Climate Change: Cognitive Biases

Inspired by a discussion with my brother this week, I compiled a few highlights from “Enlightenment Now” by Steven Pinker. Specifically the section on The Environment as I realized that most of this is not common knowledge.

The purpose of this article is simply to bring awareness to a few interesting highlights that I think everyone should be aware of if we are going to be effective in our battle against climate change; considered “the number one threat to humanity.”

Here are some interesting excerpts from the book;

1. “A rise of 2℃ (3.6 ℉) is considered the most the world could reasonably adapt to, and a rise of 4℃ in the words of a 2012 World Bank Report, “simply must not be allowed to occur.”

2. To keep the rise to 2℃ or less, the world would, at a minimum, have to reduce its CO2 emissions in half or more by 2050 (thats 31 years everyone) and eliminate them altogether by 2100 (71 years)

3. CO2 emissions are leveled off now (progress!), emitting 36 billion tons per year — but this is still massive!

So where do we focus our efforts if we want to make a difference?

People are Misguided in their thinking:

Pinker brings up an example of a person who sent him a letter indicating their dedication to resolving climate change by making sacrifices to fight global warming.

This person called for a number of sacrifices, including pledging to never fly in airplanes except for emergencies, because airplanes burn so much fuel.

They also suggested people pledge to eat no meat at least 3x per week, sacrifice all jewelry because refining it is so energy intensive, and abolish artistic pottery because it burns so much carbon.

Although this is likely coming from a good place, it is also coming from an uninformed place.

As Pinker states; “Forgive the bean-counting, but even if everyone in the world gave up their jewelry, it would not make a scratch in the world’s emission of greenhouse gases…”

In reality, the emissions are dominated by the following;

1. Heavy industry — 29%

2. Buildings — 18%

3. Transport — 15%

4. Land-Use Change — 15%

5. Energy needed to supply Energy — 13%

6. Livestock — 5.5% (methane mostly though, not CO2)

7. Aviation — 1.5%

People’s Cognitive & Moralistic Impediments:

According to Pinker, his correspondent suggested foregoing these things “not because of the effect, but because of the sacrifice.” This brings up 2 psychological impediments we face when dealing with climate change.

The first impediment is cognitive — “people have trouble thinking at scale and don’t differentiate among actions that would reduce CO2 emissions by thousands, millions or billions of tons.

“The other impediment is moralistic” — not necessarily based on real morals, but more that people like to “flaunt their self-righteousness.” “…people esteem others according to how much time or money they forfeit in their altruistic acts rather than by how much good they accomplish.”

This reminds me a bit of the banning plastic straws movement of 2018…great, but man, I really wish those efforts and focus were placed onto something that contributed to the areas of impact outlined above, or on carbon tax policy change as outlined below.

Pinker goes on to say, “Much of the public chatter about mitigating climate change involves voluntary sacrifices like recycling, reducing food miles, unplugging chargers, and so on.”

“But, however virtuous these displays may feel, they are a distraction from the gargantuan challenge facing us.”

So, what do we do about it???

My opinion here is simply to be aware of where we are putting our efforts and focus, while being super-real with ourselves on whether we are doing this to feel righteous or if we are really trying to make an impact that contributes to combatting the real threat.

According to Pinker, “the enlightened response to climate change is to figure out how to get the most energy with the least emission of greenhouse gases.”

We have made serious progress in renewable adoption (thanks to solar-as-a-service models — thanks Jigar/SunEdison), electric vehicles (thanks Elon/Tesla), energy efficiency and efficient energy storage.

But we have a long way to go to achieve mass scale adoption, and mass scale sequestering of carbon. We are heading in the right direction, but we need more help.

Deep Decarbonization

There is some really interesting information on pages 142/143 about the decarbonization that has been occurring, and the progress, but in summary, to keep the progress going, the concept of DEEP DECARBONIZATION is important to understand.

Again, great news that we have leveled off CO2 emissions to 36 billion tons per year, but we still need help, and Pinker outlines the following as the key areas to help.

1. Policy changes — Carbon Pricing (not a new idea, but still not there)

a. This means charging people and companies for the damage they do when they dump carbon into the atmosphere, either as a tax on carbon or as a national cap with tradable credits

b. Economists across the political spectrum endorse this because it combines the unique advantages of governments and markets.

c. Al Gore — “Tax what you burn, not what you earn”

2. Nuclear Power — clean, efficient, dense power

a. labeled as an inconvenient truth for the traditional green movement. Nuclear is the worlds most abundant and scalable carbon free energy source.

b. Personally I think the efforts in electric vehicles, renewables, clean storage, efficient sources of power to reduce consumption are all very worth while and Pinker does not argue this, but he does make quite a case for nuclear in that it it represents the “ultimate in density, because in a nuclear reaction…you get an immense amount of energy…from a small bit of mass” And its clean.

c. The safety aspect is another area that he provides facts indicating how safe it actually is, and that the challenge is once again psychological…see pages 147–148 if you are interested.

3. Carbon Capture — Reforestation, restore coastal and marine habitats

a. Critical because even if we halve the emissions by 2050, the world is still at risk for warming because the CO2 already emitted will remain in our atmosphere for a long time

b. Plants suck carbon out of the air, and so the obvious way to remove CO2 is to recruit as many carbon hungry plants as we can to help us.

c. Other technologies may be developed to help here as well…page 150–152

Final Thoughts…for now

Again, the purpose of this was simply to bring awareness to these key areas ;

1. Awareness that we may think we are contributing, but in reality may only be serving our own cognitive and moralistic tendencies.
2. Awareness of the areas where the most carbon emissions are actually coming from.
3. Awareness to the areas that will have the most impactful results

With this awareness, I hope that it inspires thought, in the right direction, and in the right places, about what type of ACTION can be taken to be more effective in fighting climate change.

I would love to continue this discussion and work with those who are interested in taking action in meaningful ways.

Please comment with your ideas!