Why
don't we treat climate change with the rigor we give to terror
attacks?
Ruth Greenspan Bell
Monday
15 February 2016 11.30 GMT
They’re
both extreme hazards, but evolutionary responses favor real-time
threats, not those that take place on an extended time scale
Extreme weather,
water shortages and the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like Zika
are all having very real effects on everyday realities globally, and
they are all linked to a fast-heating earth system. Yet we still
don’t treat climate change with the reverence we reserve for
something like a terrorist attack.
Maybe the blame goes
deeper, into our very natures: evolution did not design our bodies to
treat climate change with urgency.
Evolutionary
responses favor real-time threats, not those that take place on an
extended time scale. Shrinking Arctic ice cover, erratic changes in
winter snow cover or rapid shifts in heat and cold don’t provide
the same sense of threat as our fear of terrorist attacks or other
bodily harm.
The challenge in
moving more forcefully to stop the flow of greenhouse gases is that
if you have to stop and think about whether a specific action or
activity is threatening, that very process engages very different
parts of the human brain, and not the ones that impel us to action.
The hormones that
flood through our bodies to provide increased strength and speed in
anticipation of fighting or running won’t kick in when the threat
is one that can only be understood through research and thought. If
you want to worry whether climate change will eventually make it more
difficult for humans to feed themselves, for example, you need to
break out the books and study science, statistics and a lot of other
disciplines. Even after you study, it is hard to share that thought
with your fellow humans in a way that elevates this to an Isis-like
threat.
One result: we only
pay attention to climate change from time to time, and usually when
it hits us in the face – Hurricane Sandy or drought if you are a
farmer in California. But disaster rarely hits all humanity at the
exact same time. And life goes on – our memories of tragedy fade, a
survival mechanism also bequeathed us by evolution.
One time when more
of us paid attention was when the countries of the world met in Paris
in December to map out the next steps in the battle to contain the
dangerous greenhouse gas emissions that are trapped in the atmosphere
and increasing planetary heating. Daily, for a few weeks, we heard
stories, opinions, data and analysis. There was a “hook” – a
small, international drama taking place in France.
Now that the moment
has passed, we are back to our own devices, and most of us don’t
consciously connect whether gradual warming might double back to
cripple human life. What if the changes make it difficult for
critters and insects that play roles in food production to survive
and perform their jobs? The cereal aisle in western supermarkets
still offers dozens of choices. What if we don’t sense in a
personal way how these changes might make us more vulnerable to
opportunistic illness? We can avoid the issue unless the boss directs
us to travel to Brazil and we are forced to worry about Zika.
Our difficulty
looking longer-term encourages the thought that someone, somewhere is
taking care of this problem for us, that there is really nothing the
rest of us need do. We sit back and leave it to the experts.
The US supreme
court’s recent insistence on looking through the lens of legal
process – justices voted to stay Barack Obama’s carbon emissions
regulations pending a challenge to them – neatly captures the fatal
time factor. The court’s decision to cease implementation of the
Clean Power Plan until the case is argued and decided isn’t fatal
if the rule survives legal challenge. Then states will get back to
work and ways will be found to reduce emissions. But the time lost in
climate terms cannot be made up.
Climate change is
relentless; human habit, Daniel Kahneman tells us, is oblivious.
Bridging those two extremes is the central challenge of our times.
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