Our Globe Vs. Our Brain: Modeling and Understanding the Climate Vs. Human Cognition.

Abstract:

Climate models have made a notable contribution to increasing our understanding of the climate system, and in particular its response to forcings from greenhouse gases. In parallel, models of the human cognitive system have also made a notable contribution to our understanding of how people think and reason, and in particular the limitations of human cognition. In light of the challenges that climate change poses to politics and society at large, the intersection of human cognition and the climate system deserves to be examined more closely. For example, recent analyses (Lewandowsky et al., 2014, Climatic Change) have shown that the magnitude of uncertainty about future temperature increases is associated with the magnitude of future risk: That is, the greater the uncertainty, the greater the expected damage costs and risk of mitigation failure. Greater uncertainty should therefore lead to greater, not lesser, concern about climate change. However, there is evidence that uncertainty sometimes has the opposite effect on people, for example by inviting “wishful thinking.” I review some of the mismatches between the actual behavior of the climate system and people’s responses to climate change. I also identify some ways in which people and the climate behave similarly: For example, the climate system is known to include “amplifying loops” and “tipping points”, and I argue that human societies may similarly amplify small disturbances from climate change into larger ones.