From the University of British Columbia
Delayed gratification hurts climate change cooperation
Time is a huge impediment when it comes to working together to halt the effects of climate change, new research suggests.
A study published today in the journal Nature Climate Change reveals that groups cooperate less for climate change mitigation when the rewards of cooperation lay in the future, especially if they stretch into future generations.
“People are often self-interested, so when it comes to investing in a cooperative dilemma like climate change, rewards that benefit our offspring – or even our future self – may not motivate us to act,” says Jennifer Jacquet, a clinical assistant professor at New York University’s Environmental Studies Program, who conducted the research while a postdoctoral fellow working with Math Prof. Christoph Hauert at the University of British Columbia.
“Since no one person can affect climate change alone, we designed the first experiment to gauge whether group dynamics would encourage people to cooperate towards a better future.”
Researchers at UBC and two Max Planck Institutes in Germany gave study participants 40 Euros each to invest, as a group of six, towards climate change actions. If participants cooperated to pool together 120 Euros for climate change, returns on their investment, in the form of 45 additional Euros each, were promised one day later, seven weeks later, or were invested in planting oak trees, and thus would lead to climate benefits several decades down the road – but not personally to the participants. Although many individuals invested initially in the long-term investment designed to simulate benefits to future generations, none of the groups achieved the target.
“We learned from this experiment that even groups gravitate towards instant gratification,” says Hauert, an expert in game theory, the study of strategic decision-making.
The authors suggest that international negotiations to mitigate climate change are unlikely to succeed if individual countries’ short-term gains are not taken into consideration.
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DirkH says:
October 22, 2013 at 3:52 am
Ah, sorry. Fair point.
Please accept that I meant no offense in raising historical unpleasantness.
My wit is blunted by my small-minded parochialism.
“Definition of AGITPROP: propaganda; especially: political propaganda promulgated chiefly in literature, drama, music, or art” Merriam-Webster Paid agitprop. What a gig.
That Eisenhower warning is increasingly important:
“In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
• and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.”
Except the two dangers of domination of the scholars and domination of public policy aren’t exactly opposite. The real danger is that they corrupt each other and we accept it as cooperation.
Another study on how to con us better….
….while ignoring the fact they have been wrong about everything
There’s a flaw in the experiment. The researchers provided the investment cash rather than requiring participants to use their own money as would be the case in the real world. Without demonstrating that this make no differences, extrapolation of results is invalid. All this experiment says is that in an artificial game, this particular group of subjects behaved in a particular way.
This authors of this experiment, as have many other similar studies, articles and books recently, arrogantly take for granted that AGW is of the ‘giant meteor is going to hit Earth at 13:23 hours GMT, May 3rd, 2072, with 100% certainty’ calibre, and then proceed to wonder why people can be so selfish as to not want to sacrifice anything to solve it.
Had the experiment used the meteor problem on a control group of subjects, the study would have revealed that a) people are not selfish, particularly not when it comes to their children and grandchildren, and b) people do not consider AGW to be a problem worth sacrifice.
Gary said: “There’s a flaw in the experiment. The researchers provided the investment cash rather than requiring participants to use their own money as would be the case in the real world. ”
A great point. Perhaps all they’ve demonstrated is that people (politicians) spending our money will spend it to suit themselves on a short timescale. This may explain the mania for wind turbines by the bucketful today for politicians to grandstand over when a gradual adaptation is less damaging to economies in terms of cost and the direction of resources.
Nobel Prize winner in Medicine Sir Peter Medawar:
“the spread of secondary and tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.”
DirkH says:
October 22, 2013 at 3:52 am
M Courtney says:
October 22, 2013 at 12:07 am
“Our grandchuildren will never forgive us…
Just like we resent our grandparents for concentrating on WW2 instead of the Millenium Bug.”
Your mileage as a Brit will SURELY vary; but I personally DO resent that generation for MAKING WW2.
Here in UK we can now access PBS on our TV. They are currently running (at least over here) a series on WW2. If you know little of the history of what led up to that war, what happened during it , what could well have happened on both sides of the Atlantic had we not concentrated on WW2 and its aftermath you would do well to watch some or all of those episodes.
It appears that these scientists have just confirmed the Climate Change truths that P. J. O’Rourke espoused in his book: “Don’t Vote. It Just Encourages The Bastards”. Chapter on climate change as follows:
CLIMATE CHANGE
There’s not a thing you can do about it. Maybe climate change is a threat, and maybe climate change has been tarted up by climatologists trolling for research grant cash. It doesn’t matter. There are 1.3 billion people in China, and they all want a Buick. Actually, if you go more than a mile of two outside China’s big cities, the wants are more basic. People want a hot plate and a piece of methane-emitting cow to cook on it. They want a carbon-belching moped, and some CO2-disgorging heat in their houses in the winter. And air-conditioning wouldn’t be considered an imposition, if you’ve ever been to China in the summer.
Now, I want you to dress yourself in sturdy clothing and arm yourself however you like – a stiff shot of gin would be my recommendation – and I want you to go tell 1.3 billion Chinese they can never have a Buick.
Then, assuming the Sierra Club helicopter has rescued you in time, I want you to go tell a billion people in India the same thing.
The End.
So some people were given some free money, then asked to choose between receiving even more money the next day or being allowed to plant a few trees… and this is supposed to be a scientific experiment?
temp@12:25:
The graph in this article looks scarier than anything in the IPCC AR5.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/10/21/we-reallyneed-3d-graphics-to-talk-about
There’s the famous Hemingway quote:
Climate is all “gradually”.
M Courtney says:
October 22, 2013 at 12:07 am
Our grandchuildren will never forgive us…
Just like we resent our grandparents for concentrating on WW2 instead of the Millenium Bug.
Well, to be fair, both of the aforementioned events actually were problems.
I know, it can be argued that the reaction to CAGW by CO2 is an actual problem too.
@Taphonomic –
How like der Fuehrer, in the midst of his $100 million African personal vacation on the taxpayer nickel, telling people in Soweto (who cook their food with shit) that they shouldn’t aspire to drive an SUV.
Delayed “gratification” – Let’s pour lots of iron filings into the ocean and spray stuff into the atmosphere. This is to “correct” the energy imbalance. The end of the interglacial is expedited. In this case the “gratifying” act would be an act of mass genocide.
What if we act and it doesn’t make any difference? I think our descendants will be better equipped to help themselves just as we today are better able to cope with environmental changes than those living in 1850, 1900 or 1955. Our descendants will laugh at us most heartily for a millenia or more. 🙂 What a crock.
Jimbo;
;P a millenium. It takes 2 to make millennia, ;p
Just like we resent our grandparents for concentrating on WW2 instead of the Millenium Bug.
Well, we would have been better off had our German and Japanese ancestor pursued other objectives.
“Time is a huge impediment when it comes to working together to halt the effects of climate change, new research suggests.”
“Unimaginative press release headline points to unimaginative research result, one’s eyes suggest”
We need to work as a collective as long as you agree with my side of the argument! Don’t question me, I have all the right answers. it is you who are wrong!