Written by: Roberto R. Bravo, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
The vehicle of our industrialization is hurtling towards the precipice of climate disaster. We are so close to the edge and going at such speed that we can hardly avoid going off the road. Will we at least be able to stop the machinery in time not to fall?
A well-known psychological fact is our tendency to underestimate risks in the face of potential benefits, more so if those benefits are close at hand and all the more so if we are already enjoying them. This tendency can be rewarding when the sum of the actual benefits and the chances of success outweigh the comparatively lower risks by a certain margin, making them worth taking.
A matrix for the rational decisions will include, in addition to a measurement of the risks associated with every potential benefit, the adoption of corrective or mitigating plans, as well as preparedness to respond to failure, should it occur. Of course, in our daily activity it would be unproductive and clumsy to even think of risk analysis before deciding on the vast number of petty choices we are presented with every day, from which shoes to wear to where to keep something or with which product to replace our favorite brand that we could not find in the supermarket today.
Errors in such cases are mostly irrelevant, and intuition suffices for immediate, practical purposes. Yet, the frequency of our daily little mistakes (Looks like I didn't choose the right shoes, I thought this cleaner would work, Where did I leave my keys?) often reveals our intuition’s shortcomings. So, despite popular belief, intuition alone is not the best guide when it comes to important decisions. And economic policy decisions fall into this category, as they usually affect many people, and often for a considerable period of time.
Another well-known psychological fact is our tendency to concern ourselves only with what affects us directly and to disregard, or even ignore, the rest. Statistically, almost everybody is more concerned about local news than international news, and even more about what happens in their immediate environment (home, family, social group, work) than anywhere else. There is obvious practicality to this, but it tends to limit our perspective to the here and now, somewhat reducing our ability to anticipate and adapt. Without neglecting what obviously requires our immediate attention, the further we are able to project our horizon of knowledge and interests, the greater and more diverse the information available to us and, consequently, the more varied our resources both intellectual and practical.
More comparative data usually generate a greater influx of ideas, which ultimately gives us a greater number of options. Politics is an area where we cannot do without a broad overview, both temporally, because history is a source of knowledge, and spatially, because what happens elsewhere is likely to eventually affect us, most especially (of which the current pandemic is a clear example) in today's interconnected world.
Current climate change policies are disregarding the very real risks in terms of the immediate "benefits" of maintaining the current state of an economy that, even with the measures in place, continues to throw more than 36 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. We are dismissing, and even ignoring, problems that we want to see as distant in time, despite the fact that at the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions it will take less than 20 years to reach an increase in the planet's average temperature of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels, very close to the 2ºC threshold flagged as particularly serious by numerous studies, as the IPCC has warned in its report on the global climate.
Among other things, this 2ºC increase entails a disastrous rise in the average level of the oceans due to the reduction of the polar masses, which adds to the ongoing acidification of waters due to the dissolution of excess carbon dioxide. The result is the growing destruction of marine ecosystems and notable seasonal changes that we are already experiencing worldwide and which inevitably affect, and will increasingly affect, the global economy.
The effects of climate change are much closer than many people think, and there is no point in ignoring this fact. One meter above current sea level (a process that has already begun and will be reached in just a few decades under a high emissions scenario: Almost Too Late) means kilometers of flooded coastline inland, often heavily populated: take a quick look at the map and you will see a large number of cities on coastlines around the world.
The lower islands, many of them inhabited, will be covered by water. This will cause mass migrations in addition to those already being caused by wars and extreme poverty in Europe and North America, with the resulting complex socio-political and human problems exacerbated. Alterations in the circulation patterns of seawater and winds due to temperature effects are already leading in different parts of the world to more frequent and intense climatic phenomena such as hurricanes, floods, frost, heat waves, droughts, and fires.
The threat to biodiversity is clear, mostly for the high number of species already threatened with extinction, and the dire consequences for all living beings, including us. In particular, our living conditions will be increasingly affected (they already are in many places) by the loss of crops and food resources, with the long-term consequence of direct and indirect damage to health, and even losses of lives, together with the inevitable disappearance of land, housing, industry, and infrastructure. All of which will obviously be disastrous for the economy that some insist on maintaining.
The benefits of the current economic and industrial model are comparatively diminishing, and diminishing rapidly whereas the harms – not just the risks – of that model are on the increase. More than urgent, there is an immediate need to stop the emission of gases into the atmosphere and to definitively adopt clean energy sources of which, by the way, nature abounds.
Solar and wind energy, which we have recently begun to harness on an industrial scale, are two excellent resources that we are perfectly able to generalize and develop with our current technology.
But we need to make responsible decisions, politically and economically. If the governments don’t, then the industry, businesses, and each and every one of us. Every action counts.
Robert R. Bravo, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Besides his long experience as a researcher and lecturer on Ethics, Logic of Science, and Philosophy of Language in Universities of Spain and Latin America, Roberto R Bravo writes and teaches management skills in the areas of language and argumentation, coaching, leadership, and conflict management from a philosophical standpoint. Member of the editorial board of some academic and non-academic journals, he has published a number of essays, short stories, books for children, and translations. He is currently working on several books, both fiction and non-fiction.
