Wind turbines, food miles, biomass, vertical farming, carbon sequestration — the Internet is a textbook study in overstimulation. There’s a lot of information, and a lot of it is depressing. But beneath the techno-speak and the climate predictions run a deeper current and a bigger set of questions.
What are we, the human race, trying to accomplish? Do we have enough time and political will? What does it mean to live off the sun, and why aren’t we doing it yet? Is it possible to transform an oil-based infrastructure, including all the magnificent medical, literary, technological, communications, and human-rights improvements that it has enabled? Does preventing global warming justify the short-term sacrifice of comfort — or even, in some cases, the suffering — that may come with it, particularly in the developing world?
Most economists predict that moving to cleaner energy and more sustainable systems will stimulate the economy and bring numerous benefits to the U.S. and the world. But the magnitude of the challenge before us has few historical precedents. And despite the optimism of most environmentalists, as a species we have innate biases that make us ill-equipped to take that challenge on.
Dan Ariely points out in his book Predictably Irrational that all kinds of hidden factors influence our decisions, no matter how much we like to believe otherwise. Sometimes, these cues prompt us to make choices against our self-interest, as in the case when shoppers choose an inferior product for the accompanying FREE GIFT! — but later have to replace the product at a higher cost. Instead of paying exactly what something is worth to us, factors like the initial exposure to an object, its context, and even the cost of the items around it on the shelf determine how much we are actually willing to pay. By assigning the wrong value to objects, we spend money and time in ways that we might not without those influences. Part of the human brain knows that getting 12 pairs of cheap socks for the price of six pairs that will last is not a good deal — but sometimes that part of the brain shuts off.
In the same way, we can’t accurately price risk and the possible penalties of global warming. The scientific community tells us that human activity is rapidly heating the globe beyond its ability to maintain temperatures that we are accustomed to, and survey after survey shows that the general public accepts this fact and is worried about the unpredictable consequences of a changing climate. Yet a recent study by Deloitte & Touche USA showed that more than a third of citizens are unwilling to spend more for alternative energy, even though more than 75 percent of respondents supported the idea of clean energy because of its positive effect on U.S. energy security, jobs, and the environment. We believe that renewable energy is important, but we behave as if we can keep paying for the cheap stuff and somehow get all the benefits of the better and more expensive choice.
So what does this mean for university sustainability? On one level, understanding these behavioral cues is vital to building and planning for maximum efficiency. Architects and engineers, working together and separated from the switch-happy, irrational sides of themselves, can include all kinds of features that will compensate for the inefficiencies of individual behavior. Behaviors that make a big difference in the carbon footprint of an institution can either be mitigated or promoted through the design of the structure itself.
For example, how often do you flip on the lights when you enter a room even though the room has plenty of available daylight? If the choice to turn lights on or off is made by a smart, automated system, then we become unconscious supporters of energy-efficiency. Where water use is regulated by low-flow heads and gray-water recycling systems rather than by students’ willingness to forgo a long shower, water bills can be curtailed. Best of all, most of these energy savers require little to no real sacrifice on the part of residents. At the end of the day, a lot of our energy problems will be solved by tech geeks working patiently through these challenges and making real changes to the way we get our energy, our food, and our materials.
But just as much responsibility lies with us as individuals. We must understand both the real risks of climate change and our own difficulty in assessing those risks. How do the costs of what we can achieve (abundant and renewable energy, cleaner air and water, a stable climate, habitats preserved, millions of human deaths avoided) compare with the costs of what we will be giving up (common guesses include SUVs, urban sprawl, continuous air conditioning, and around-the-world vacations)? The answers are neither easy nor imminent, but the ability to think outside of our biases and instinctual reactions will certainly change the way we frame the questions. —Xarissa Holdaway
Xarissa Holdaway, one of May’s Buildings & Grounds guest bloggers, is campus e-news coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation’s campus-ecology project. You can read her previous posts here.
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