Why Climate Change Eludes The Human Brain
The psychology of climate change inaction
Nathan Collins, April 21, 2016 (The Week)
“…[A diverse team of scientists has concluded] human psychology is ill-suited to comprehend and deal with what's going on…[Businesses and politicians are] more concerned with short-term gains than long-term sustainability, but that's only part of the problem…Some of [the problems at the nexus of climate change and psychology] are matters of scale…[I]t's hard to understand how a one- or two-degree increase in the global average temperature could lead to more floods and famines…For many, weighing the choice between driving and walking to run errands is a matter of convenience, not the state of the climate 100 years from now…[And] no one person has the power to avert a climate disaster…One surprisingly powerful way to combat those problems: creating social norms. In one 2007 experiment, psychologists found that distributing flyers with the message "the majority of your neighbors are undertaking energy-saving actions every day" worked to encourage conservation better than distributing flyers emphasizing environmental impacts…[T]elevision shows that address climate change, even obliquely, could foster a norm of environmental responsibility.” click here for more
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