Loss Aversion & The American Dream
If we’re serious about addressing climate change, we need to consider reciprocity.
It’s no surprise that so many people are unwilling to believe in climate change when you consider two things:
How massive it is, and how much it is due to take from them.
When you see the true force of nature that is a storm, or floods, it isn’t so easy to connect this to the car you chose to drive or your energy provider.
We’re increasingly living in a world that is designed to tap into craving for instant feedback loops, we pull down on our phone’s screen and it buzzes with haptic feedback, gives a satisfying animation and rewards us with new content. Like a fruit machine in our pocket but for memes and emails.
The climate is not so responsive, not so immediate, and not so rewarding.
Some ideas and concepts are so massive that it isn’t easy for people to fully comprehend or accept them. I think the climate is one of those. It needs us to suspend so much of what we believe to fully get our heads around them. Like imagining the size of a planet like Jupiter, or that there are planets and solar systems around every visible star in our night sky - and millions of billions more that we can’t see.
It’s also incredible complex, so even if people want to help it isn’t so straightforward to do so. Insecticides are good for increasing productive efficiency in crop yields, but they remove food for wild birds - in the UK we’re down from 114m wild birds in 1977 to 87m in 2022, 45 years later, a reduction of 24% or 27m birds.
On the other hand, the cost of rice, wheat, oilseed, and coarse grains has halved since 1977, so we have a question to answer: how much are we willing to pay for our food?
How low does our wild bird population need to get before we’re concerned? Anyone who is over 30 will have noticed the difference from what is now known as the “bug splat count”. From 2004 to 2019 car trips in Kent saw 50% fewer insects splatted on their numberplate. Half of the insect population wiped out at an astounding rate.
“The falling abundance of flying insects should be a major concern to everybody, as these essential creatures are the small things that run the world” Andrew Whitehouse of Buglife said in 2021.
It isn’t a linear path to successfully moving forward, so convincing people to take positive action isn’t without challenge. For some reason this never seems to be a part of the public discourse.
Why Can’t You Believe in Climate Change?
This post is less about convincing or reinforcing views on the climate, more about one of the less discussed parts of the challenge we face: what it’s due to take from all of us, and especially what it’s taking from those who don’t even accept that it’s true.
I probably need to be clear on something here - this isn’t about pandering. To a certain extent it’s tough luck as to whether people do or don’t believe in climate change by now.
I started drafting this post in an October week where we had more >20°C days than not in the UK.
But unless we can bridge the gap between believers and deniers we’re going to have a rocky couple of decades ahead of us.
We need new thinking on what we’re going to lose to start to build better cities, systems, and social services for the crucial decades to come.
Loss Aversion
If you’re not familiar with loss aversion, the easiest way to think about it is in a sport context. A loss always hurts more than a win feels good.
There’s a similar feeling with managing our money, an unexpected £250 bonus is nice, but an unplanned £250 tax is crushing.
If you’re gambling in a casino and you’re on a losing streak, your fear of that loss drives you to chase the loss - continuing to gamble (and lose) more.
Loss aversion is a cognitive bias where the fear of loss looms larger than gains of winning.
I wrote about this earlier in the summer.
Right now, people are at risk of losing a lot, without much to gain. The main bone of contention right now appears to be the car.
American Dreaming
I think all of this contributes to why the culture war in America has particularly taken grip.
The idea of the American dream isn’t fixed, but I think there’s an image which involves a gun-toting white man, driving a big - gas-guzzling - truck, smoking cigarettes, who gets the girl and lives in a big house with a long drive, massive garden, two kids and a big dog, financially secure. The idea that anyone can make it with hard work and commitment with god on their side.
This idea is so painfully redundant that it’s a joke.
That generation has had everything that is viewed as conventional, traditional, and aspirational taken from them.
It’s no wonder they’re angry, even if we don’t think they should be.
Dude, Where’s My Car?
Focusing in on the car point of the American dream, I think this is an important element which we can’t just ignore.
I honestly can’t believe the 15-minute cities idea has turned into a conspiracy theory that has taken people to the streets in protest.
But it has.
Given that it has, we have to take it seriously, and consider what lessons we can learn from this reaction.
Maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised, it’s only five years since the gilets jaunes movement gave us a heads up.
The thing that some people seem to think is that this policy is a trojan horse disguising the real mission to take individual cars from us.
Although that’s not the overall goal, it’s hard to deny it’s a serious consequence that could play out if the 15-minute city fulfils its promise.
They Took Our Freedom
Cars have been a symbol of personal freedom since they were introduced and became ubiquitous. Whether it’s a Rolls Royce worth more than the average home, or a 20-year-old Fiesta for £500, they’re accessible to most folks and do the same job with varying levels of comfort.
That first day when you’re free to drive alone is exhilirating. That first time taking your friends out and being able to pick your own music on the radio. Adjust the temperature, choose the route, your speed, everything about driving is an experience of freedom and independence.
The immediate feedback of pace you get from putting your foot down, or from sharply applying the brakes.
That excitement doesn’t really fade, unless you live in a city and get sucked into traffic jams.
Road trips themselves are a romantic concept, whether it’s Route 66, the North Coast 500, or crossing a continent with no restriction.
15-minute-cities were originally a concept that was focused on giving communities more. Better access to services, better options for getting around a region.
But instead it is being seen forcing behaviour change without fulfilling the other end of the bargain.
Bridges and Rafts
One of the reasons I’m frustrated with government policy in this area just now is that this isn’t being considered. We’re trying to get people to adopt to a new way of life without giving them an alternative option.
We’re trying to force people to reduce their use of cars but not rejecting housing planning applications that are not serviced by public transport. Or letting developers get away without commitment to long-term strategies.
The train services we do have are unreliable, expensive, and unacceptably uncomfortable on local services.
Too much is being taken too fast with no trade given. It’s no surprise that people are furious.
We’re not building the bridges.
I think there are lessons that need to be learned in this.
In my country there was a policy set to build no more roads, but this was done before the alternative was fit for purpose.
We are not seeing the alternatives coming forward to give people faith in a future where they’re not the ones having to miss out.
Nothing Left to Lose
There’s one other layer of deeper context here.
Many communities that are losing out most are the ones furthest from power. There’s no point making decisions from them based on a London or capital city context.
Too many communities across Britain have been hollowed out over the last fifteen years of austerity, things have passed breaking point.
With fifteen-minute-cities I think the patience has been exhausted. It’s hard to believe that any good will come when so much has already been taken away.
I don’t know how many more decades of "just boil the amount of water you need” or “reduce your clothes wash by 10° to save money” society can hack.
It also doesn’t help when climate change is not being treated seriously by senior political leadership. The message needs to be unequivocal, but it isn’t. Climate change shouldn’t be treated opportunistically.
There was a similar point made by Lord Deben at an ESG conference I recently participated in. His argument was that it doesn’t matter what your belief is you need to factor climate change in, whether you’re a politician or business leader.
It can’t be debated that climate change is happening, and whether it is human caused or not shouldn’t be the distracting point to not try to do better.
Energy is the point on this that gets me scratching my head. I don’t know why people would argue the toss on this. Even if you didn’t believe in it, it is common sense for us to gain energy security and strive for cleaner energy.
Unless of course you decided you hate Coldplay or Oasis. Or I could plug this post here too.
I’m going to call it there, though there’s so much I want to write about chaos theory, the complexity lost in calling it climate change, conspiracy theories, Rwanda, and why I don’t think people are as stupid as it’s convenient enough to label them.
Let me know if you want to see more about this topic, my schedule for 2023 is done now, but I’m making some decisions on what direction to take this in 2024.
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