How brain biases prevent climate action

We know that climate change is happening. We also know that it’s the result of human activities. And we know that it’s urgent. But that information hasn’t been enough to change our behaviours on a scale great enough to stop climate change. And a big part of the reason is our own evolution: no other species has evolved with such an extraordinary capacity to create and solve such situations.

Our biological evolution hasn’t just hindered us from addressing the challenge of climate change. It’s also equipped us with capacities to overcome them: we can recall past events and anticipate future scenarios. We can imagine and predict multiple, complex outcomes and identify actions needed in the present to achieve desired outcomes in the future. And individually we often prove able to act on these plans. 

We overestimate threats that are less likely but easier to remember, like terrorism, and underestimate more complex threats, like climate change.

We are very bad at understanding statistical trends and long-term changes, because we have evolved to pay attention to immediate threats.