Why do we Americans continue to live lives that burn carbon and emit carbon dioxide as if there is no tomorrow when the best climate scientists now believe that there may not be much of a tomorrow for our grandchildren if we keep this up?
A 2008 survey shows that a majority (51%) of American adults are "concerned" or "alarmed" about climate change, yet those who are "alarmed" reported taking barely more habitual conservation actions than those who are "dismissive" of the climate crisis, and experts attribute the modest (2.8%) drop in U.S. carbon emissions last year not to conservation but the economic downturn and high oil prices. So why the heck aren't more Americans "walking the talk"?
This is an burning question and has climate activists, social scientists, and even psychologists scratching their heads. Their interest is understandable, because the future of life on earth might well depend on finding an answer. The sad fact is that politicians resist take actions they know are needed, such as rapidly phasing out coal-burning power plants or calling for austerity, because they don't want to get "ahead" of the voters the way President Carter did when he called for similar policies in 1979. They seem more afraid of the ghost of Ronald Reagan than of the end of the conditions that made human civilization possible.
It's worth reviewing how we got where we are today.
Al Gore's plan to save the world by getting elected President in 2000 and providing genuine leadership on this problem was frustrated by the Supreme Court. His later crusade, blending science, fear, and calls for political will to support top-down action, is widely admired and emulated but has obviously not inspired the kinds of changes in the daily behavior of Americans that are now urgently needed.
The possible key to a fresh approach as well as the answer to my question was suggested to me by two paragraphs in a book of pop psychology with an irresistibly promising title, Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive.
If a call to action is motivated by fear, people will block it, unless call to action has specific steps. A group of people received a pamphlet describing the dangers of tetanus infection. It didn’t describe much else. The second group of people got a description of tetanus infection, plus a set of instructions on how to get vaccinated. The second group exhibited much higher sign-up rate for tetanus vaccination than the first one, where many participants tried to block out the high-fear message urging that something as rare as tetanus would never happen to them.
This is a clue to why Gore's approach hasn't inspired large numbers of Americans to reduce their carbon emissions. There is no doubt that he presses our fear button in his presentations and speeches. However the actions he typically recommends are light on "specific steps" and heavy on measures that require further thought, collective action, or study: a renewal of "political will," use of reason, or even strengthening the cerebral cortex (center of reason in the brain) versus the amygdala (center of emotions and actions). These are hardly the kind of instructions you can take home and implement while the fear and motivation are fresh.
The problem isn't that there aren't practical instructions available elsewhere for reducing your carbon emissions and footprint. Gore's own Inconvenient Truth web site has a list of pointers. There's a little book titled Climate Change. Simple Things You Can Do to Make a Difference. Low Carbon Diet: A 30-Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds takes a more rigorous approach. These are just examples.
It may be a problem that there is too wide a disconnect between the scary scientists and the practical steps for personal action. Climate scientist James Hansen and Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu do recommend policies but they usually leave it to others to make mundane recommendations for things you can do at home or on the highway tomorrow. This division of labor between the scientists and the activists may not be helpful. (Hansen, to his great credit, has advocated and recently committed civil disobedience to protest mountain top removal.)
A more serious problem with almost all of the lists of do-it-yourself actions has to do with nature of these lists. They are relentlessly positive and upbeat, as if the authors are terrified of sounding too grim and are straining to lighten up the dark warnings of the scientists. The effect is to make you wonder if saving the climate for your grandchildren is really worth doing if it isn't fun or requires breaking a sweat.
Another lesson from pop psychology may apply here.
Negative examples are memorized better than positive examples. When one group of firefighters went through the list of real-life mistakes other firefighters have made, and another group just went through the list of positive things to do, the first group demonstrated better judgment when faced with real-life tests. Our brain seems to discount the best practices, but single out bad examples of someone else making a mistake.
This principle might apply to negative instructions as well as examples.
Come to think of it, the Ten Commandments include a lot of "shalt not"s and "no"s and seem a lot more commanding than if Moses had said "Be true to your wife," and "Only take what is rightfully yours." It seems to me, as an expert pop psychologist, that the reason they have an impact is that "NO" is emotionally much closer to the motivation of fear (whether of the wrath of God or of climate change) than is an injunction to go do something.
The typical climate "to-do" list seems emotionally akin to the shopping list rather than the Ten Commandments. Of course shopping lists are familiar and comfortable to consumers and marketers alike, but this seems a risky association. Shopping, even for green stuff, isn't going to save the climate.
Now I'm not advocating that the instructions for how to reduce carbon emissions be recast in Old Testament language. Something more like "Don't use the clothes dryer if you can air dry your clothes," "Don't use non-CFL bulbs," or "Don't take a shower longer than five minutes at the most" would suffice.
So when I write DON'T! 50 Scientifically Proven Thing Not To Do To Save the Climate the first will be
DON'T drive over 55 mph unless it's an emergency. Taking a sick person to the hospital or maybe even meeting someone who is waiting in a bus shelter in the hot sun might qualify as emergencies. Not leaving in early enough to get to work on time does not.
If you drive 10,000 miles a year in a car that is EPA-rated at 34 mpg and you now drive 55 instead of 65, this will save half a ton of CO2 emissions a year. If your car gets 28 mpg or less or if you now drive faster than 65, the saving will be much greater.
If this was good enough for Richard Nixon's Secretary of Transportation, Claude Brinegar, who implemented the nation-wide 55 mph speed limit during the oil crisis in the 1970s it's good enough for you and me in the climate crisis.
Even if the road is empty and your car rides comfortably at 70, just DON'T do it.