I've been meaning to write about a recent story in Time on risk perception -- in particular, on how badly we suck at it.
The basic theme is familiar by now:
We pride ourselves on being the only species that understands the concept of risk, yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about mere possibilities while ignoring probabilities, building barricades against perceived dangers while leaving ourselves exposed to real ones.
And the culprit is also well-identified: a nervous system that evolved in radically different circumstances. Thanks to a jumpy little clump of tissue called the amygdala, nestled right above the brain stem, humans are finely tuned to short-term dangers. Snakes in the grass, glowering faces -- these things stimulate the amygdala and prompt a fight-or-flight squirt of hormones. That's how we survived on the savanna.
But when it comes to non-immediate dangers -- which bypass the limbic system and engage the frontal cortex -- we're subject to all sorts of distorting cognitive habits and biases. We fear loss more than we value gain. We judge ourselves less subject to risks than others. We fear possible pain more than likely death. We fear the unfamiliar more than the familiar. We're more averse to small costs now than large costs later. Etc. Etc. Basically, we suck at long-term risk assessment.
That's inconvenient, as modern civilization has confronted us with a panoply of risks that are abstract, incremental, and virtually invisible -- thus subject to our worst cognitive peccadilloes.
What's disappointing about the article, and about so many articles on this subject, is that it fails to apply its insights to the controversial political subjects of the day, where they might be put to good use.
No subject is more vexed by this human cognitive defect than global warming. By any rational measure, it's an enormous threat, not just to this or that group, this or that country, but to the stability of global civilization. Civilization developed and grew in a certain range of climatic conditions. The temperature, weather patterns, precipitation cycles, the turning of the seasons ... these were often lethally unpredictable on the micro scale, but they were largely predictable on the macro scale -- predictable enough to allow for long-term human settlement, agriculture, trade routes, etc.
Now we're on the verge of pushing the climate outside those parameters, causing shifting arable zones, rising oceans, species die-outs and migrations, intense droughts, storms, floods, and fires, and other results we're only dimly beginning to understand.
But efforts to raise the alarm about this insane ad hoc experiment are met with charges of "alarmism" -- while those who sent this country to war in Iraq on evidence immeasurably shakier are only now being called to account, and the pundits and commentators who supported them are still treated with respect.
Efforts to do something about global warming are met with predictions of financial calamity -- while the bill for the Iraq war now approaches a boggling $2 trillion.
Why have we approached the Iraq War and global warming with such different attitudes? Because Iraq is full of scary brown faces. Because physical violence, and the threat of violence, is something that stirs our viscera, engages our sense of territoriality and tribalism. Global warming is distant. It inches forward by degrees. All of us are culprits; none of us bear any particular brunt. There's no snake in the grass, no glowering face. In terms of human risk perception and psychology, global warming is the perfect problem.
Anyway, if you'll pardon the relentless self-promotion, I wrote a series of posts on fear and environmentalism a while back that discusses these issues at greater length. Give them a read if this kind of stuff tickles your intellectual fancy.
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Zarkov Posted 10:01 am
08 Dec 2006
Noah will you move that Ark out of my driveway!!!
>> Why have we approached the Iraq War and global warming with such different attitudes?
The Iraq war was a promise of expected gains...oil
GW is seen by many as 'wonderful' locally, human beings like being warm. Few can conceive the problem in its entirety, drought is a bother, but it will rain again!!!!(won't it?)
To delve into the future is mostly a fantasy exercise...What are the chances of a doomsdayist being completely correct....
We are a spoiled group, who know things can go wrong locally, but globally no-way now, maybe it will happen some long time into the future, who knows..
Basically humanity sucks
They are little creatures scurrying around, making incremental gains in society and really going nowhere, trusting [god] that everything will be alright and actively demeaning any talk of tomorrow's consequences.... too many words/concepts to digest...go away
But we all know death is inevitable so the end of the world is inevitable, right? 'What can I alone do about it', they say, 'it is beyond little old me, I don't want to think about it'...
and so the stage is set, the play written but left unread, and all humanity is strutting their stuff until they all fall down dead. It is inevitable
Really no one cares one way or the other, we are but pawns in the game of LIFE.
That is one side, the side most people show, but that really pisses me off.
Human beings are the flowers of LIFE, we are designed to make technology to spread LIFE's seed throughout space, either by intent or by destruction. LIFE does not care either way.
Our Options
We should care, I chose the "by intent" approach to seeding, that would make this cycle of LIFE on this planet an perennial super-organism, ready to rise again.
Apathy (too hard to act/think/believe/care) leads to the default option, where LIFE is an annual super-organism.
In my opinion, the latter is what the set in motion future holds, because not only are people apathetic, they are violently persecutive and all too ready to shoot the messenger. This messenger, banned from almost every science web site... says so be it,....die. LIFE never dies
Should I care?
(you bet I do, I will fight to the last breath)
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sunflower Posted 10:15 am
08 Dec 2006
I see most people going about their daily routines of jobs, babies, construction,... oblivious to the danger.
I must be boring, all I think about, care about is global climate destruction. As I watch Celtic Women sing Irish culture I dwell on the probability that Irish history will buried under 100 feet of ice. Meanwhile, people around me talk about anything but global warming. Am I becoming a bore?
Seattle Mayor Nickels is a leading advocate of global warming awareness, yet he plans waterfront developments, like expressway tunnels, with no worries. Seattle is very vulnerable to a rise in sea level, so is the Port of Tacoma, Olympia, Bellingham, and so on.
I am just amazed at this disconnect. Even without limbic reactions, it is so illogical.
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Cennad Posted 7:36 pm
08 Dec 2006
There is, of course, talk of carbon credits. Ordinary folk over there have enough trouble getting their tax credits let alone some looney addition thst they cannot fully comprehend. Extra VAT that can be tracked for accountability would be better - though it is all another layer of bureaucracy.
You would think that with the Thames outside their windows that Brit politicians would be more focused.Yet they can't even focus on Trident and the hypocracy of those in power.
Incidentally the word is that Browne has frozen out Stern who is returning to academe; he will be
concerned with India henceforth - wonder if fears
of famine on that packed subcontinent will focus his mind.
There are no gods, no goddesses - only The Mother.
The Earth is our Mother... and if you don't behave, she'll clout you!
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amazingdrx Posted 12:30 am
09 Dec 2006
Typical nonsense, an article based on the psychoanalytic ad hominem fallacy. If the topic at hand is global climate change, the article is not about the facts surrounding any solutions, it is all about why we are psychologically incapable of action. Our brains are hardwired for failure in this area, so throw up your hands or accept some sort of dictatorship of the corporate elite to solve this problem for us.
And the corporate elite solutions? Ethanol and nuclear power of course!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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SMLowry Posted 9:52 am
09 Dec 2006
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amazingdrx Posted 12:47 am
10 Dec 2006
The antidote for this sadness is to fight tooth and nail. Do NOT let these excuses for quietism offered up every day stand!
Sadly, an (un)healthy representative sample of this destructive nonsense is offered up here daily. Of all places one would think it would be different here.
Nope, the same old talking point propaganda, but at least here there are countervailing voices. In the media there is nothing but the latest spin. Even when Gore layed it out so clearly in his movie, the excuses range from denial to despair.
The only solutions talked about?
Nuclear power, "clean" coal, flex fuel vehicles, fuel farmed ethanol and biodiesel,the fabulous (as in the root word "fable") hydrogen energy economy,and hybrids that save hardly any fuel without the plugin option.
Where are the stories on homes powered with solar, electric plugin vehicles, solid oxide fuel cells, large wind and wave power installations, superconducting energy storage, and distributed renewable energy storage and distribution?
Without exposure these real world solutions remain unknown to the public. The latest revelations about new technology indicate that if only 25% of US switched to renewables and plugin/ fuel cell vehicles, the american contribution to global climate change could be reversed.
And as it turns out the US, the biggest consumer market for everything with the most influence on what is manufactured everywhere, is more resistant to change than any other nation.
The media is enabling this corporate corruption of government. Corporate controlled media. Here in blogland it ought to be different.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 12:59 am
10 Dec 2006
And articles on all these technology breakthroughs all through the magazine. Because it would hurt their "credibility"? After all, they really have no actual credibility, only the mis-perception created by corporate media shilling.
Instead we get ridiculous psycho-babble about how humans can't respond to crisis? If that is so, how DID we win WW2? Has corporate media genetically modified us all from humans into sheep? Sheople?
Looking at the past six years, omitting these most recent election results, that impossible scenario seemed almost plausible. The corporate shill media is mushroom farming, keeping we the people in the dark and feeding us shit.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Richard Esser Posted 1:22 am
10 Dec 2006
Off course, I agree that we 'often' suck at risk perception. The Time article convincingly argues why we do. So, your question (whether environmentalists should be focusing more energies on scare tactics) is important. I also agree that using fear is no good tactic for environmentalists. But what's important is that scaring the public is not always their goal. It's not always intended as a tool. Most often is a by-product of rational analysis by scientists, and of the fearful interpretation of worst-case scenarios by environmentalists. So the main question should be: when is the fear of greens themselves justified? Is it justified when the European Union bans GM-crops merely on the basis of the precautionary principle, the same principle that Bush used for his war on terrorism? (Simply put, it means that a 1% risk will be treated as 100% risk).
The alternative you present (of moral courage by compassion and intelligence about the fate of future generations and the earth) leaves unanswered the question how we should deal make risk assesments. Compassion may be suitable to prevent the violence you're afraid of, but it doesn't prevent scientists and environmentalists from unconciously instilling fear with their models and scenario's.
I believe that the violent danger of scare tactics can only be dealt with successfully by means of open discussion about what real threats are, what values different people attach to the things presumed to be at risk, and what actions are justified. First, we need experts for that, even though we need to be skeptical of their analyses. Second, we need laypeople for that, even though we need to be skeptical of their evaluations. This is difficult, like democracy is, especially when you are aware of a big threat that requires, according to you (and me) immediate action. But don't forget that the communicative abilities of Homo sapiens, like any other product of evolution, have their limits. And yes, this can be fatal, but not necessarily.
For more lifesaving insights, please visit my website. This is also where you can contact me. http://www.richardesser.nl
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caniscandida Posted 2:52 am
10 Dec 2006
Similarly, 9/11 "changed everything." But why? I for one was appalled and horrified by the East African embassy bombings of August, 1998. I was very disturbed by the accounts of the many citizens of Nairobi, trapped in awful pain in the rubble for many days. The initial Clinton response, to launch a bunch of cruise missiles, was not at all impressive; and then, even worse, the Clinton people let the matter drop.
David and Richard are right to consider ingrained psychological patterns, that generally have been successfully adaptive since the Pleistocene. From our own artistic sensibilities rather than any sophisticated knowledge of psychology, we can all agree how eye-arresting are strong design contrasts of colors (e.g. yellow against purple, red against green), and of values (black against white), as well as certain strongly contrasting patterns, as in checkerboards, or stripes. Our eye also responds to unexpected rapid movements in our peripheral vision. If this was all helpful in keeping us on our toes in a world of tigers and snakes and crocodiles, I guess it worked.
So, we all have this ingrained alarmist response faculty. But then, being social animals, we have a much more complex set of second-order reactions, regarding what we are to do with the alarmist responses of others in our community.
This is where I find myself rather at sea, especially as regards public spokespeople for environmentalist issues. I have no idea what the right level of concern environmentalists ought to project, in order to be "effective." Presumably, we can at least agree that different contexts, different audiences, might require different approaches.
On the discrediting of environmentalists as being intolerably alarmist, I suspect the situation is rather far more complicated than just an issue about alarmist speech. That is, it is in the interests of conservatives -- in the bad sense, people who want to do nothing, and who want the status quo to continue status-quo-ing -- to discredit such missionaries of radical change as environmentalists; and targeting their "alarmism" is just a tactic in their strategy of discrediting.
So, I do not know, does David's line of questioning reduce to wondering how best to appeal to otherwise neutral and ill-educated citizen-consumers? Or, rather, does it have to do with combatting the propaganda of the environmentalists' foes?
Richard Eller introduces the interesting subject of genetically modified foods, and regulations on the marketing of them. It is a good analogy to global warming, and the dire precautions against GM-crops from environmentalists might indeed constitute one of the one-too-many cases of crying wolf. It seems to me that while the planting of GM seeds does indeed need to be strictly regulated, the marketing of the crops should be more freely permitted, provided there is adequate information given to consumers. There is definitely need for adult supervision; but it is doubtful whether there is need just yet for alarm.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Zarkov Posted 7:50 am
10 Dec 2006
Is it the end of the world? [not now but has the train left the station?]
This is the problem. Can we do anything about our future, without causing 'fear'? Or can we use fear to motivate us?
Indeed do we really have a future even if we act now?
As a scientist I have my doubts, but everyday as the 'GW(oil)' scenario unfolds I get positive reinforcement from actual (predicted by me) events and now I 'fear' that I may be right. I hope I am not!!!!
So there is this mental vacillation which does not help positive action.
Pearl Harbour was an act that was undeniably motivating and it lead to positive action. But the world is still green, and rain (in some parts of the world) is still falling, but in others chaos rules.
In Australia right now, fire is showing what could happen to the world as it dries out. One possibility (maybe even probable, since this has happened in geological time) is for fires to engulf all organic matter worldwide and deplete atmospheric oxygen levels. We all fall down, just like that!
Really when you look into such a future it is very very "fearful", but is that future real.
I live in Tasmania, clean green and almost an unknown place, where there is no real evidence of any catastrophic problems. I chose this place 30 years ago because of "fear" of what I thought was about to unfold.
When you have children, fear is a powerfully motivating force..... and the fear for the loss of the world's future should motivate us all, even if we do go over the top sometimes.
But just how bad is the situation really???????
We are dealing with a situation which is totally outside human experience or even analysis.
What is possible in fantasy may not be probable in reality but fear of the boogeyman creates a healthy fear of the psychopath.
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SMLowry Posted 10:43 am
10 Dec 2006
Some of the potential consequences of global warming are fearful, however, like rising sea levels, more catastrophic weather events, stuff like that, where we grow food. But then maybe not to some people who won't be alive when it gets that bad and maybe they just can't imagine such a world. Are we inciting fear when we describe the possible changes people will soon start living through? Should we sugar coat them, say "But you know, it might not happen and if it does it might not be that bad" and just go on as if everything here today will be here forever?
One can look at climate change through the eyes of a scientist, using charts and graphs and probabilities to perhaps take the edge off the fear. Or one can look at climate change through the eyes of the people and plants and animals and fish and fungi, many of whom won't survive it. This is more fearful because people can identify with other people and especially with charismatic species like polar bears and penguins.
What I so often wonder is why aren't more people pissed off? I know I am. The inaction and indecision and cries for "more studies" and "balanced reports" make me want to scream when every day brings more proof of what's going on and what's causing it. We should be angry. We should be demanding action. And part of the action should be support for (financially) the small-scale solutions mentioned by drx. These are things we can do but most of us don't have the money or the knowledge to do it ourselves. We should be looking into regional energy, using alternatives that work best in each place, and conservation.
It's so hard to get out of the rat race that keeps us connected through necessity to the system that keeps us part of the problem. We have jobs and commitments and bills to pay and it's all so immediate and real that the reality of climate change gets pushed to the sidelines, for most people anyway. By the time enough wake up it could be too late. The White Mountains will no longer be white and snow will exist here only in pictures in our photoalbums. And a part of me knows that it's already too late to prevent that.
Zarkov asks, "Is that [fearful] future real?" It depends on where you live and on what represents "fear" to you. If you fear the world being consumed by fire, that may not happen. But if you fear a world depleted and hard and very different from the vibrant green world we were born into, then it may very well become real. We need to be clear about this. And then we need to sit down and figure out what exactly that means for how we live and work and relate. But we aren't doing that. If we don't begin these discussions, if we don't plan and strategize and begin implementing the plans, chaos will take over in many places.
Disasters and chaos bring out the best or worst in people. We can be courageous, generous, strong, compassionate and or angry, violent, greedy. People are not always going to respond in the best way possible. Already stress is increasing pretty much everywhere. It feels as though time is speeding up and it's not comfortable.
So there's a lot going on in our lives, the Earth is experiencing stress and changes. It's difficult. And I don't feel I'm being an alarmist here though some may disagree.
After all that, I will repeat that for me the predominant feeling isn't fear, it's sadness. Much will be lost and nothing we can do will change that. I'm too attached, I know, to Earth the way she is today. I can't just breathe and let it go. I believe it's wrong, immoral even, to be responsible for so much destruction for any reason, but especially for economic reasons. I also believe, as I've said elsewhere, that spirit has a role to play and it could be major though there's nothing logical or rational about that statement, I know.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:56 pm
10 Dec 2006
It is just too sad to let this destruction continue. The fear that hurts is the fear to change it.
Afraid to try, afraid to fail, that just didn't cut it during WW2. Why accept it now?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 5:46 pm
10 Dec 2006
<<
What is possible in fantasy may not be probable in reality but fear of the boogeyman creates a healthy fear of the psychopath.
>>
I have no idea what Zarkov is about. Z. writes the sort of miserable yet grave blather that Cassandra utters in The Agamemnon. It is mad, it is unintelligible, and yet it is prophetic, and one feels one ought to pay attention.
There are little penguins, down in Tasmania. I hope Zarkov is looking after them. To say nothing of the wombats, and the poor, strangely infected devils.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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caniscandida Posted 5:59 pm
10 Dec 2006
Beauty counts. Art counts. Good writing counts. We need you to keep writing.
I only wish I could write something so fine, of use to you all up there on the Maine/New Hampshire border, at the feet of lordly Mount Washington.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Zarkov Posted 6:45 pm
10 Dec 2006
LOL, that's me. I am a scientist not a wordsmith.
:)
No one will listen, You talk of fear, [maybe] terror will be a better word to describe what is coming.
[Maybe] there will be only several years left of complacent living then, it will be every lout for themselves, then [nothing].
It is still "maybe" for general consumption...
I will not elaborate, but I will say this is a very sensible blog. Thank you. Unfortunately sensible people are a very very small minority in this world of toxic pollution.
Thank goodness there is at least one sensible blog/forum on the net.
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Zarkov Posted 6:58 pm
10 Dec 2006
all is well in Tasmania, except the Tassie devils
They have been poisoned out of their brains from forestry practices (atrazine, stimazine, 1080 etc) that go back decades. the devils scavenge and are the end of their food chain, and now they are all toxic and cancerous.
Political propaganda will say they are just sick from some strange pathogenic process, but the government here and certain forestry organisations are really guilty of devil-ocide, just as THEY made the Tassie tiger extinct and almost wiped out the indigenous human population.
Really people [rednecks] in general don't give a..
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amazingdrx Posted 12:14 am
11 Dec 2006
If their much prayed for rapture does happen, the earth will be heaven once they are installed wherever their vengefull gaawd raptures them to.
The rest of us left behind will do well without their militant,faithbased,dictatorial, sado/masochistic, neo-culture. (hehey, just had to use that word again.)
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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sunflower Posted 1:01 am
11 Dec 2006
I'm worried we are becoming demoralized. I see it in me. I am falling behind interdicting invasive Himalayan Black Berry. How can I protect indigenous species in a changing climate?
I also feel we are out of sync on a rainbow of emotions. I went from fears years ago, to sadness for dying animal families, to anger that my trees are dying. Now I am past emotion and have committed a full time effort to fight this enemy. Others are behind and in front of my emotional evolution.
There may be cause to not worry other working people not fighting carbon on the front lines. Otherwise, who will interdict invasive species, write history, create art, expand science, treat disease, protect the local environment, grow food, manage traffic, clean the trash,...? We all can not just stop working because of this global war against warming. Stay at your day jobs and leave the worry and fear to the experts, they need your support and infrstructure. (Vote Gore, make contributions, and keep the faith.)
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amazingdrx Posted 5:11 am
11 Dec 2006
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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