Loss Aversion and Global Climate Destabilization

Behavioral Economist George Loewenstein describes loss aversion in Discover (Jan/Feb 2010, p 33): “In a lot of competitive situations, people look at others whom they perceive to be at a higher level, which forms their reference. They feel themselves to be in the domain of losses, and they are desperate to get out. Much cheating, it seems, occurs not because people just want more but because they feel ‘in a hole’ that they can get out of only by cheating.”

Here we are, plunging headlong into a “hole” so terrifying and permanent that to most people it’s literally unthinkable, destabilizing Earth, making our planet incapable of supporting civilization. Yet because our fear systems are “not very good at dealing with gradually unfolding threats”, as he says on page 32, our prospects are bleak.

Why aren’t we reframing Earth’s danger in terms of getting into a terrifying hole? Why can’t we present it in feelings a gambler or an underprivileged child understands?

This brought to mind the story of an African poacher, an ordinary nice guy trapped in self-perpetuating poverty. He felt his only option was to do illegal poaching, just this once, to get out of the hole.

Thing is, there’s no cheating Nature. This time self-perpetuation is the climate change mechanisms we start by default (do-nothing-different is the easy option) and we can’t ever stop. The default effect, he says, is that people tend to be lazy decision makers, taking the path of least resistance.


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