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&nbsp;<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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t solutions. But why are they and why are people listening to them?</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s start with the bleedingly obvious. We all have cognitive biases. If you think you don&rsquo;t, I would recommend reading Daniel Kahneman&rsquo;s&nbsp;<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 &amp; Slow</em></a>. Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics despite being a psychologist by overturning&nbsp;<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&nbsp;<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> <p><a href="https://medium.com/the-future-is-electric/climate-change-delayers-distractors-use-our-cognitive-biases-against-us-aefb38b66e16"><strong>Website</strong></a></p>