Climate change : we can fight the enemy, and he is us

We already know the technological solutions needed to, at the very least, reduce climate change. What seems like a much more difficult problem is how we go about persuading people to enact those measures. But we also understand human reasoning and irrational behaviour at least reasonably well : our default comparisons are relative, recent, and local, and our conclusions are influence by those around us. Most of the time we do not simply independently examine the evidence. The fact that people are irrational does not, however, mean that we have to give up trying to get them to do rational things. We simply have to change tactics : stop trying to rely on the evidence, and exploit their cognitive biases and especially societal network effects.

Psychologists have identified more than 150 cognitive biases we all share. Of these, a few are particularly important in explaining why we lack the will to act on climate change:

• Hyperbolic discounting - this is our perception that the present is more important than the future.
• The bystander effect - we tend to believe that someone else will deal with a crisis. 
• The sunk-cost fallacy. We are biased towards staying the course even in the face of negative outcomes.

The good news is that our biological evolution hasn’t just hindered us from addressing the challenge of climate change. It’s also equipped us with capacities to overcome them... We can imagine and predict multiple, complex outcomes and identify actions needed in the present to achieve desired outcomes in the future. 

Unfortunately, this capacity to plan to ensure a future outcome breaks down when large-scale collective action is needed – as is the case with climate change. As individuals, we know what we can do about climate change. But addressing the issue also requires collective action on a scale that exceeds our evolutionary capacities. The larger the group, the more challenging it gets. Remember the bystander effect? But in small groups, it’s a different story.

Recognising the power of small groups, Exposure Labs, the film company behind Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral, is using its films to mobilise communities to take local action on climate change. For example, in South Carolina, a US state rife with leaders who deny climate change, Exposure Labs shows a film to get a conversation started, inviting people from various interest groups – like the agricultural, fisheries, and tourism industries – to talk about how climate change affects them personally. They then work these small groups to identify practical actions that can be taken immediately at the local level to make an impact – something that helps generate the political pressure necessary to compel lawmakers to pass relevant local or state-wide legislation. When local communities shape the narrative around individual interests, people are less likely to succumb to the bystander effect and more likely to engage.  

When small groups are involved in coming up with solutions themselves, they experience the endowment effect: when we own something (even an idea), we tend to value it more. Second, social comparison: we tend to evaluate ourselves by looking at others. If we’re surrounded by other people in a group who are taking action on climate change, we’re more likely to do the same.

How brain biases prevent climate action

We know that climate change is happening. We also know that it's the result of increased carbon emissions from human activities like land degradation and the burning of fossil fuels. And we know that it's urgent. A recent report from international climate experts tells us that we are likely to reach 1.5C of average global warming in as little as 11 years.