Evolutionary psychology and peak oil: A Malthusian inspired "heads up" for humanity. -- by Michael E. Mills, Ph.D.
Chapter 4: What can psychological science, and evolutionary psychology in particular, offer to help to address these problems?
Can humans be "smarter than yeast?" Can we be the only species that can successfully avoid ecological overshoot and collapse? Can we differentiate linear from exponential increases in growth? Can we accept that some resources on our planet, particularly oil, are finite? Can we forgo some short term gratifications for long term sustainability? Can we understand that our actions today may have some profound consequences for future generations, for our children and grandchildren?
These are psychological problems -- are we psychologically sophisticated enough to manage our own collective behavior to achieve sustainable human societies on a finite planet?
Evolved adaptations (including psychological adaptations) are all solutions to problems of inclusive fitness in ancestral environments. Our ancestors' "inclusive fitness" refers to the number of genes they projected into the next generation via reproduction, and by helping those who shared their genes (close kin).
Inclusive fitness has been the "designer" of human psychological adaptations.
Evolution cannot look forward; it cannot anticipate what it has never encountered. We have no psychological adaptations to avoid ecological overshoot. In fact, we have just the opposite.
Here's the sobering rub:
Inclusive fitness is always relative to others; it is not absolute.
That is, nature doesn't "say,"
"Have 2 kids (or help 4 full sibs), and then you can stop. Good job! You did your genetic duty, you avoided contributing to ecological overshoot, and you may pass along now..."
"Out-reproduce your competitors. Your competitors are all of the genes in your species' gene pool that you do not share. If the average inclusive fitness score is 4, then you go for 5... "
In other words, our psychological adaptations are designed to not just "keep up with the Joneses" but to "do better than the Joneses." This is in whatever terms that increase inclusive fitness -- number of children, and things that have led to them, such as status, multiple wives, resource acquisition and control, etc.
An unfortunately corollary of the relativity of inclusive fitness is that an organism can also increase its inclusive fitness by reducing the inclusive fitness of others. That potentially makes murder, genocide, warfare, and other nasty stuff potential genetic pay offs.
Game theory
Game theorists suggest that, with every interaction with others, we have a choice to either cooperate or to "defect."
For more on this see:
How can we set up a situation wherein it is in everyone's interest to both reduce oil consumption, as well as invest in renewable energy sources?
Evolutionary psychology and the problem of the "Tragedy of the Commons"
Evolutionary psychology suggests we will tend to be altruistic (not expect repayment) toward close kin (especially those with high reproductive value), and we will tend to be nice to non-kin with whom we have established an on-going, mutually beneficial reciprocal relationship. We will tend to be selfish otherwise. Also, we may be spiteful (hurt another even at a cost to self) to reduce the inclusive fitness of others, especially when they are reducing our inclusive fitness and/or the overall resource pie is shrinking.
We will tend to act altruistically when certain conditions are met. One of the them is called "Hamilton's Rule."
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Obviously, we are inclined toward nepotism.
Indirect reciprocity (also called "strong reciprocity," or "generalized reciprocity").
We tend to behave as if we still lived in small tribes as did our ancestors. This “error” makes generalized cooperation, or "strong reciprocity," possible. We may be willing to help strangers, without an expectation of repayment, as long as we perceive them as members of our "tribe." It may be a set of adaptations that were designed for small in-group cohesion during times of high inter-tribal warfare with out-groups.
Today, the capacity to be altruistic to in-group strangers may result from a serendipitous generalization (or "mismatch") between ancestral tribal living and today's large societies that entail many single interactions with anonymous strangers. We think members of our in-group are part of our "tribe." Result: strong reciprocity -- acting like a "good Samaritan," cognitive concepts of justice, ethics and human rights.
Ironically strong reciprocity also has a dark side. It may also underlie adaptations for aggression toward "out-groups," including the capacity for xenophobia, racism, warfare, genocide. And, for fighting over increasingly scarce resources.
Strong reciprocity is more likely to occur in a "positive sum game" (when the entire pie is growing) because the costs of non-cooperating are higher. One simply has to cooperate to expect a progressively larger slice of the pie in the future.
So, generalized reciprocity works well when the overall resource pie is growing (in a "positive sum game").
But, as was noted above, the Peak Oil crisis is a "shrinking energy pie" situation (a "negative sum game").
A shrinking energy pie:
Successful adaptation to peak oil requires that the whole world to cooperate as oil resources dwindle. Is that possible?
Fooling evolved mental adaptations with virtual reality "psychological illusions."
So, what are we up against to avoid ecological overshoot? Nothing less tenacious than human nature. Hopeless? Not sure yet.
If we are to have a chance to be "smarter than yeast", we have to be smart enough to understand and manipulate our own psychological adaptations. We have to "fool Mother Nature." We have to agree to fool ourselves.
Can we? Yes. In fact, it happens all the time today.
We can enjoy films, TV and photos because they were not part of our ancestral environment. We have no adaptations to counter these novel tricks -- we often have difficulty distinguishing between virtual reality and reality.
For example, when we watch a TV sitcom such as "Friends" we are fooled (at least on an emotional level) into thinking the characters really are our friends. We may smile and say hello if we see Jennifer Aniston on the street (she was in our living room, after all).
But, don't expect a reciprocal response, though. To Jennifer, of course, we are an intruding stranger she has never met.
We cry and laugh at movies, despite the fact that we know what we are watching is just light projected through film, the actors are reading from a script, and there is a sound guy holding a boom mic standing just out of the frame. Sure, it is sad that the ship sank, but no one on the set actually drowned. Nevertheless, our psychological adaptations are fooled, and we may leave the theater a bit misty.
So, just as we can be fooled by perceptual illusions, we can also be fooled by virtual reality psychological illusions.
Can we fool our psychological adaptations to help to live sustainably on a finite planet? Probably.
If we know enough about what "psychological buttons" we have as part of our evolved human nature, we might be able to figure out which of our own psychological buttons to push to modify, or self- control, our own behavior.
Engineered social self-influence, intentionally designed activate psychological adaptations, may help to modify our own behavior to help to mitigate ecological challenges. For example, we could consent to allow government sponsored Public Service Announcements (PSAs) -- media advertisements -- to help to change our self-destructive oil addiction.
PSAs have helped to reduce another self-destructive habit -- smoking:
PSAs have also helped to increase the use of seat belts while driving:
We need many more PSAs to help to reduce our self-destructive oil addition, and to encourage the use of renewable energy.
We might also use our knowledge of our psychological buttons to help us "keep 'down' with the Joneses." That is, if "down" is redefined to mean higher status. Psychologist Robert Cialdini has written several books about using "psychological illusions" to persuade people to do things they otherwise might be disinclined to do. For example:
In one San Diego suburb, Cialdini's team went door to door, ringing the doorknobs with signs about energy conservation. There were four types of signs, and each home received one randomly, every week, ...for a month. The first sign urged the homeowner to save energy for the environment's sake; the second said to do it for future generations' benefit. The third sign pointed to the cash savings that would come from conservation. The fourth sign featured Cialdini's trick: "The majority of your neighbors are undertaking energy saving actions every day."
...(Cialdini also) decided to target the below-average energy users with a special message.
"When we sent them the message saying you're doing better than your neighbors, we put a smiley face emoticon next to their score," he said. "And that kept them down below what any of their neighbors were doing."
Note how simply redefining high social status (in this case, energy conservation) helped to change behavior.
In addition, women may have a special role to play. They need to be prepped to find "ecological men" of limited resource consumption really, really sexy. Unfortunately, sexual selection has designed women to tend to prefer "alpha males" -- high status, high consumption, high resource control men (in ancestral times, they helped women's children survive and thrive). Men are adapted to do their darned best to give women what they want, or face reproductive oblivion. One way that today's men have demonstrated their high status has been to drive big SUVs.
However, what if tomorrow women found the guy behind the wheel of an electric car, electric scooter, or a bicycle irresistible? And, what if women sexually rejected the guy driving a big, gas guzzling SUV?
And, again, powerful media / advertising messages can help to fool our psychological adaptations. (This is called "social advertising" or " social marketing.") We need to develop a strong "social narrative" of mutual cooperation on a finite planet.
However, right now, we are getting advertising messages from oil and coal companies that implicitly discourage the use of clean, renewable energy. For example, here is a commercial developed by the coal industry that makes some dubious claims:
Note in the video above that the coal companies are not trying to directly sell you coal. They are attempting to change your attitudes about coal, and thus create a social and political climate favorable to their industry.
Here is a parody commercial -- an oil company trying to change our attitudes about mixing oil and water:
Below is a video parody of a "clean coal" TV commercial:
Needed: A sustainability movement and world leadership that is not "near- sighted."
A new social movement is needed - a sustainability movement. This is particularly important for anyone who plans to live in the future.
Young people in particular need to mobilize and demand change now. A grass-roots movement of the magnitude of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and the women's rights movement of the 1970s, is needed. Today no one wants to be called a racist or a sexist. Those movements had clearly defined out-groups to vilify as the "enemy" -- and that may have helped to mobilize and motivate activists.
But who is the enemy now? There is no out-group. The enemy is us. We are fighting against ourselves -- our base psychological adaptations to compete for relative status, mates and resources.
And calling someone a "non-sustainablist" doesn't have the same stigma or sting. Perhaps sometime in the future it will.
In addition, will those who are currently powerful expend their political capital to effect the desperately needed emergency transition to renewable energy, and do so in time? This is an ultimate issue of vision and leadership.
There is the rub.
Here is a brief video about the problem, and what we need to do to help to prepare for a post-carbon future.
Politicians are like weather vanes; our job is to make the wind blow. -- David Brower
The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t un-see it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you're accountable. -- Arundhati Roy
You can help to get the word out. You can help to inform your family and friends. Email them the link to this, and to other, peak oil web pages (see below for more resources). You can place posts with relevant web links on your social media pages about the problem. You can keep informed. You can meet with others in your community who understand the problem. You can help your community develop the resources, and resilience, to prepare -- to re-localize and become increasingly self-sufficient.
Below is a video clip from the film Fuel about the "bottom up" political change that is needed.
As noted in the video clips, you can help to inform and lobby politicians. You can vote out of office those who don't support an emergency transition to renewable energy.
You can start to "be the change you want to see" by conserving energy and using renewable energy. Sure, it may be a very small contribution. But other people will notice.
Let's do our best to recognize and to accept the serious oil depletion problem we face, and let's work cooperatively to help to mitigate what is likely to be a very challenging and difficult transition period to renewable energy.
Post Carbon Institute helps individuals and communities understand and respond to the environmental, societal, and economic crises created by our dependence on fossil fuels.
Richard Heinberg's personal website. Books, videos, Museletter newsellter.
"peak oil aware" psychotherapists who know the stress of the dawning awareness of Peak Oil, and who wish to assist others in learning how to transform any frozen or destructive emotional reactions into more proactive, productive responses.
PeakOilPreparation If you would like to read and/or contribute to a new wiki about preparing for peak oil.
1. Initially, higher prices for energy and food items and a major recession. 2. Longer term, a decline in economic activity. 3. Transportation difficulties and electrical outages. 4. Possible collapse of the monetary system. 5. Failure of economic assumptions to hold. 6. Changed emphasis to more local production. 7. Reduced emphasis on debt. 8. Reduced emphasis on insurance and pensions. 9. More people will perform manual labor. 10. Resource wars and migration conflicts. 11. Changes in family relationships. 12. Eventual population decline.
A more upbeat video about communities that are working to develop local renewable energy, including the Island of Aero in Denmark which is almost energy independent:
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We also need to develop economic systems that are sustainable -- that do not require ever expanding economic growth to avoid collapse. Here is a film trailer from the movie Hooked on Growth.
91-86-90. Steve Crower, an energy investment banker from Denver, CO, presents the underlying data of the world's petroleum supplies and why we should pay attention to it...
Peak Moment TV a television series emphasizing positive responses to energy decline and climate change through local community action. Also available at Global Public Media
Peak OIl? ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) -- excellent, balanced presentation. It includes interviews with Colin Campbell, Robert Hirsch, Chris Skrebowski, and others.
Discovery Channel's Addicted to Oilreported by Thomas Friedman (author of "The World is Flat").
Kenneth Deffeyes, author of "Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak," explains his theories and looks at oil alternatives. http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=072705
< span lang="en-us">Lecture by physics professor David Goodstein, author of "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil." Lecture given at Caltech on 10/13/2004: http://today.caltech.edu/theater/list?subset=science(search in list for lecture)
Lecture by chemistry professor Nathan Lewis: "Powering the Planet: Where in the World Will Our Energy Come From?"
Interview with 'Twilight in the Desert' author Matt Simmons. Are the Saudis running out of oil, and are their reserve estimates accurate? What other sources might help fill the gap? (Originally aired: 06/15/2005) http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=061505
BBC Connections: The Trigger Effect. Excellent program on our interdependence on fragile links between different forms of technology, with a focus on the 1965 New York blackout, and the cascading technological collapses that followed. The film has some quite ironic coincidences, showing the twin towers and an incoming flight with the flight number 911. This is the documentary that prompted the 1996 film by the same name.
DVDs:
Collapse. Film featuring Michael Ruppert, by director Chris Smith. (2010)
History Channel -- Mega Disasters -- Oil Apocalypse (2007)
Energy Roundtable -- Financial Sense Newshour Features discussions with James Howard Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency," and Richard Heinberg, author, "Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World." Also, Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil:Current Events, "... we passed the peak on December 16, 2005..."
U.S. National Commission on Energy Policy -- Oil Shockwave report.
On June 23, 2005, a group of nine former White House cabinet and senior national security officials convened to participate in a simulated working group of a White House cabinet. Their task: to advise an American president as the nation grapples with an oil crisis over a seven-month period. As they enter the room, they are unaware of the circumstances or nature of the oil crisis.
The Behavioral Aspects of Peak Oil: Basic Contingencies, by Lyle Grant. Summary at TheOilDrum.com, and full paper (PDF) "Peak Oil as a Behavioral Problem" that appeared in Behavior and Social Issues, 16, 65-88 (2007)
PeakOilBlues.com-- "peak oil aware" psychotherapists who know the stress of the dawning awareness of Peak Oil, and who wish to assist others in learning how to transform any frozen or destructive emotional reactions into more proactive, productive responses.
Money Talks " ...our economy fails to charge us the "true cost" of denying future generations the fossil energy they might need to feed themselves 50 years hence."
Earth Clock -- population, etc. http://www.celsias.com/2007/11/04/earth-clock/
Websites related to Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI, EROI, or "net energy" or "exergy") -- one of the most essential concepts to understand with regard to oil and renewable energy:
Hope for some possible energy "technofixes" (knock on wood that they
arrive in time, are rapidly scalable, have a high EROEI, are renewable, clean and cheap):
The wiki New Energy Congress reviews the most promising claims for up-and-coming clean, renewable, affordable, reliable energy technologies, in order to come up with a weighted list of recommendations of the best technologies. See, in particular, their Top 100 Technologies. Some of these are controversial (a few might be criticized as outright cranks), while others are scientifically proven and commercially available. See, in particular, the MagLev Wind Power Generator.
WSJ: The World Has Plenty of Oil, By Nansen G. Saleri "Where do reasonable assumptions surrounding peak oil lead us? My view, subjective and imprecise, points to a period between 2045 and 2067 as the most likely outcome."
"Most people assume linearity in environmental processes, but the world is largely non-linear: it's a complex system. An important feature of complex systems is that we don’t know how they work. We don’t understand them except in a general way; we simply interact with them. Whenever we think we understand them, we learn we don’t. Sometimes spectacularly."
Youtube video: Global Warming and Other Catastrophes Humorous (?) look at previous botched predictions of pending world catastrophes in the media (to the soundtrack of REM's "It's the End of the World As We Know It")
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