Climatologists say we are heading for a climate catastrophe. Scientists are warning that the planet will become uninhabitable if global warming is not limited to less than two degrees Celsius by the end of this century. No single continent has been spared from these recent natural disasters, such as massive wildfires, heat waves, extreme drought, flash floods, and tornados.
With the ice caps melting at record speed around the globe, more and more creatures are now under the threat of extinction, and yet humans remain reluctant and do almost nothing to change their habits in the face of climate change.
Many people are oblivious to warnings, petitions, demonstrations, and climate strikes, and do little to change their lifestyles. It seems contradictory because, as an individual, humans are fully aware of the risks attached to climate change and the destruction of ecosystems.
This article will get insights from climatologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, and social and behavioural psychologists to help analyze human reactions. Knowing why people refuse to understand and act upon the current global climate crisis is required. What causes the brain to underestimate and ignore the negative consequences and, most importantly, the cause and effect of this inaction.
Cognitive biases
Our brain pays attention to information that confirms our worldview, not information that contradicts it. Information that goes against our beliefs goes straight into the bin. Psychologists call this confirmation bias.
Information that reinforces our convictions is treated with the utmost attention. Without realizing it, we all practice this selective thinking.
When it comes to climate change, the threat is too vast, abstract, and intense to shake us and people usually bury their heads in the sand.
Metaphorically speaking, it looks like the brain just shuts down at the thought of climate change. In terms of climate change, a feeling is created by our brains that we are invincible and that the bad things the future has in store for us will not affect us.
The idea that the incredible scientific and technological progress of the past two centuries has given humanity the power to transform the planet allows us to assume that technological progress and human genius will always get us out of any predicament we might find ourselves in.
Global warming triggers a few different biases that make it difficult for people to act. Research experiments in the 1980s reveal how much our brain takes liberties with reality.
Cognitive biases are an unconscious distortion of reality that fool our brain into an uncertain or stressful situation. However, for positive events, most people believe they have a greater chance than others to fare better, but when it comes to life's mishaps, it is the opposite.
Scientists call this the optimism bias and not that long ago when the coronavirus first swept the planet, this unrealistic optimism likely played a role in how the danger was perceived, including amongst decision-makers, and thus affected almost everyone in every walk of life.
With a brain so disinclined to believe in disaster, it is no surprise that the alarm climatologists have sounded for 30 years has had such little to no effect, especially as our difficulty to face up to reality is reinforced by another cultural bias in our cognitive frameworks.
Merely bystanders
Ten years ago, fewer than one out of two people heard about global warming. Today, two-thirds of the world's population consider it a threat, but the latest surveys reveal that one out of three people on Earth remains sceptical about the man-made origin of climate change.
Among them are some highly influential political figures motivated by financial and economic interests.
The more people there are who can potentially react, the more they feel they are allowed to do nothing because someone else can take action instead of them; the phenomenon was dubbed diffusion of responsibility or the bystander effect.
A case study has shown that it also applies to environmental issues as well. Encumbered by the bystander effect, our brain has trouble taking the initiative for better ecological behaviour.
The more witnesses there were, the more likely the litterers got off free and the more likely the bottle would remain where it landed. We often look at other people's reactions when it comes to a situation that isn't really clear to us to take the responsibility to step in first.
Everyone interprets the situation the same way by looking at others, but no one does anything, which explains why it takes longer to act when there are more people, for instance.
Other people's inaction inhibits our desire to change, but although some of our bad habits persist, it's also for a more inconsequential reason.
We've 40-50 years of research that shows that these biases play a role in almost every vital realm of our lives. People are more likely to take information evidence, whether true or false, that confirms what they believe. They become more and more confident, and it causes polarization. The polarization of opinions deeply anchored in our brains explains how hard it is for all of us to change our minds.
Social media does not help
Research on understanding how digital technologies maintain and increase doubt on climate change shows people hold on to believing that it's shared by others. Our decisions in the face of climate problems are influenced by other people's reactions and expectations.
A study of the comments posted on serious official science websites discussing climate change finds negative and far-fetched comments. Human beings are susceptible to other people's opinions, so the fact that these comments are out there has a measurable effect. And in the digital world, opinion isn't only easily influenced, it's easily manipulated.
Also, recent studies in social psychology have shown that social media increases the effects of social comparison because instead of merely comparing ourselves to our neighbour or co-worker, we can compare ourselves to an extensive network of people, which creates envy.
The purchase of a product is not simply motivated by our need for it, but it's also a mark of our social status. Therein lies the complexity of the situation; it's hard to change individual behaviour in a society that continues to promote consumption and economic growth and is incompatible with reducing carbon emissions.
It's estimated that animal products alone represent half of all greenhouse gas emissions linked to human food production. Many consumers need to be made aware of animal products' significant impact, particularly about meat.
The origin of food products also plays a role in the carbon footprint of a meal, but the impact of transporting food is much lower than that of meat production. Consumers need to learn which factors impact the environment most.
No easy answers
Global warming is a complex phenomenon whose causes are hidden in the details of our daily habits. The response to the climate threat has to do with a profound change in public policies and how our society operates, but it also plays out on an individual scale, trapped by our habits -- we must thus learn to know our brains better.
We must fight our bad reflexes and dispel the illusions they create so we can finally confront reality and make the personal choices we need to make to eliminate social comparisons, optimism bias, bystander effect, and the psychological mechanisms that make it difficult for us to change our behaviour.
Time for action is now
The reality is that billions of underprivileged people will become climate refugees, and their number is increasing every moment. We are in a boiling frog syndrome, but the problem is, unlike the frog, we have no place to jump in. Nor do we have a Captain Planet who will come right away to our rescue.
We must seize the opportunity to tackle our habits. Covid-19 has provided a revealing example. To effectively reduce our individual carbon footprint daily, we must first and foremost limit our consumption, eat less meat, opt for public transport, avoid repeatedly traveling across the world on vacation, and live as much as possible in a well-insulated home.
There is tremendous misinformation about climate change; giving the correct information and some simple rules is essential. So you need more comprehensive structural change, infrastructure change, economic incentives, and so on -- to change, you need many other things to happen.
Md Zahurul Al Mamun is an Independent Climate Researcher working with Centre for Environment and Participatory Research (CEPR). E-mail: [email protected].
