This may seem a departure from Green Building, but work with me, people. "Why Are Our Brains not 'Green'?" is the headline of an article in the New York Times Magazine today, and it goes to the heart of a question I often ponder: why is the human race so blind to the fact that its collective actions are so harmful to its own survival? (Put another way, why do humans, unlike no other animal, persist in sh___ing in their own nest. This is such an important question for me that I'm going to break the "short blog posting" rule to give it more space.)
The article centers on the work of CRED (The Center for Environmental Decisions) at Columbia University, where social scientists are studying how humans make decisions regarding the environment. Some of the findings agree with those in the economic arena, for example:
- Phrasing can affect a decision: People will decline surgery with a 20% mortality rate, but will accept surgery with an 80% survival rate.
- Our analytical brain (left brain) makes short-term benefit decisions, while our emotional decisions can be more group-centered and long-term focused. (Watch Jill Bolte Taylor's "My Stroke of Insight" at TED.
- Humans have a "finite pool of worry" so that when a financial crisis comes along (like now) it displaces our worry over the planet.
- Humans have "single action bias" which leads them to quit working toward solving global warming after they buy their Prius or build their green home.
One finding of CRED's lab experiments with human groups is particularly striking:
"...when subjects made decisions as a group first, their conversations were
marked far more often by subtle markers of inclusion like 'us' and 'we'...groups can be
more patient than individuals when considering delayed benefits. What if the information for decisions, especially
environmental ones, is first considered in a group setting before members take
it up individually, rather than the other way around?"
Since often the most important environmental decisions are made by groups, such as corporations, boards, and communities, activating collaboration can be
instrumental in achieving action. For example,
"The lab experiment designed by Weber and Handgraaf actually took a cue
from research done by another CRED member...who studied
farmers in southern Uganda. In 2005 and 2006, Orlove observed how the
behavior of the region’s poor farmers could be influenced by whether
they listened to crucial rainy-season radio broadcasts in groups or as
individuals."
I wasn't surprised to learn that humans' typical decision-making process often does NOT help them make the best choice. (Time to read Collapse by Jared Diamond.) That is why humans need a Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. (Nudges help humans overcome their natural tendency to be stupid.) Some examples of nudges that help us save energy are SmartMeters and the Wattson -- instruments that turn off energy so we don't have to think about it, or provide visual feedback loops and spur us to compete to save energy. Now that I've brought the discussion back to Green Building, it's time to end this post.
Image Credit: Illustration by Christoph Niemann