Most people now accept that the climate crisis is real and threatens our way of life. We know the world needs to reduce heat trapping pollution and deploy cleaner, cheaper energy. An August, 2022 Pew Research Center survey found a median population of 75% across 19 countries in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region label global climate change as a major threat. Since awareness is so common, then why don’t people do more to mind the climate?
I am surrounded by all-electric home infrastructure. My kitchen appliances, hot water heater, washer-dryer, HVAC, and infotainment systems are all powered by electricity. I drive an EV and just purchased my first electric bike.
Yet neighbors in my southeast Florida community aren’t quite as ready to make the leap to electrifying everything. Proposals to install community EV chargers were dismissed as individual responsibilities. Opposition to extra spending eliminated the possibility of solar panels on the new community center roof. Shoot, we can’t even agree to mandate that our landscapers switch from gas-powered mowers and blowers to electric equipment in incremental fashion.
Total net anthropogenic GHG emissions have continued to rise from 2010–2019, as have cumulative net CO2 emissions since 1850, according to the IPCC. Average annual GHG emissions during 2010–2019 were higher than in any previous decade.
Why aren’t those numbers real and scary to everyone? Is it something about how our brains work — so that we deny terrible realities? How might we better train our brains to mind the climate crisis?
Our Ancient Brains are Prodding Us in Ways We Don’t Realize
Dr. Ann-Christine Duhaime, a pediatric neurosurgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital, is the author of a new book titled “Minding the Climate: How Neuroscience Can Help Solve Our Environmental Crisis,” published by Harvard University Press. Duhaime recognizes that the human brain has been designed by evolution, that it is a remarkably flexible organ, and that it has transformed the planet entirely.
She’s a neuroscientist whose area of interest arises from looking at how our brains were designed to make decisions based on “survival pressures.” In essence, our brain design changed and adapted as did our circumstances; we lived as an ancient people by examining the short term decisions that were necessary for immediate, tangible survival. Longer term decision-making? That was a luxury our ancient selves just didn’t have.
Some elements of our own instincts, desires, and fears are remarkably similar to our stone age ancestors, whose existences revolved around hunting and foraging for their families, warring with their neighbors, and praying to ancestor-spirits in the dark. Haven’t we trained our brains to make big changes in history based on famine, war, disease, and cataclysms?
In many ways, the short term primordial emphasis is a whole lot different than where we are today on the brain’s evolutionary pathway. We adapt our brains to social change: what is acceptable behavior, what kinds of people we include in our circles, what we value.
If we extend that short vs. long term distinction to current climate crisis dissonance, perhaps we must actively train our brains differently if we are to mind the climate in efficacious ways. What does it mean to train our brains? If you think about it, we train our brains all the time. We switch word processing programs from WordPerfect to Word to Google Docs. We ski in one generation, snow board in another. We drive an automatic transmission, then a manual transmission, and now an electric vehicle.
A significant part of today’s collective mindset in contemporary western society is a fascination with material and cultural needs. Our concerns lie with money, convenience, praise, and social acceptance, which halt quickly on the short term reward end of the spectrum. Climate protection? Not so much.
The Environmental Crisis & Our Brains
Why can’t we do what we need to stop destroying our planet while we still have the chance?
We seem less able than ever to reconcile the psychological needs of our primitive cave person brains. And that’s one of the biggest problems with getting people to act on the climate crisis in meaningful ways. “Climate change is difficult because it is longer term rather than immediate,” Duhaime told the New York Times. “It is difficult to perceive directly; we didn’t need to evolve carbon dioxide sensors for survival. The results of our pro-environment actions remain largely invisible. Additionally, the things that cause climate change are rewarding.”
We have a tendency to prioritize short term consumer pleasures, which spurs climate pollution. Fossil fuels, Duhaime offers as example, have made our lives easier in many ways. “They have also made many people wealthy.” It is primarily citizens of wealthy countries who need to make some big and rapid behavioral changes to slow down global warming. But the immediate gratification to which western people are accustomed doesn’t generally fit in with environmental protections.
There is hope, Duhaime tells us. Extrinsic rewards that reinforce patterns of good climate behavior have shown positive results. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is an example of aligning better environmental choices with aspects of daily life people already find rewarding: lower costs of living, more jobs, greener neighborhoods.
So, can we train our brains to mind the climate? Duhaime insists it is possible. Here are some concrete, achievable interventions she suggests to encourage our neurological circuits to embrace new rewards.
- Recognize that pro-environment choices may not feel as rewarding as other choices you’re used to making. The rewards are more abstract and less immediate than getting the goal in soccer or the bonus at work. Use your knowledge of the magnitude of the problem and make those choices anyway.
- The choices may be easier if you substitute social rewards for what you’re giving up. If you decide to reduce your gift-giving frenzy, find like-minded people. Think of creative, joyful ways to reinforce this choice together.
- Recognize that what you do will influence others. You can change what others find rewarding.
A majority of long term climate decision-making problems will need to be solved by collective action, Duhaime adds, “but this happens at the brain level also. Someone has to start a movement, and others have to be convinced to join in. Understanding our predispositions as well as our flexibility can help find solutions that have a greater chance of working.”
Luckily, we can sway our brains, and those of others, to alter our climate-friendly behaviors.
Complete our 2022 CleanTechnica reader survey for a chance to win an electric bike.
Appreciate CleanTechnica’s originality and cleantech news coverage? Consider becoming a CleanTechnica Member, Supporter, Technician, or Ambassador — or a patron on Patreon.
Don’t want to miss a cleantech story? Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Source: Clean Technica