Last year, I wrote about Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert’s theory regarding the psychology of global warming. I strongly recommend that you spend 15′ of your time watching these two recently released videos of him speaking at the Pop!Tech Conference:
The enemy facing us is not so much global warming itself, as our human inadequacies in dealing with the problem. The more we can be conscious of those, the greater the likelihood that we will react more appropriately, and with a greater sense of urgency.
From a practical standpoint, Gilbert’s insights have important implications for future communication strategies about global warming. More time needs to be spent in the media, focusing on the whys of our relative inaction, and less on justifying the reality of climate change.
Get with the times, the earth is cooling. Check out the latest results from the underwater temperature probes…
Marguerite:
Super.
Gilbert is answering a question I have been wondering about for a long time.
Thanks
Jacques
Marguerite, as usual, great post.
I’ve read Gilbert’s book “Stumbling on Happiness” and it’s a great book, not only from the standpoint of substance but also from the standpoint that it’s engaging and fun to read.
I agree with the essence of what Gilbert says in the videos. And, I agree that the communication of global warming (and ways to address it) must address these aspects of human nature that Gilbert highlights.
That said, and very briefly, I’ll mention the following things having to do with Gilbert’s four points (and numbered accordingly):
1. In communications (of all sorts), global warming can be given a “face”, or (at least) much, much more of a face than it has been given so far in the scientific papers and media coverage.
2. Although Gilbert is correct in this point, my work shows why and how the problem Gilbert points out can be addressed.
3. Although Gilbert is also correct here, my work shows why and how the problem Gilbert points out can be addressed. Also, with respect to points 2 and 3, as well as to point 1, the nature and quality of media coverage of the issue are important.
4. This point can also be addressed, in conjunction with points 2 and 3, in terms of “understanding” and in terms of the conveyance/coverage messages.
Put another way, although Gilbert is correct in terms of the aspects of human nature he points out, these problems (as they relate to our ability to address global warming) can be addressed. The problem (or one big aspect of it) still seems to be in getting the right groups of people together to do so, much more quickly than is currently happening. The “story” is still highly fragmented in many ways: In other words, cohesive, accurate, moving stories are not “getting through” to large enough numbers of people in effective ways. Here in these videos, Gilbert talks about the problems (in human nature, with respect to global warming) that make global warming such a difficult issue, but where are the public communications that strive to address those problems in effective ways? I’m not talking about changing human nature itself, of course. That would be a bit hard. Instead, I’m talking about ways to communicate the global warming problem, and (importantly) solutions, and (importantly) viable visions of the new future, that respond to these gaps or imperfections in human nature in such a way that motivate us to wise and informed action.
By having much, or most, of the scientific knowledge residing in scientists; and by having much of the “communicative creativity” residing in advertising creatives (while, apparently, not much exists in mainstream media?! except perhaps in some of the late-evening comedy talk shows); and by having people with lots of money (needed for communications efforts) apparently hesitant to use it for good global warming purposes; we humans have a situation where key ingredients of the solution (i.e., scientific understanding, communications creativity, and money for production and media) have been isolated from each other and, to some degree, even speak different languages.
(To be honest, it’s frustrating the heck out of me. Having been involved in all of these individual dimensions of the issue, I believe that the communications/understanding task is very doable, relatively speaking and to a substantial degree, and is not as hard as it is often made out to be in the media and in other venues. In fact, it’s often made out to be nearly impossible. I don’t agree with that assessment at all.)
In any case, your post is great, and Gilbert’s points are excellent, but the public communication of healthy-and-accurate-and-motivating messages that COULD exist by now (but don’t) in the media is currently very insufficient and not-very-well informed. Put another way, wise and effective execution is about a decade behind knowledge. Going forward, we can’t afford that type of time delay.
Put another way, (and simplistically speaking), we need to put the right climate scientists into a room with Gilbert, some “creatives”, a few people on the solutions side of the matter, and some Eager and Willing Media Folks to develop communications approaches that are genuine, well-intentioned, accurate, effective, honest, and moving. And, it wouldn’t hurt to have funding.
That’s it for now.
Cheers.
a very engaging speaker and kind lecture, it is easy to understand why the few cannot convince the many, in the light of our limitations.
Jeff,
I find Daniel Gilbert’s framework a great way to channel some of our ongoing discussions on climate change messaging. I will think about some of your suggestions, and follow up with you.
Nadine,
Limitations that can be overcome. Maybe using some of your awesome talents at communicating!
Jeff, I think what’s needed is education for children. By “education” I don’t mean the vocational training, or the preparation for university entrance examinations they get now in Western schools, but a genuine broad education.
In my state, it’s compulsory to do English when doing the high school certificate. The idea is that being able to clearly express yourself, and thoroughly work through someone else’s expression of their ideas, is a good general skill to have. Whenever I’ve met someone who was poor at expressing themselves or had poor comprehension of things, they hadn’t finished high school, or had got a poor English mark, or were from a state that didn’t require it.
Likewise, I think a good general understanding of the principles of science and experiment are needed. For example, a post by a climate change denier in this thread talks about “more and more scientists”. In the first place his statement is simply untrue, an utter fabrication; but more importantly, it imagines science and experiment to be matters merely of opinion and majority, like whether low-rise pants are fashionable or not.
A better grounding in the philosophy and practice of science would I think help our society. When you’ve messed with a few bunsen burners and metal balls to test very basic laws of physics and chemistry, you realise just how much work goes into scientific research. And you realise how much margin of error there is, and how complex things are. And so then you can understand the reason that scientists specialise, and why a biologist who works for a front organisation for mining and oil companies should be ignored, while a report representing the consensus of over 1,000 climate scientists should be listened to.
That does not mean that everyone need have a literature and science double degree. But it does mean that a deeper and broader education – not a vocation, or training for entrance exams – but a genuine education – would be very beneficial.
And indeed, when you look at the countries dragging their feet on climate change policies (Australia, US and UK) and those taking a lead (Germany and the Scandanavian countries), there’s a clear difference in the level of functional literacy, the depth and breadth of native language and science knowledge, and so on.
Countries with better education systems are better-placed to recognise the need for change, and to effect useful change.
I realise it seems like a distant thing, education for our children, like we need more immediate action. And in some ways that’s true – we shouldn’t wait, and should consider the approaches marguerite’s talking about. But the kids now in school will a decade from now be in the workforce, qualified in whatever way, they’ll be engineers and managers and policy advisers and researchers for political leaders, and so on.
Absolutely, a broad education in history, geography, ethics, biology, physics, chemistry, computer and languages is a must for children to be able to grasp the increasingly complex problems facing our world. This goes back to policy and smart allocation of national, state and local resources.
In the short term, we need to make do with what we have in terms of literacy, and use mass communications to fill in the gaps.
I don’t like a ‘fear-based’ approach at all. I’d rather focus on making myself and other people happy in the here and now.
Gilbert has – in my opinion – something far more interesting to say regarding “green” psychology, something directly coming from his research on positive psychology:
From http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gilbert03/gilbert_index.html :
“Society convinces us that what’s good for the economy is good for us too. This message is delivered to us by every magazine, television, newspaper, and billboard, at every bus stop, grocery store, and airport. It finds us in our cars, it’s made its way onto our clothing. Happiness, we learn, is just around the corner and it requires that we consume just one more thing. And then just one thing more after that. So we do, we find out that the happiness of consumption is thin and fleeting, and rather than thinking to ourselves, “Gosh, that promise of happiness-by-consumption was a lie,” we instead think, “Gosh, I must not have consumed enough and I probably need just one small upgrade to my stereo, car, wardrobe, or wife, and then I’ll be happy.”
We live in the shadow of a great lie, and by the time we figure out that it is a lie we are closing in on death and have become irrelevant consumers, and a new generation of young and relevant consumers takes our place in the great chain of shopping. ”
I think Gilbert would say that we as humans fail in forecasting our future “hedonic states”. This is were science – that is, positive psychology – comes in. It can tell us far more reliably what is gonna makes us happy, and that’s not buying a bigger car. You really should read up on this.
I’ve never seen a convincing argument that happiness would be in conflict with a sustainable lifestyle. Personally, I’d say it’s more plausible that a conscious sustainable lifestyle would even increase your happiness, through feeling more connected with the whole ecosystem. Paradoxically, I think consuming less enriches your life.
In any case, we – collectively – haven’t nearly exhausted all the lifestyle changes suggested by positive psychology, which would make us more happy, instead of less. I’d surely start with those.
If you want a challenge, try to prove that happiness for all human beings (all 6 billion of them) would be at odds with a stable ecosystem. I don’t think you’ll come very far.
We don’t need to change our lives out of fear, we need to clean our minds from false notions about what “the good life” entails.
Meryn, you would appreciate Kyle’s last post on this whole happiness thing. I completely agree with you both, and will write about this tomorrow.
And I do not think the two approaches are mutually exclusive. In my opinion, the promise of happiness and the realization of fear can and should work together in this instance.
[...] have said it before. Technologies, policy, financing do have an enormous role to play in our war against climate [...]
All,
Why focus so much energy on things that are largely outside of your control? What better way to communicate and teach, than by doing yourself, and bringing others along with you.
Grass roots efforts are happening all around us. Those who choose to
make changes in their own lives first are the ones with the power to lead us into a new way of thinking.
Media, government, big business, etc. all have the same underlying agenda – $$$! This is unlikely to change.
Lilypad, I certainly focus on my own life, aiming at the one tonne CO2 lifestyle – I’m at about 1.5t, compared to the 12t average.
And I absolutely agree on the power of example. Have a look over my blog and my comments here on Marguerite’s blog, and you’ll see again and again me mentioning the power of personal example to effect change in the world.
However, that done, those changes in place, what then? Well, then we start discussing how to spread it more. Personal behaviour and example are the foundation, how do we raise the walls and the roof?
Media and big business are certainly most concerned with money, but government is concerned with power. They’ll do what it takes to achieve and retain power. It just so happens that with an apathetic voting public, money is the best way to get power. A more active public would mean money didn’t matter so much. This is why I say everyone should, once a season, sit down and write their local, state and federal representatives. Rather few people do, so that the few who do have a very large influence on policy.
Most members of parliament are not that busy – my local state MP is currently making herself busy trying to get a post box put back on a corner, it was removed because it only got half a dozen letters a day, and little old ladies now have to walk 1.2km instead of 200m to get to a post box, this single post box has become a Big Issue. Why? Because 20 people wrote to the MP about it. So she gets involved.
That’s why money matters to them, because most people never bother speaking to them. We can’t complain they’re not listening if we’re not speaking.
I agree with you Kyle. I was at a fundraiser last month for an American congresswoman, and the one thing she said, that stuck in my mind, was this:
People need to know that they have a lot of power, the power of advocating any cause they feel strongly about, to their state representatives. She said she found it sad that so few citizens exercise their power that way. All it takes is calling, or sending a letter, or an email, or requesting an appointment.
I have been thinking about what she said ever since. As convinced green citizens, there’s got to be a way we can leverage the democratic system to influence the powers in charge. First, of course we need to figure out what it is we want from them.
The latest news about climate change is so alarming (the right wing would say alarmist) as to make many people want to plant their aching heads in the sand. Some scientists using advanced computer models now argue that if we want to stop the Earth from warming, the amount of carbon we should be emitting is … none. None? As in, zero? As in, shutting down the global industrial economy? After all, global energy demand is expected to accelerate until at least 2020. Yet attempts even to slow the rate of increase of carbon emissions have paralyzed world politics for more than a decade.
MANY great posts in this thread. Just a few quick thoughts to add . . .
I agree that all of these things are interrelated.
And, I completely agree that excellent education is vitally important, perhaps especially in a democracy (but in general as well).
I also agree that an understanding of happiness can help, a lot. A great book (in addition to Gilbert’s) is Richard Layard’s “Happiness: Lessons From A New Science”, which is a very nice little book, and clear, and discusses key dynamics mentioned in this thread.
I am also learning much about happiness from this blog. Let’s see if my understanding is improving: Doesn’t happiness have to do with getting invited to Branson’s island or watching peak-oil dance videos? Well, maybe I have more to learn?
Also, one more thought: It’s hard (perhaps impossible) to get someone to change by only arguing against their current paradigm and way of life. One needs to provide an attractive (though also real, hopefully) vision of the NEW paradigm and NEW way of life. In other words, you can’t replace something with a vacuum. You need to replace something with something else even better. I think we need to provide that better (though still broad) vision if we want people to move towards it.
Great topics and posts Marguerite (and others)!
Jeff, this is where the importance of visioning comes in. As in thinking through very practically about all the steps, alternatives, opportunities, hurdles, involved with the kind of lifestyle change required here. I have been meaning to write a post about this for a while. My to-write list is getting longer and longer . . .
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