It’s not our fault; saving the world from climate change just isn’t in our nature
There’s nothing terribly sexy or salacious to be found in talks of environmental degradation or resource depletion—and rest assured, you likely won’t be the life of the party as you enlighten your guests on the disastrous effects of oil spills, acid rain, and urban runoff. In fact, for many people, environmental issues take a back seat to other pressing matters such as picking up the kids from school on time, checking Twitter feeds, and clearing the lint trap in the dryer. A poll conducted by Abacus Data back in August 2014 found that only twenty-three per cent of Canadians listed the environment as one of their top three concerns, below health care (fifty-one per cent), job creation (thirty-four per cent), taxes (thirty-two per cent), debt/deficit (twenty-nine per cent), and accountability and trust (twenty-five per cent). When we consider all the media coverage and political attention that environmental issues have received, it might lead us to ask why people don’t appear to be more concerned about it. Why is the catastrophic impact of global warming met with the same concern as whether or not a dress is white and gold or blue and black?
I would like to think that if Hollywood has taught us nothing else, it’s that when our planet faces the threat of annihilation—whether it be the result of hostile alien invaders or wayward meteors—its citizens immediately respond by rolling up their sleeves, pulling up their bootstraps, and taking action to the inspirational soundtrack of Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” That is the sort of answer that pop culture and mainstream media have conditioned me to expect in situations where our society faces its own destruction. Yet, with equal parts surprise and confusion, instead I see the development of a culture which has come to easily justify meeting these issues with either intense skepticism or detachment from the situation altogether. Despite the fact that climate change no longer stands as a ‘theory’ and has in large majority been accepted by relevant experts as fact, skeptics persist on muddying the discourse with their fuzzy logic, and a pandemic form of apathy has left many paralyzed by inaction. I don’t believe that there is one single cause to explain this but rather it is the cumulative result of a number of factors that work against our human nature.
Our irrational behaviour can readily be explained by the psychological shortcomings that continue to plague the human mind. There are a litany of cognitive biases that affect our ability to make rational decisions including ambiguity effect, confirmation bias, framing effect, and loss aversion. In situations where there is a deviation from the expected response, the result can often be one of these cognitive biases. According to Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, the human brain isn’t wired to respond easily to large, slow-moving threats. As he explains, “our brain is essentially a get-out-of-the-way machine. That’s why we can duck a baseball in milliseconds.”
This line of reasoning might sound familiar to those of you who jumped on the Thinking, Fast and Slow bandwagon several years ago. The author, Daniel Kahneman, introduced readers to the two systems driving the way we think: system 1 (fast, intuitive, and emotional), and system 2 (slow, deliberate, and logical). System 1 is our default; it’s automatic and takes little effort to use. It doesn’t seek to come up with the best solution, just one that’s good enough. As a result, it also gives rise to the majority of cognitive errors we experience. On the other hand, system 2 is better at methodically developing more rational solutions. However, Kahneman describes us as instinctively lazy thinkers, often preferring to rely on system 1’s ability to just quickly get the job done. What all of this suggests is that, not only do we find it difficult to perceive the long-term events of climate change as threats requiring our immediate attention, but in responding to these issues we also depend heavily on a system of thinking that is inherently susceptible to faulty reasoning.
Compounding this problem is that our decision making is affected by the amount of information available to us, or the prevalence of ambiguity. This goes hand-in-hand with a desire to maintain the status quo, especially where the alternative leads to the unknown. This isn’t unique to environmentalism; for most of human history we have developed an aversion to that which is unknown. For millions of years evolution tended to favour those who were fearful of and avoided the uncertain dangers that possibly lay in the bushes of the savannah. One might argue that the inevitable consequences of the environmental issues we face are not speculative theories but rather certain outcomes informed by the research of reputable experts in the field.
I would suggest, however, that the problem lies not in a lack of information per se, but in the method by which it is communicated to the public. Information that is misunderstood is just as detrimental as its absence. Experts have a tendency to talk in scientific jargon and use acronyms that are incomprehensible to the average person. This seems to have the effect of creating a barrier to understanding that leaves many unable to truly appreciate the significance of most environmental issues. Many of the communication strategies fail to adequately tailor their messages to the intended audience. This isn’t to suggest that these messages ought to be patronizingly dumbed-down to meet the lowest common denominator of society, but merely that they make an honest effort to make overly complex material comprehensible to the average person who is more used to reading the Toronto Star than OECD Environmental Statistics.
Finally, I believe that there is an argument to say that public apathy toward environmental issues can also be attributed to the social psychological phenomenon of the bystander effect. In a somewhat ironic twist, as the number of people involved in a situation increases, the likelihood of any individual taking action decreases. With respect to climate change, it might be said that the level of responsibility becomes diffused amongst the public as a whole, leaving another level of ambiguity not only as to whether action should be taken but also by whom. When warned of the ubiquitous dangers that pollution and climate change can bring about, without a concrete connection to us individually or our immediate surroundings, the message is often dismissed as inapplicable. It would appear that the significance of the threat becomes lost as the miles and number of others involved increase between ourselves and the point of impact. This is a phenomenon we see all too readily in other cases where increasing numbers promote social distance that gives rise to political apathy. Much like our system 2, the more rational and effective solutions require more effort. It is far easier to simply rely on autopilot, turn to the guy next to you, and ask “So you’ve got this, right?”