JREF Swift Blog

Risk, Emotion, and Global Warming

I am not going to lie to you; I am freaked out about climate change. At least politicians today can say something to the effect of “it’s something that the next generation must face down,” seemingly abdicating their own responsibility. But I am a part of that next generation. Climate change is something that I am going to have to deal with, and I’m not sure if my generation and I can.

What strikes me is this: why aren’t more people taking note of the serious risks from climate change? Why has this issue not galvanized the people into immediate action? One answer, and a very legitimate one, is that there was (and still is) a very organized anti-AGW (anthropogenic global warming) campaign that has called into question even whether or not it is a real phenomenon. But what I want to talk about here is more subtle. I think what we are seeing is a fundamental misunderstanding of risk.

Moving forward I am going to assume two things. First, that global warming is happening and is human caused (as per the scientific consensus), and second, that most projections about the effects of climate change are grim. That is to say, whatever comes of climate change, it won’t be good.

Emotion and Bias

So why do people largely ignore the risks from AGW? Indeed, a recent Gallup poll shows that Americans worry about AGW risk almost the least among various environmental issues, and even less so now than in 2000. I think this has something to do with the cognitive biases that are inherent to risk perception.

The availability heuristic is a cognitive bias that links the frequency of an event, or a perceived probability that some risk will occur, to how available that event or risk is in your brain. Consider your brain as an open field. The more you walk one path in that field, the wider and more defined it becomes. The more you see or think about something, the more worn this cognitive pathway in your brain (representing more neuronal connections), making the event or risk easier to recall. This ease of recall influences our perceptions of probability. The classic example of this is that people who have seen more media images of plane crashes tend to overestimate their likelihood. Similarly, in 2001 there were a few isolated shark attacks off of the coast of Florida and the surrounding states that the media dubbed a “feeding frenzy.” Statistically, there were actually fewer attacks in 2001 than in 2000, but even so this media proclamation significantly reduced tourism in those states that summer. The point is that the more easily you can recall a risk or experience you have had with that risk, the more likely you think that risk is to happen.

In the case of AGW, I think that we are seeing the opposite side of the availability heuristic than the shark and airplane examples illustrate. I think that few people have experienced anything that can be linked to AGW, and therefore they underestimate the very real risk it poses. Admittedly, this is partly because science cannot yet definitively say this storm or that drought is due directly to climate change, but people are beginning to notice a trend. We will return to this a little later on.

There are two more biases that I think are at work here. Described by risk researchers, the affective heuristic describes the tendency for people’s feelings about a risk to override the statistical facts about it. For example, though the risk of getting pancreatic cancer is relatively low, if someone close to you died because of this cancer, you may overestimate the chances of someone else close to you getting it. People with negative feelings about a risk tend to overestimate that risk, and vice versa. Linking this to AGW, I think that incomplete explanations of what AGW is by science communicators and the media have led people to believe that AGW is merely a slightly warmer summer, giving a positive (or at least less negative) view of AGW, leading them to underestimate the risk it poses.

Along with this, it is also true that when thinking about risk people value the severity of the outcome over the probability of the outcome. Using the shark example again, because the outcome of a shark attack is so severe and grotesque and terrifying, we use this to make an overestimation about the risk of attack. Basically, if something is scary enough, it doesn’t matter how likely it is, it will be judged as highly risky. It would be hard to get someone to jump into a pool full of piranha, for example, though the risk of attack is almost zero (provided you have no open wounds). Most people have yet to see the outcomes from climate change. With a low perceived severity of the outcome, the risk is judged less risky. Because it is hard to see the effects of AGW as an increasing trend rather than some point occurrence and because a responsible scientist cannot say that any one event is directly caused by AGW, I think that people are systematically underestimating the risk we face.

Communicating the Risk

Believers in AGW have a number of things working against them. We cannot responsibly say that any one event (e.g., a strong hurricane) is directly caused by AGW, the risk thus being diminished in people’s minds. Most people have not seen the effects of AGW (or do not realize they are happening) and therefore again underestimate the risks. We have anti-AGW propaganda campaigns that appeal to people’s emotions, like appealing to a sense of personal freedom (e.g., to buy inefficient light bulbs), and here too this overrides actual risks from AGW. How then do we proceed? Call me an alarmist, but I think something needs to be done. One way to start is to change the way we communicate risk.

The science behind AGW is solid. But in order to appeal to people’s perception of risk, we have to communicate in a way that gets around the problem of exhibiting classically tentative and conditional science. For example, with extreme weather, scientists are hesitant to attribute it directly to global warming because in truth, we cannot establish causality (not yet at least). The sensible way around this problem, the way that still attests to the fact of global warming, is to couch the response in proper climate theory. Instead of stepping outside of our sensible scientific boundaries, we can establish the predictions of global warming theory in people's minds (and hopefully rectify misconceptions between weather and climate in the process). For example, if someone asks if the recent bouts of extreme weather around the world are due to global warming, we are required to say, "We can't be sure." However, we can follow this up with the all-important predictions of climate theory, which is important for the understanding of science in general:

“As of yet we cannot say that global warming is directly causing this extreme weather. However, it is exactly what we would expect if global warming was the cause."

This way we still stay true to the science while affirming the important reality of climate change through people's own experience. This would hopefully be an easy way of linking AGW to trends in climate rather than isolated occurrences in weather. It also begins to link the risk of AGW to emotions people have and the availability of that risk in their minds. If recent events can be cognitively connected to the risk of global warming, we should see people’s perceptions of risk begin to increase. Indeed, if you look at a recent poll, Americans are now “connecting the dots” between extreme weather over time and climate change. If we start speaking in terms of trends, and acknowledging people’s own experience and emotions (while emphasizing the science), it stands to reason that people will start taking climate change more seriously.

Where We Stand

Sadly, I don’t know if this will be enough. Often I think that it will take a large-scale environmental disaster that can be linked to climate change to solidify the risk of it in people’s minds. I worry that by the time we begin to seriously deal with it, the risk will have progressed far beyond what the “next generation” (i.e., everyone my age) is equipped to handle. It reminds me of the story of the frog in the pot. Put a frog in a pot with water, turn up the heat full blast, and the frog will jump out. Put a frog in a pot and slowly crank up the heat, and the frog will remain in the pot until he cooks. I think that my generation is about to experience a kind of slow motion disaster where we can’t see the heat slowly being turned up. As long as the heat slowly progresses, we will remain unaware of the risks. Unfortunately, this is exactly what we face.

Despite all this, I remain optimistic. It won’t be long until economic drivers force a shift in energy, which will help alleviate our planet-warming effects at least to some degree. Communication research on AGW is progressing as we speak, and will hopefully influence new information campaigns. There is a whole new contingent of young people who want to “go green” and who will fight for a cleaner planet. I also believe in science and the ingenuity of the human species. But because the problem is of a lack of support and concern from the public, learning how to communicate effectively about risk to get the rest of us on board should be a major priority.

Kyle Hill is the JREF research fellow specializing in communication research and human information processing. He writes daily at the Science-Based Life blog and you can follow him on Twitter here.