrison
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The reason for the inaction is more simple than anything else. Lack of accountability. Everybody tries to deny things, because they say someone else will profit/benefit and/or exploit from it. It has become a crutch now to the point where it leans towards the ridiculous. Now, here's the thing. Common sense. Let's go with that. Obviously maybe not all of our actions are related to climate change, but surely, being responsible for our pollutants, reducing our carbon footprint, cleaning up our waters, taking care of wildlife, I mean, c'mon.. does it have to be for a reason? can't we think of our Earth as an extension of our home and ourselves? But in the name of profit, people will skew issues, whether its right or wrong. People don't like change and right now, those with money would have to change their ways, which would cost them and well, that's not good for business. See the logic and think about it.
It's money.
There's simply no immediate financial incentive to preventing disastrous climate change and rather large financial implications to actively trying to do something about it for the organizations with the ability to do so... such as, say, creating a firm ban on the internal combustion engine, and legislating that absolutely *NO* new vehicles made after this year can use gasoline. The economic implications of such a regulation would be enormous, probably cause total financial ruin for no small number of people, and it's not the least bit surprising that measures such as that, which might actually make some kind of difference are not being taken.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus
Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities
1.) What is the societal cost of cutting energy usage. How much does this cost in comparison to warming.
2.) Explain how using less carbonaceous fuel here will prevent it from being burned there.
Please invent some psychobabble to explain common sense.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Tens of thousands. You mean the 11,944 peer reviewed scientific studies conducted from 1991-2011, of which 32.6% endorse AGW and 97.1% of those claim it's human-made, giving 3,894 papers endorsing global warming, of which 3,777 claim it's human-caused?
Support my political activism on Patreon.
There's the issue of what to do. At the moment, there seems to be a lot of division and non-answers on that. If climate models are correct, a leveling off or small reduction in emissions won't do anything to help. Even massive cuts might not do the trick. Ok well going back to the pre-industrial era isn't an option, though some green groups do like the idea. That would entail a massive loss of life and loss of quality of life. So no go there.
Likewise carbon credits, carbon exchanges, that kind of shit won't do anything. Playing money games and shuffling things around on spreadsheets does not enact any kind of real change. While economic incentives can help move things in certain directions, this won't really do that much and mostly will serve to enrich those that play the exchanges (see Wall Street).
Ok so, we'll need something else. Some geoengineering to change what is happening, or we'll need to do R&D on solutions not to change what is happening, but to survive and adapt to the changes that are going to happen. So what are those then? What are the proposals, what do they cost, what are the risks, the benefits, etc, etc? Also where are the green groups pushing for them, advocating for it?
Right now, it seems to be not just that there are people who do not believe that climate change is real, or is a problem (or a big enough problem to warrant large scale action), but there seems to be little in the way of solutions from those that do believe. "Just cut emissions," does not seem to be a solution that will be useful. "Cap and trade," seems to just maintain the status quo, while funneling money around to poorer countries. None of the popular solution with the climate change advocates seem to be one that would actually deal with the issue.
Is it such a surprise then that politicians don't seem to want to act on it?
I mean suppose I tell you that you have a real problem with your house, it is slowly deteriorating towards a collapse. I am able to prove this to your satisfaction, and I am able to show you that the reason is related to water use. Any time you run water though your pipes, it moves things further along. Also, as best as I can tell, even if you stopped running water entirely, you are already past the point where you can save it, it WILL collapse, all you can do is slow it.
However as solutions, I propose you just try and use less water. Maybe crap in a bucket and dump it outside instead of using your toilet. I also propose you "cap and trade" your usage, you don't actually have to decrease the amount you use, but you just pay your neighbours when you use over a certain amount. None of my solutions involve fixing the problem, or rebuilding, or reinforcing, just trying to prolong things and/or shuffling funds around.
Are you going to do what I suggest? Or are you going to ignore me?
That's one of the real problems I see is that the solutions climate change advocates seem to put forward aren't useful solutions by their own models. If we are already past a tipping point where even drastic emissions cuts won't help, well then we need to stop worrying about emissions and start worrying about either how to geoengineer a change, or how to simply deal with the changes that are coming.
About one half of our country is listening to the corporate line; fed to them through a filter of spurious skepticism of a stance about as close to absolute certainty as you see in the scientific community.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Homer: That's future Homer's problem. Man, I sure don't envy that guy!
I live in a country that will greatly benefit from global warming in terms of agricultural output, tourism, and available land. Additionally, I have no children and want no children and hence don't see any value in making efforts to change a world in which I'm burried.
I also believe that these kinds of struggles are good to have -- pushing civilization into space exploration.
I also believe that first-world countries should explore the true depth of a problem (by growing that problem), in order to encourage and eventually force solutions before the much larger third-world countries encounter the problem. Reducing whatever by 10% in north america means nothing when India gradually adds a billion people to the problem.
You live your way. I won't stop you. But I probably have zero interest in your ways. I don't intend to follow them. Most call this democracy.
Take DDT for example. It's basically harmless to humans, and it's broad application eliminates insect-born illnesses like malaria. Yet the adverse effects it has on birds made it the catalyst for the formation of the EPA, the Endangered Species Act, Environmental Protection Act, and pretty much all modern environmental law.
All that had to happen is someone had to write a book that explained the logical conclusion of the use of this and other harmful chemicals.
So the claim that it environmental damage needs to have a clear victim and a clear perpetrator is absurd, and actually contradicts history. No one who knows anything about this would ever agree with Sunstein's conclusion, or what you've said here.
If Anthropogenic Climate Change is a religion then it's an awesome religion because it's got actual physical evidence to back it up.
Hey, everybody! EverlastingPhelps said it's all just bad science! No need to panic. Things are gonna be just fine. Wow, I'm so glad I still check /. now and then.
Thanks, EverlastingPhelps. You've saved us all.
No sig for you!!
Or, the uneducated population believes that the majority of studies do not support anthropomorphic climate change and are naturally skeptical of conclusions drawn on shaky modeling.
FTFY.
Also, congratulations, you just credulously repeated most used climate myths #4 and #6.
Congratulations, you just regurgitated most used climate myths #66 and #59. Please fact-check before showing off your ignorance.
Congratulations, you just regurgitated most used climate myth #11. (I can do this the whole day.)
Oh hello, most used climate myth #59 again! They really ought to rank that on higher.
"Deniers" is part of this religionification in the name of science - rhetoric like that has no place in scientific debate. It's explicitly done to shut down and prevent debate.
There's more than one form of research. Most of the skeptical papers I have seen revolve around criticism of the cultists papers, which you may not consider research, but if the criticisms are valid then they are valid. In terms of working with large datasets, there is this little issue of the cultists groups hiding and even destroying the raw data to prevent non-members from being able to do this, and it is extremely difficult to impossible to reproduce much of that data independently.
Again, this sort of behavior simply has no place in science. All the stress placed on claiming this is "science" is a classic case of protesting too much.
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There has been no debate, the very tactics you resort to so clearly here have been used to shut it down at every stage.
And there is no scientific consensus without a free (and on-going) debate. Period.
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