Train Your Brain

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/climate/brain-human-behavior-climate.html

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Dr. Ann-Christine Duhaime is a pediatric neurosurgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She looks at brains. Over the course of a 35-year career, she has looked inside many, many brains.

She knows that the human brain is designed by evolution and that it is remarkably flexible, and that it has transformed the planet entirely.

Lately, Dr. Duhaime has sought to wrap her own brain around a vexing question: “Why can’t we do what we need to do to stop destroying our planet while we still have the chance?”

That question animates her new book, “Minding the Climate: How Neuroscience Can Help Solve Our Environmental Crisis,” published by Harvard University Press.

By we, she refers largely to citizens of wealthy countries who, by all accounts, need to make some big and rapid behavioral changes to slow down global warming.

I reached out to her last week to better understand how our brains work and how we might train our brains to better respond to the climate crisis.

You write that our brains were designed to make decisions based on “survival pressures” from a different era in our evolution. What’s so different about the current era?

Our brain design evolved primarily for short-term decision-making focused on circumstances related to immediate, tangible survival: I do this action, and I get food.

Climate change is difficult because it is longer term rather than immediate. It is difficult to perceive directly; we didn’t need to evolve carbon dioxide sensors for survival. The results of our pro-environment actions remain largely invisible. Additionally, the things that cause climate change are rewarding. Fossil fuels have made our lives easier in many ways. They have also made many people wealthy.

Have we trained our brains to make big changes before?

We train our brains all the time: how we learn to write in cursive or type on a keyboard, how to skateboard or chip a stone tool. We also change our brains with social change: what is acceptable behavior, what kinds of people we include and value.

Now, the usual rewards — money, convenience, praise, social acceptance — often don’t align with what’s best for the environment. As a company C.E.O., you may not get praise or a bonus from the board if you invest your company’s margin to lower your carbon footprint, though even that equation may be changing.

I used to think our brains are hard-wired. But you write that it’s less about fixed wiring and more about being predisposed to respond to a system of rewards — and that what we consider rewarding can change. You write about one experiment in Europe that offered new social rewards to drive behavioral change. Can you describe it, please?

In the experiment, called Eco-Teams, neighborhood leaders got households in their area to create a team. The team got to choose which behaviors to change, such as reducing solid waste, using less energy, or saving water. They were taught how to change those behaviors and how to track their outcomes, like weighing their trash or metering their energy use. The team met regularly. They shared tips. They provided mutual support. They competed against other teams from other areas. They made it fun.

The analysis of this program showed that long after it ended, the participants continued their pro-environment behaviors. They incorporated something new into their self-image. In other words, their brains changed.

What could we do now to train our brains?

First, recognize that pro-environment choices may not feel as rewarding as other choices you’re used to making. The rewards are more abstract and less immediate than getting the goal in soccer or the bonus at work. Use your knowledge of the magnitude of the problem and make those choices anyway.

Second, the choices may be easier if you substitute social rewards for what you’re giving up. If you decide to reduce your gift-giving frenzy, find like-minded people. Think of creative, joyful ways to reinforce this choice together.

Third, recognize that what you do will influence others. You can change what others find rewarding.

Can public policies like the Inflation Reduction Act change the rewards system to encourage behavior change? After all, it offers tax incentives to make climate-friendly choices.

Yes! This is an example of aligning the better choice for the environment with things people already find rewarding: lower cost, more jobs, greener neighborhoods. In the book these are referred to as “no regret” strategies for climate change initiatives.

I want to push back against your focus on the brain. Is it really about our brains? Or is it because powerful interests stand in the way of climate action?

Yes and yes. Those vested interests originate in people’s brains, too. They are following their rewards: money, influence, power, security. Studying the brain helps to show how the neural decision-making system works. When is change easy? When is it difficult? What makes it easier when change is for the greater good?

Critics say behavioral change is nowhere enough to slow down climate change. What’s your response?

Much of the problem will need to be solved by collective action. But this happens at the brain level also. Someone has to start a movement, and others have to be convinced to join in.

Understanding our predispositions as well as our flexibility can help find solutions that have a greater chance of working.

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From Mongabay: The United States and Canada are trying to ban fishing gear that has been devastating to shark populations.

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Manuela Andreoni, Claire O’Neill and Douglas Alteen contributed to Climate Forward. Read past editions of the newsletter here.

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