Part of the vocal minority deciding to not be very vocal, just irritated.
- Jim
Thank you all for keeping this conversation civil, factual, and educational.
My relative absence from the Climate Change arena reflects very little about my own views on the matter scientifically, but quite a lot about my views on the utility of the AGW story to lead to the sorts of changes I desire to see in the world.
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely convinced me that humans have a certain amount of hard wiring and that wiring responds better to some threats than others. If we want people to take something seriously enough to change their behaviors, then the threat we are describing is most powerful if it:
- Has a face. We combat things like Hitler, Saddam, even wolves, because they are easy to identify in our brains. We are less successful with things like climate change, because there's nothing we can see and touch directly. There is no single foe to defeat. Worse, the only face we can legitimately attach to the issue is the one we see in the mirror every morning.
- Is immediate and visible. The nearer and more immediate the threat, the faster we respond to it. A saber tooth tiger gets more of our attention than a slowly advancing (or retreating) glacier. We will dive into a body of water to save a drowning child we see, but barely give a second thought to children dying halfway around the world from fully preventable causes. Evolutionarily this makes perfect sense, but it is a distinct liability for a species with the ability to fundamentally deplete resources that took hundreds of millions of years to accumulate over a few hundred years. Similarly, discussions about potential changes in 2100 tend to lose a lot of people.
- Is concrete. Statistical arguments really lose most people. Even the idea of smoking, with its very high statistical chance of leading to illness and premature death, is not compelling enough to get people to quit or to not take it up at all. The point here is that humans do better with certainty than with uncertain arguments, even though statistical methods are really solid and businesses and financial people use them every day to great effect. Uncertain, or statistical, arguments are far less effective than you might expect based on the (severity) x (likelihood) outcome of some things like climate change.
- Is something we can control. This means we have some sense of agency in the cause. If it's something that we feel we have very little control over, that serves to blunt our tendency towards action. The things we can control are the ones we react to best and with the most vigor. What sense of control does any one person have in the climate change story given that most think that even if their entire nation gave up burning fossil fuels, China would simply do it instead?
If I put in fruit trees because I wish to bolster my neighborhood's food security (true), and my neighbor has put in fruit trees after seeing mine because they remind him of how much he enjoyed their blossoms as a boy (true), these are completely identical actions to me. No difference between them.
By dropping my requirement that people do things for the same reason that I do them, and letting them do them for their own reasons, I have opened up a much wider set of possible avenues to engage people and to support their concrete actions.
Of course, once people discover that there are many changes that one can make that require very little in the way of modifying living habits, save money, save energy, and are good for the environment, then I believe that there's a far greater chance that more and more people will resonate with these actions and want to try them out for themselves.
So…I happen to believe that all of the myriad ways that 7 billion people are changing the ecosystems of the world are quite serious and deserve our very best attention, and that it is my job to discover and continue to refine the very best ways to reach the most people and support their taking concrete actions.
As it happens, personal resilience and community engagement are very neatly aligned with the same actions that climate change would have us undertake, but they seem to offer a tougher path to personal change than other ones.
Perhaps there's another way to see this, but this line of thinking explains why I have not chosen to make it the central argument for change, or even close to a central argument.
All that said, I am deeply grateful that the conversation is being held, and that dedicated people are looking closely at the matter, as I am glad there are scientists and activists concerned with every corner and facet of our earth's ecosystems and denizens.
I fully welcome the conversation happening here and am 100% open to any and all ideas about how to re-frame any and every issue that we think could or should be motivational (if not aspirational) towards changing behaviors so that we can create a world worth inheriting.
Chris, if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that it is better to be proactive than reactive and that the reason for doing so isn't as important as the action taken. Is that right? Whether a person responds more to the threat of economic collapse, resource depletion, climate change or any other interest (nostalgia!) isn't the most important factor - just that a positive change is made. Your focus in your work is to be as inclusive as possible in order to spread the word as much as possible.
Economic issues are the most concrete and immediate of the three E's for the general population. I would place resource depletion a distant second and climate change an even more distant third. My sense is that this is, in general, the weight given to the issues covered here at PP. Catch people's attention first where they are most likely to respond, while introducing them to the importance of the other two E's and how they all interact.
I am grateful for the work you do and respect the choice you've made. You've identified a niche and are filling it as a gateway to increased awareness. You and Adam have created a place where people can discuss these difficult challenges thoughtfully and with civility.
My own journey has led me to conclude that, while truly horrendous in scope and impact, economic collapse and resource depletion are survivable for some. But change the biosphere enough, and we are toast along with all the lifeforms dependent on the status quo. To me, that's the bottom line. I can't seem to get past that. I agree that it is a tougher path than the others when trying to engage people's attention and promote motivation for change. But, clearly there are those here on PP who would like more emphasis on it, and I appreciate this interview with Mark as a recognition of that interest. It's good to feel heard.
I suppose preparing revolves around what you imagine will happen. Will the end of industrial civilization be enough to tilt the odds towards continued existence or will life destroying planetary changes prevail? I don't have the answer to that so I prepare anyway.
Thanks for being open to the continuation of this conversation. I look forward to it.
Joyce
Thanks Chris for such an emotionally mature response. That approach to our continuing difficulties is the main reason I am a such fan of PP. No screaming and shouting, no politics or religion, no gnashing of teeth, no denigration of anyone; just a genuine effort to share wisdom. It sets the best tone for constructive conversations. All the other responses cloud the mind. Thank you!
PhysorgDue to its efforts, it's clear the CIA is taking the issue of global warning very seriously. Changes in geography, could for example, cause wars. If snow pack melts, more land becomes available, also new shipping lanes will open up—both could become zones of contention. There is also the possibility of strife as some areas receive more rainfall and others less. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-07-cia-co-sponsoring-geoengineering-reversing-global.html#jCp
I think it's important to realise that greenhouse gases consist of more than CO2. Using conservative numbers for CO2 equivalents, there is the equivalent of 470 ppm of CO2 already in the atmosphere. Methane is particularly potent, however, over shorter time scales and a more reasonable equivalent would be closer to 550 ppm, since methane may be relatively short lived but it also increasing, year on year (i.e. there is enough being emitted to replace the stuff being degraded and still increase the overall proportion).
So basing calculations of minimum heating expected should take into account all GHGs, not just CO2. We should also not assume that current rates of increase will not increase.
Tony
One of my favorite philosphers said once that if you are thinking you are already confused. The truth is perceived not reasoned. Plato's cave is for the rational mind and its limitations. If any explanation is necessary then none will do, if no explanation is necessary, than any will do.
Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive, for the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their heart and turn, so that I should heal them'In our petrol addicted society we go from air conditioned home to air conditioned car to air conditioned office. We can conceive of no other life, if the planet is dying we dream of remaking in accordance with our own imagination even though we can not even control ourselves. We perceive the world with our hearts and use our minds to justify our resultant actions. Yet we know the world not at all.
Science was mans bid to be god, the religion of our modern age, and for us to be god we first had to kill the world. It first had to be rendered meaningless, lifeless, unconscious and dead, the result of random chemical reactions. The eagle, the bear, the dog, the humpback whale, the dolphin and the sparrow have no innate natures that we need to respect, learn from, they ours to transform at our whim, even before we have taken the time to know them. Knowing them is not important, what is important is to bend them all to our will, because we worship power. Wealth and power above all else.
Let there be no god at all, least of all man. Let's take our place amoungst a living conscious universe, treating each other the world around us with love and respect. Rather than debate the reality of climate change, lets open our hearts and eyes and see the dying planet and act accordingly. Rather than debate economic policy, lets open our hearts and ears and hear what they are saying and act accordingly. Rather than debate social policy, lets open our hearts and hands and touch the suffering around and within us and act accordingly.
Sorry about all of that, but to hear climate change still debated throws me into fits of bombast. We all know what to do, lets find the courage to do it and get to work. This will not be a holywood drama with a quick ending, but a long and protracted struggle, that will take the best of minds and hearts.
Last time I looked, big rigs like mine with 80,000 GCVW ratings burn diesel. And lots of it. Any thoughts on that? How much more are you willing to pay for…everything? Go ahead and kick me where the interweb don't shine, but how 'bout it? Without trucks, Amerika stops. Before you answer, remember that most don't earn what the average PP member does, and can't think, then act on those thoughts. Give me a solution that doesn't involve the government. It's one thing to revel in the like mindedness of PP, and I do largely agree with some of you, but…execution. The killer of great ideas.
Science is man's bid to know what is real and what is true of the world; to face unvarnished truths without deceiving ourselves.
Stan
[quote=treemagnet]Last time I looked, big rigs like mine with 80,000 GCVW ratings burn diesel. And lots of it. Any thoughts on that? . . .
[/quote]
How about rebuilding a good light railroad system that would get some of those 18-wheelers off the interstates. Then convert a lot more of them to run on compressed natural gas. That would save fuel and extend engine lives with hardly any inconvenience. Even if the wellhead price of natural gas doubled it would still be cheaper than diesel and a higher natural gas price would assure an adequate supply for many years. Shale oil is already beginning to suffer from the "red queen effect", but shale gas and tight gas sands will not do so for many, many years given proper pricing.
I view natural gas as a bridge fuel; something to begin addressing the problems of fuel for transportation and agriculture. That it is a cleaner burning fuel is a plus and it is already largely responsible for reducing CO2 production of the U.S. back to about 1992 levels.
Stan
With his line of thinking that no one pays much attention if there is no imminent threat, or clear and present danger. Oh yes, another day, things are a mess, yadda yadda, carry on as normal folks…There has as yet been no real widespread consequences for the decades long party, and as long as no one says" last call" without any real conviction, things are not going to change. This is why David Suzuki and his ilk have not gotten very far in terms of real results, and ditto for Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and so on. Sure they have small wins under their belts, but nothing significant enough to make a dent in the overall problem. There is no real tangible, wrap your arms around crisis yet.
Treemagnet, you are right, if the trucks stop everything stops. I am not looking to government for solutions, for I have no confidence in government as it exists now. Our solutions will come from the smart few who "get it", and do something about it. Now that could be a person like you. It appears you are in the transport business. A day or two ago there was a daily digest article about how wasteful packaging contributed to un-necessary transportation costs, fuel use etc. My understanding is trucks are packed on the basis of volume or weight, depending on what is being shipped. Can the truckers not work with the suppliers to target things like excessive packaging and all the other crap that we really don't need, which will coincidentally also reduce oil demand for wasteful stuff. Done properly, there could be a significant impact on things like shipment frequencies, which would go to reducing CO2 emmisions. You know, quality vs. quantity. The outfits that work smarter will do well, and those that don't adapt, well, the market will decide. It's entirely possible there are too many rigs on the road. We can do better. People like you can effect change, if you put your mind to it and if you are prepared to be a part of the solution.
I also would like to take you to task [again 
] for your generalized comment re the PP membership and their financial circumstances. I won't speak for others but believe me, I am no where near the top of the money making pole… I am here because I have found a place with like minded people who I can interact with in a constructive, intelligent manner. How much people have - who knows?!? There are likely some wealthy people and also some regular Jane's and Joe's (like me!) Don't forget there is a global readership, so there are many facets of diversity. Think of it like the real estate market. There are lots of people in million dollar homes with million dollar mortgages…and lots of other debt to supplement the mortgage. Wealth can be illusionary so don't think you are necessarily walking in vaunted circles here.
Jan
It's clear that the gulf of misunderstanding with regards to transportation is beyond profound here at PP. You've got to expose yourself (no pun intended) to the reality of trucking…dry and reefer. And yeah Jan, I generalized to make a general point in a general kind of way…big deal. The point I was working towards was not just financial but goals, attitudes, life choices…and the willingness to dedicate resources to achieve those ends, personally or otherwise. Hopefully this clarifies my earlier thought. If not, let me know and I'll try again.
It's clear that the gulf of misunderstanding with regards to transportation is beyond profound here at PP.I would like to understand your point of view better. Please expand on this for me (us). Jan
Some of the difficulty in communicating about issues like climate change may be due to what I believe Treebeard is referring to: there are different kinds of knowing. It's something I've brought up in other threads. We associate left brain thinking with linear thought and language and right brain thinking with global thought and creativity. (See the book "A Stroke of Insight" for a fascinating look at the role each plays). Left brain cognition has clearly been more prized in our society but both are needed for a more complete picture of reality. You might even say we are suffering from a deficit of right brain intuition and are relying too heavily on only one type of knowing. IMO this is part of the imbalance we see all around us. We have lost our connection to the whole of nature in a way that has allowed us to exploit and damage the planet because we see ourselves as separate from it. Such hubris!
The information I've been taking in for quite some time now catalogs a litany of the ways we are damaging our biosphere. Scientific studies and reports by those already directly affected tell us what is happening. We can all make a list of species extinction, overfishing, habitat destruction, water and air pollution and so on. Add in our greed and self-interest in so many other aspects of life and the picture that emerges of humanity is a dark one. I know the truth of our danger both logically and intuitively. I feel it based on a lifetime of experience and observation. I realize to someone who only acknowledges left brain knowing this is so much gibberish and nonsence. But to those who "hear" and "see" it makes perfect sense. There is a deep knowing, a sense of wrongness in how we live. Our whole way of operating in the world has led us to where we are and what we face. How do we change enough, fast enough? Everything is so intertwined, so entangled. And so many are asleep or too focused on daily survival to care. Some of us are aware and looking for answers but we are the minority. A tiny minority. People like Chris are stepping up and doing their best to educate and alert others. Perhaps Jan is correct though and it will take a large enough crisis to shake things up enough to even get people's attention. Or a series of large enough crises. Unfortunately, by then so much damage may have occured that we won't have the ability to respond effectively.
Personally, I think the outer reflects the inner and that it is our inner transformation that is the key. The outer world is a mirror reflecting our beliefs and behaviors in a concrete way. It's here, right in our faces showing us where we are going wrong. Until we can know we are a part of a web of life larger than ourselves, we will continue on in the same selfish destructive way.
Long past my bedtime. Thanks Treebeard for your passion.
Joyce
Chris thinks that problems other than environmental are more likely to get us to change our ways. I used to think that, too. I don't now. The ability of humans to extend and pretend are infinite or seem to be. Chris has concentrated on financial and economic matters here but I wonder how many have changed their lives in ways that are actually meaningful to environmental degradation. Some are even still looking for a "solution" and one that doesn't involve giving up their current way of life or their current living.
So, of the four factors that Chris listed, how do each of the 3 E subjects stack up? How about climate change, and environmental degradation generally? It doesn't have a face, but then, in the 3 Es, what does? Is it immediate and visible? Certainly. We don't have to wait until 2100 to see what is happening, it's quite possible to look around and see the degradation already wrought over the past 50 years. How about Arctic sea ice? How about ocean garbage patches, dead zones and lack of big fish? How about the pine beetle advance? How about colony collapse disorder with bees? How about the distinct lack of song birds in some regions? How about extreme weather events? It would be quite possible to see real impacts now, which are probably much easier to visualise than debt levels or GDP growth slowdown. Is it concrete? Already covered. Is it something we can control? Well, we don't have agency over it but we sure as hell can make it a lot worse.
I agree with Chris that it doesn't matter what makes people make meaningful changes that will help mitigate or adapt to the predicament we're now in but I really don't see such changes happening on anything like a meaningful scale. In Kevin Anderson's talk last year, he showed how quickly emissions need to peak and come down to have a just a chance of keeping within even the potentially catastrophic rise of 2C. And this is just for climate change. 30% of wildlife has gone, since 1970 and the 6th extinction event is ongoing. So we really need serious changes now and I'm not sure what will get us to make those changes. Perhaps we need to emphasise ALL of the issues that comprise our predicament. Maybe the best way is to continually emphasise ALL of the issues but I certainly feel that environmental degradation is the most important, as the environment is crucial to our very lives, and those of our children and grandchildren.
Tony
In providing the Peak Prosperity site, Chris and Adam have given us all a location where we can share information, perspectives and insights. We've all been drawn here for one reason or another but something about the tenets of the Crash Course rings true above the mainstream chorus of 'everything is under control'.
The Economy, Energy, and Environment issues are all telling us the same thing but in different ways, namely that the way human societies are currently living is unsustainable. It's a three horse race for what will actually trigger (or has already triggered?) the changes that we have to go through but it is unimportant as no one wins regardless, since all of them are tied to the same runaway chariot. We do not get one or the other or some sequence of them, we get them all together.
I share the pragmatism that Chris articulated regarding building personal and community resilience. It doesn't matter which particular E or combination of Es motivates you to work towards improving your situation, it is your doing something about it that is important. No one knows exactly how things will play out so no one can be 100% prepared. No matter what though we can each try to get a little more prepared day by day and year by year.
Given this podcast and my professional life, the environment is obviously an important factor in my thinking but it was not enough to move me to action in my personal life. The economy sucks and my family's financial situation has suffered but that wasn't enough to make me actively pursue changes. What did it for me was actually the energy situation as explained by Chris in the Crash Course. Anyone who lived through the 70s has been aware of the limits to fossil fuel energy but learning about the diminishing returns evident in the EROEI of our energy sources is what broke down the last vestiges of my normalcy bias.
It doesn't matter what form of life you talk about, energy is the currency or the realm. Less energy flow means less of everything is supportable. In ecological terms, you've got plants that convert solar energy into carbohydrates, herbivores (deer, rabbits etc) that eat plants, carnivores (cats, wolves etc) that eat herbivores, and detritovores/decomposers that eat everything left over eventually. The key point though is that there are energy costs at every level:
The energy is passed on from trophic level to trophic level and each time about 90% of the energy is lost, with some being lost as heat into the environment (an effect of respiration) and some being lost as incompletely digested food (egesta). Therefore, primary consumers get about 10% of the energy produced by autotrophs, while secondary consumers get 1% and tertiary consumers get 0.1%. This means the top consumer of a food chain receives the least energy, as a lot of the food chain's energy has been lost between trophic levels. This loss of energy at each level limits typical food chains to only four to six links. (source)The same process holds for the complexity of human societies. Lots of energy flow allows for globalization and extra social 'trophic' levels. As the energy bonanza winds down, the number of levels that can be supported drops. Relocalization is the new fronteir.
Whether another financial disaster sucks up the capital needed to finance energy and other resource extraction activities or rising energy and environmental costs trigger an economic meltdown doesn't really matter. In any scenario, there is going to be more need for personal and local resiliency.
Mark
Fleas can be trained to believe that it is impossible to jump high.
I saw this lovely picture. In it you can see what the fuss is about. Those little dots. Notice how small it is in the scheme of things. See too how much real estate there is out there. How much room. How many resources. How bountiful and extravagant the cosmos is.
Are we fleas?
Firstly, in regard to what to do to reduce Co2 and more general resource consumption: I don't think federal government intervention, policy change, is the answer. I'll just summarize by saying that our government is too courrupt at this point, and we are in a process of decentralization. The answers must be at the local level in my opinion.
I'll give one sociologists take on it:
The problem at this level is twofold: A. people here in the US have been socialized into a taken-for-granted human contrived world that seems "normal". I can give many examples, but maybe just consider transportation. Even a hundred years ago traveling from coast to coast was a big trip, but now it takes a few hours. Two hundred years ago it was a really really big trip: think Lewis and Clark. People of the past were much much more limited in terms of movement. But the point is that the current generation, myself included, live with our now unprecidented mobility as a norm. It is "normal" to get into a personal car at any time and go virtually anywhere. The point: people do not give this up, or even modify their behavior in this area, easily. They do not know the historical context as this world is typically, the only world they've ever know; the techological, oil-based "norm" is reinforced continuously by everyone around them. Moreover, they like the convenience and so forth, and would prefer to not look at any of this very closely. We have extremely high Carbon lifestyles, but this appears as a "normal" world and way of doing things even though it is actually extreme and unprecidented.
This normative bias can change but, at least where I live it is a very slow process. It seems to me that it seldom changes by conscious choice, but more likely by coercive economic factors (e g high gas prices). A similar normative analysis can be applied to food, shelter and pretty much any area you like out here in consumer land. I think that most of the people at this site are consciously challenging the norms in multiple areas, but we are the minority where I live (that's for sure). But even those of us who are challenging consumerism and dependency on the system are typically, still using way way too much fossil fuels; it's probably not even close to enough reduction per capita. Which brings me round to point two.
Secondly, this "normal" human contrived world has tremendous intertia and limitations that are structural. For instance: I don't have the choice to take the train to Memphis. I did when I was a kid, but sometime after WWII policy decisions were made that we would become an automobile society. This was perhaps reflective of our individualistic tendencies, but more likely, it was a matter of corporate influence and PR (pretty well documented). Anyway, the interestates were built and the passenger train system dismantled. Now, this is structural and not easily changed or undone at this point. People live within this system without alternatives and, again, as if it is "normal". (Side note: how does a country that is 17 trillion dollars in debt build a new rail system?)
The point is, try as I might, I cannot easily - if at all - overcome my dependence on the system and oil. My life is deeply wrapped up with it at the structural level. I can change a lot and I have, but, as an example, everything I buy involves oil. So, let's say I want to put a tank on the house to catch roof water in order to use less oil; but it's made from oil, using oil, and trasported to me with oil. We are embedded in this system, with structural limitations, in virtually everything we do.
We do what we can, but I doubt it will be enough, by enough people, and soon enough. In my assessment, the situation requires dramatic changes in lifestyle by large numbers of people here in consumerland. This isn't happening.
To be honest, although I keep trying, I'm really not optomistic about the situation. I feel really bad, for today's kids and future generations.
…as I have read every statistic and followed Dr. Cochrane threads since it went up with little commentary.
How about you personally begin by:
Walking more.
Ride your bike.
Recycle at home.
Plan your meals and do not waste.
Use waste like coffee grounds in your garden and other soil amending products.
Use plastic containers as plant containers.
Use paper instead of plastic.
Buy recycle bags for packing your groceries at the store.
Make your own food like spaghetti noodles and place them in sealed jars. Save on packaging wherever you can.
The use of your automobile should be for necessary trips like work and where the math makes sense walk to the store or stop on the way home. Point being, be conscious of where you are and what you pass and eliminate many trips just by coming and going to necessary places. The kids get driven nowhere. Biking and walking is great for them and parents don't need to constantly being in control of their lives. Allow them to think, get in shape and day dream often, uninterupted. Please. No negotiation with kids, ever. They will be fine so long as you give them rules and boundaries.
Leed by example.
Stop ripping Chris for not doing enough as just having this discussion is a huge leep forward for many people reading this stuff for the first time.
Many of these things we all do but we need to do better. Make it a joyful exclamation when describing these simple tasks to friends or families. I compliment my wife in front of people, like the set up Man and she modestly and sincerely is flattered, and you would be surprised at how many do this now, recycle, make fewer trips, and things like that.
Talking and doing are two different animals. Fighting among like minded people is counter productive and very discouraging. Just do your best and reasonable people will follow without a brain cramp from do gooders. IMHO.
Eventually we will have to face down all of these issues so be helpful when it does. As for now, we can only hope and pray that a horrific accident isn't in the cards before we see what we must do as a world community as everything done in China for instance is done to us. In the mean time just enjoy life, be joyful and entertaining, and during this process of living life be conscious of the fact that someone is watching and the actions you are doing at the moment may just cause many people to figure it out.
Gone golfing and I WALK! Car pool with my son and he picks me up. Even better.
Yogi
The mind makes a great worker but a terrible master. Think Nazi doctors experimenting on fellow human beings in their quest for knowledge. Or any despot or tyrant who is able seize power and rule a country, no small mental feat or excercise of will. Look at modern industrial agriculture that thinks dosing million of acres of land with glyphosate (roundup) a general biocide that renders our lands so dead and lifeless that only genetically modified organisms can survive there a rational approach to growing food. This is farming?! Yet life persists, it dosen't complain, it adapts, "weeds" now invade these lifeless plains that we have created.
Here in the USA we have more people in prison than any other country in the world, mass shooting occur on a regular basis (sorry, you can't explain that on an individual basis), 1.6 million people here are homeless, one in five children here experience hunger on a regular basis, one in five young women in our culture will experience rape or attempted rape, on average 600 women a day are assulted, we spend more money on armaments in the us than the rest of the world combined, we consume more elicit drugs than any other country in the world fueling drug wars on our boarders, political and economic corruption is endemic. Will a culture like this respond "intelligently" to global climate change?
I would like to make the case that peak oil and climate change are diseases that have invaded a body that is already out of order to restore balance. Such distortions already existed before we knew anything about climate change and peak anything. The Hopi word for this is koyaanisqatsi, Godfrey Reggio has made a visually intense film of the same name that describes the same which I can highly recommend.
Jan has used the more familiar terms of left and right brain to describe different modes of perception to lend scientific legitimacy to the concpet (thank you). Supression of our "emotional" nature, to often thought as the cause of our problems, leaves us badly out balance, disaffected, disconnected, and extremely prone to violence. Connection to the heart not only restores balance and promotes healing, but opens the gate to higher levels of thought and perception.
To attempt to address climate change and peak oil alone will be fruitless because they are not the cause of the problem but the effects of a deeper disease. Dan Ariely piece describes not the wiring of "normal" human beings, but is the measure of our current imbalance. Statistical analysis necessarily beccomes self referential as it establishes the current status quo as the norm.
If we live to much in our hearts then our reaction to our current predicament may be nothing but ineffectual hand wringing and paralysis, but perhaps even that is perhaps better than a life in the head that has lead to the monstrous disaffected violence we now experience on a daily basis.