Human Brains Aren't Wired to Fight Climate Change
Society knows it’s doing things that will do immense harm to the environment for many generations to come. So why can’t it change? We like donuts too much.
Donuts help explain why humans aren’t doing more to combat climate change.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images
Humans are very likely the only species that can imagine very distant futures. Unfortunately, our brains aren’t wired to behave in a way that optimizes those futures. After all, most of us don’t even save enough for retirement. If we have a choice between eating a donut right now and being marginally more healthy later, the donut almost always wins.
Individual choices can have broad social implications. If we’re broke in retirement, we’ll rely on public assistance. If we make ourselves sick from eating too many donuts, we’ll be less productive and a drain on health-care resources. But society as a whole is also prone to toxic short-termism. Take climate change. Burning fossil fuels, clear-cutting forests and mass-producing cows serve our immediate needs for lights, farmland and cheeseburgers, but at the cost of ruining the climate for many future generations.