Climate Change Delayers & Distractors Use Our Cognitive Biases Against Us
<p>The short list of climate actions that will work has a chunk devoted to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelbarnard/2023/10/16/many-climate-solutions-are-dead-ends-or-niches--should-be-ignored/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">distractions, purported climate solutions that mostly aren’t</a>. As we work to aggressively decarbonize our world for our own benefit and the benefit of future generations, we often find ourselves dealing with people who for a variety of reasons, have the wrong end of the stick. They are pushing the distractions hard. And others are claiming actual solutions aren’t solutions. But why are they and why are people listening to them?</p>
<p>Let’s start with the bleedingly obvious. We all have cognitive biases. If you think you don’t, I would recommend reading Daniel Kahneman’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/89308/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman/9780385676533" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Thinking, Fast & Slow</em></a>. Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics despite being a psychologist by overturning <em>homo economicus</em>, the robotic, unbiased and perfectly rational creature at the heart of so many economic models, filling the gap where actual humans live. His <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1914185" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">prospect theory</a>, developed with Amos Tversky, quantified and validated the reality that we humans fear potential loss more than we desire potential gain.</p>
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