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Health & Fitness

Homer Simpson and Climate Change

Can reason beat out instinct?

A recent New York Times International article by Justin Gillis talks about the risk climate change poses to food production across the world. Gillis cites conclusions of a draft report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that world food production may decrease by as much a 2% a decade for the next 85 or more years.

Doesn’t sound like much until you add in that demand for food is expected to increase by 14% each decade due to population growth. The numbers don’t add up. In fact, they suggest a lot of pain and suffering in the coming decades.

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A 2012 Intelligence Community Assessment on Global Water Security reached similar conclusions, but placed them in a military context. Prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA and others at the request of the U.S. Department of State, the assessment concluded the following:

“Our Bottom Line: During the next 10 years, many countries important to the United States will experience water problems—shortages, poor water quality, or floods—that will risk instability and state failure, increase regional tensions, and distract them from working with the United States on important US policy objectives. Water problems will hinder the ability of key countries to produce food and generate energy, posing a risk to global food markets and hobbling economic growth. As a result of demographic and economic development pressures, North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia will face major challenges coping with water problems.”

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The United States military gets it. The international scientific community gets it. Yet, we dilly and we dally and we debate and we deny. Why do we find it so hard to take sensible actions in the face of such overwhelming scientific consensus? Why don't the facts silence the deniers?

Christie Manning, professor of Environmental Studies and Psychology at Macalester College, may have given us the answer in her eye-opening 2009 report, “The Psychology of Sustainable Behavior.” In it, she argues that humans think and act in two completely different modes, one by rational consideration of facts and evidence (think Star Trek’s Mr. Spock), and one by unconscious impulse and “gut” instinct (think Homer Simpson).

Most of us, she notes, feel like we make decisions by “thinking through the facts.” We don’t realize that the Homer Simpson in us “often overrides the conclusions of careful, deliberate thinking.”

In essence, Manning argues that we need to change the climate of our decisions. We need to frame our facts and the choices we must make in a way that even Homer Simpson would give a shout out for.

We are a remarkable species. We have an extraordinary ability to do great and special things, to manage our environment for the common good, and to make the world a better place. But we also have a Simpsonian blindness that sometimes makes it hard for us to act in our own, most basic interest. And that’s a challenge even Mr. Spock would find difficult to address.

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