Did you ever wonder why you never get around to pruning a tree until it becomes a difficult task? PBS News Hour thinks this is because our brains are hard-wired to think about the present. This is due to us concentrating on finding food and shelter for the past 200,000 years. In fact our brains only began thinking in terms of future time a few hundred years ago.
How Our Brains Delay Responses to Climate Change
Millennia ago Greek philosophers began wondering why we procrastinate, or put things off against our better judgement. A simple explanation is our forefathers had no time to worry about the future while a lion was chasing them up a tree.
It seems our brains hard-wire into the present moment. Although politicians may claim it’s a matter of prioritizing the important things first. Perhaps this is why we never get around to the really fundamental issues like why there are so many wars. And how to get religions to peacefully cohabit without wanting to tear each other’s eyes out. It’s another great tragedy we took so long to respond to global warming.
We Know What to Do Collectively, But We Don’t Act
PBS News Hour believes “our mental responses to global warming and climate change follow a similar script.” We know we have to stop greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. And that’s a simple thing to do, at least in theory.
The problem is our leaders seem preoccupied by ‘more important’, inward-looking things. With few exceptions they are not keen to work together while they are sparring over the right to global domination. This could be why we have made so little progress as a species since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change formed.
Moreover, the international pledge through the Paris climate accord still has no legal force whatsoever. Do you suppose nothing will change significantly until global warming affects world leaders personally? By then our brains tell us we may have dashed the hopes of future generations.
Related
The Unfolding Climate Change Narrative
Visible Tipping Points of Climate Change
Preview Image: Downtown St John Blizzard: Newfoundland Labrador, 2018
