Human behavior change

Climate change will affect human welfare, and changing behavior may mitigate the threat. Technologies exist to facilitate the development of proactive behavior and problem solving, as well as the reduction of human contributions to global warming.

Background

Humans regularly adapt their behavior to daily and seasonal weather changes with ease. With global climate change, however, the adaptation demands facing humans are expected to be extraordinary. There is scientific consensus that human activities will need to adapt substantially to meet the anticipated changes of the near future and beyond. Such changes will demand local and regional adaptations in daily individual and community functioning, as well as sustained behavior changes by individuals, organizations, and systems to reduce or cease activities affecting the climate deleteriously in a more global and persisting way. and environmental psychology provide tools for making such change occur.

Preparing for Climate Change through Behavior Change

Global climate change demands different preparation activities from different people. This variation is partly a function of the varied effects of climate change experienced by different regions of the globe. Some regions have become hotter or cooler, drier or wetter, or have more or less seasonal variation in weather than previously known. Necessary individual, organizational, and systems-level preparations vary by location. Relevant factors include latitude, longitude, elevation above sea level, and the time span considered.

People adapt by adjusting where and how they live, making home improvements to meet new climate challenges, and developing personal climate disaster plans. Assessment and acquisition of skills needed in the event of a climate-related crisis also will be necessary. Community organizations seek to protect whole communities and neighborhoods. Organizations, such as businesses and governments, adapt by changing locations for headquarters, road systems, and other construction, as well as arrangements for food, medical, and other natural resource distribution. They also prepare on the systems level by engaging with other governments to coordinate responses to challenges should they arrive, such as dispersing aid and assistance and ensuring vital communications.

Lessening the Impact of Climate Change through Behavior Change

Individuals, organizations, and governments must consider what they can do to lessen the continued development and ultimate impact of using available knowledge and technologies. For individuals, education about carbon footprints, water-use habits, use of natural space, and resource use related to climate change will be a first step. After understanding their personal behavior, people need to alter their lifestyles, travel patterns, and consumption of goods to lessen their carbon footprints and other environmental impacts. Such proactive and altruistic behavior lessens the overall burden on those most affected by climate change and perhaps lessens the overall damage that may occur.

Individuals also should consider changing how they influence other individuals and the relevant organizations and systems in which they interact. They may examine their work and governmental behavior and policies affecting climate. They may advocate for change to initiate and reinforce larger systems adjustments, as well as smaller change in local communities, such as within a family or among friends and neighbors. Climate change is not affected only by individuals, however; organizational and systems behavior also matters.

Governments and businesses are the largest global consumers of energy, having much greater carbon footprints and environmental impacts than individuals. Therefore, attempts to lessen the overall impact of climate change must incorporate organizational and systems-level adjustments. For families, this may mean assessing the overall impact of living far away from schools and workplaces. Businesses and the government could similarly assess their employees’ air travel and consider ways to minimize or replace such travel. At a systems level, efforts such as the Montreal Protocol and Kyoto Protocol began to encourage greater coordinated efforts across larger systems of human behavior. The Paris Climate Agreement, which replaced earlier frameworks, continued this work.

Climate Change, Behavioral Economics, and Managing Human Behavior

Individuals, organizations, and systems do not enact behavior merely based on morals, principles, or theories. Incentives, such as positive and negative reinforcement, as well as costs, such as punishments, play a role. In effect, human behavior is subject to behavioral economics—a valuable tool for changing human behavior. Examination of key behaviors needing change among individuals, organizations, and systems, coupled with identification of key incentives and costs, can be used to encourage change. Rebates, taxes, credits, budgets, fines, barter, and allowances for different climate-related behaviors are examples of how behavioral economics may be applied for both businesses and individuals. Similarly, organizations such as governments can be subject to incentives, such as basing the right to import or export goods on climate-related practices within a particular country. At the systems level, governments can develop agreements with one another that suit the goals of preparing for climate change and enacting behavior to lessen its impact.

Context

Scientific advances allow humans to predict, shape, and respond to future change by adapting both individual and collective behavior. The ability of humans to communicate globally, cooperatively, and quickly increased dramatically as a function of modern communications technologies. These technologies facilitate the communication of complex environmental and behavioral information, along with insights into the dynamics of human behavioral economics, market forces, and the connectedness of people across the globe. Such abilities may be combined with psychological technology to affect and shape human behavior at the individual, organizational, and systems levels, and thoughtful and sustained leadership can provide solutions to the pressing climate problems ahead.

Key Concepts

• adaptation: the process through which entities adjust in response to external circumstances
• altruism: a pattern of individual behavior performed with the intent of fostering benefit to others or a larger social group and not necessarily the self
• behavioral economics: the study of the combined economic and psychological principles affecting human behavior and decision making
• environmental psychology: the study of the interaction between behavior and the environment among individuals, groups, organizations, and systems
• negative reinforcement: stimuli causing behavior to increase; individuals stop performing specific behavior to avoid the stimuli
• positive reinforcement: stimuli causing behavior to increase; individuals perform a behavior to experience the stimuli
• punishment: a stimulus applied to decrease a behavior
• systems theory: approaches to understanding interdependent behavior within and among groups or systems

Bibliography

Brown, Lester B. Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.

"Climate Change and Human Behaviour." Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 6, 6 Nov. 2022, pp. 1441-1442.

Camerer, Colin F., George Lowenstein, and Matthew Rabin, eds. Advances in Behavioral Economics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Gifford, Robert. Environmental Psychology: Principles and Practice. 4th ed. Colville, Wash.: Optimal Press, 2007.

Hernandez, Mindy. "Is Behavioral Science the Secret Ingredient for Effective Climate Action?" World Resources Institute, 18 Feb. 2022, www.wri.org/insights/behavioral-science-effective-climate-action. Accessed 13 Dec. 2024.