On New Year’s Eve at around 11pm, I was walking to a live concert in Florence, Italy with a half empty wine bottle by my side. As I came around the corner in front of the former basilica of the Medici family, I saw a crowd of around a 1000 or so people listening to the music. I started to move to get a better view of the stage as the song ended and I heard the singer say, “Isn’t it sad that the United States Government will not acknowledge climate change?” I froze. My action was not caused by the question, but because of the applause and whistling that occurred after the question was asked. There I was celebrating the New Year, and the entertainment was questioning the American government for its climate change stance. More importantly, the crowd had cheered.
Was the singer right? Yes, but only to a certain extent. 56% of congressional republicans deny climate change (February 2015) regardless of the 97% of scientists who believe that climate change is a real thing (though articles like the WSJ here would disagree).
I am not here to argue that climate change does or doesn’t occur, but for this post let’s assume the former. If people believe climate change is actually occurring, why are we not doing more about it? Outside of congressional jurisdiction where there is obvious conflict, why is there not more of a push for the public to increase recycling or energy conservation?
I would like to hypothesize myopia leads to the inability for us to consider climate change to be a real enough threat to counter.
“Myopia” is defined as “a lack of foresight” or an “inability to see the future” according to Merriam Webster Dictionary. Such a trait is detrimental to our society’s long term goals (ie. climate change).
Prior to linking to the climate, I want to give a couple different examples of human myopia. First, consider the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment (1972). Children were given a plate of marshmallows and told that if the children resisted long enough (until the researcher returned), the child would receive two marshmallows, but if not, the child would only be allowed one marshmallow. In the end, only 30% of the students were able to wait the allotted time until the researcher returned; therefore, only 30% of the children saw the benefit of patience to be worthwhile while the other 70% of children filled their immediate desires and were given one marshmallow.
The marshmallow experiment boils down to first versus second order preferences. A “first order preference” is a desire (I am hungry so I will eat fast food) while a second order preference is a desire of a desire (I am hungry, but will choose something healthy). The difference between the two preferences is that second order preferences show a deeper causal reason for the preference or multiple causal reasons (hunger and desire to be healthy), whereas first order preferences are linked to only one causal factor (hunger).
Relating preferences to the children, the first order preference is to have immediate gratification and eat one marshmallow, but the second order preference is to enact patience allowing for more, but delayed, gratification.
Another example of human myopia is the inability to adequately trust individuals to save money. I am going to greatly simplify the complex system of social security by saying that the government forces individuals to pay into social security because individuals cannot be trusted to save money for future retirement. If the government did not mandate this payment, individuals would be extremely harmed by not having enough money to save; therefore, as a society we could let them die or we could bail them out. Bailing out the citizens who chose not to save would create a moral hazard dilemma, enticing more individuals to give into their immediate desires and not save; thus, causing a need for the government to assist those without retirement savings while simultaneously lacking any contribution. Because of the saving inadequacy (myopia), the government requires payments to help ensure long term savings.
In relation to climate change, it is imperative to note that we (Americans) want bigger. We want bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger pools, bigger boats, bigger planes, bigger, bigger, bigger. This is a common example of a first order preference: “I want X.” The future dilemma of climate change is more perilous than the present day one; therefore, when people wish to help tackle climate change, they aren’t attempting to help the world in which they live, but the world in which their children and grandchildren will reside. Logically, if an individual is not willing to save for their own retirement we should not expect individuals to exercise omnipotence to help future generations. Furthermore, people will not see future results for a long period of time because climate change is not a sprint with instant gratification, but a marathon of constant work at a much slower pace. This delay in gratification resembles the marshmallow experiment in which we should only expect about 30% of people to comply with any form of climate change action.
Without the ability to overcome myopic proclivities, humanity will continue to pollute the earth, will continue to pay into social security, and will only be able eat one marshmallow.
thereisnopeak.com 