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I used to think that the answers to averting cataclysmic climate change were technological, and that the primary barriers to a bright and sunny solar future were mostly about securing the necessary funding.  That our wealth of knowledge, combined with good old-fashioned human ingenuity, would save us all from hothouse Earth, at least from the really bad stuff.  

Actually, when I first became aware of climate concerns, now more than thirty years ago, I, like many, thought that our rapidly rising carbon emissions would soon be capped, then cut, by ‘peak oil’.  That the inevitable decline in global oil extraction would simply force us into that sunny solar future, and everyone would live happily ever after. 

Cool.  

But technology saved us from peaking oil supplies, at least for the short term. High-tech, high pressure, hydrofracking of oil bearing tight-rock formations, using the latest and greatest oil rigs, saved the day.  These rigs can drill two miles down, then make a right turn and drill another mile or more horizontally. Fracking a single well requires hundreds of big trucks hauling in millions of gallons of water.  Add to that, millions of pounds of ‘frac sand’ and tons of fricking chemicals, and you have fracking slurry. 

It’s pumped down the wellhole at pressures high enough to open fractures in the rock, and to force the frac sand into the cracks to keep them open. Voila, America is back in the oil business.  

It’s easy to see that hydrofracking for oil, as well as the other forms of ‘secondary’ and ‘enhanced’ oil recovery methods, have a lot of energy inputs.  The inputs, in relation to the energy captured in the process are what is termed  ‘energy return on energy invested’ (EREI),  which in this case is rather poor.  

Think of it this way, while Americans are purchasing newer vehicles with higher fuel efficiency, over the same time period, the energy returned on the EREI has been in decline.  Yes, be happy that your new car goes eight miles farther on a gallon of gasoline than your old car, a decent increase in miles driven per gallon, but understand that with the declining EREI, more energy was spent getting that gallon.  You are essentially spewing the same amount of gases out the rear end of the new car, and of course that’s without factoring for all the embodied energies within that new car’s manufacture. 

But let’s not forget the environmental ‘costs’, and of course the costs to the taxpayer who is stuck with the cleanup of thousands of fracked up oil and gas wells, abandoned by highly profitable bankrupt developers.   Back to the weather in your back yard.  

The real barrier to any truly significant climate action lies not in the funding, not in what we know or don’t know, and not in what we think about it either, but rather in how (how) we think about it.  When you think about it, a crisis that is far bigger than any that humankind has ever faced and that seems to have no easy answers, very few answers that are very hard, and none that allow for business as usual, cognitive biases come to mind.  

In their 2022 edition of the Encyclopedia of Behavioral Neuroscience, Hans Korteling and Alexander Toet defined cognitive biases as, “Systematic cognitive dispositions or inclinations in human thinking and reasoning that often do not comply with the tenets of logic, probability, reasoning, and plausibility”. I would go so far as to say that cognitive biases rule ‘our’ thought processes, were it not for the cognitive bias that psychologists have termed the Blind Spot Bias. 

The Blind Spot Bias makes it easy for me to recognize the impacts biases have on your thought processes, and those of others, but leads me to feel that I am somehow immune to biases in my own thinking.  That bias is probably not so bad, because I’m usually right anyway, which itself is a good example of the Overconfidence Bias.  

Some cognitive biases can serve a useful purpose, mental shortcuts essentially, but they fail miserably when it comes to dealing with huge, complex issues such as climate change.    

The Confirmation Bias is a biggie. It says that you listen most attentively to information that confirms your preconceptions. The Confirmation Bias didn’t used to be so big, but it received a ginormous kick in the butt when it was, unbeknown to you, programmed into your social media platform. Add in a little Band Wagon Effect, which, by the way, pairs nicely with GroupThink, and suddenly stormy clouds appear on the horizon.   

Of course, every time you look at your phone or switch on your computer, the screen lights up to the Repetition Bias.  Have you heard that climate change is a hoax invented by Al Gore?  That’s nothing.  After you hear, for the hundredth time, that Hillary Clinton drinks baby blood while sitting on the face of a young child topped with a slab of pizza, you start believing it, pepperoni and all.  Keep eating crap, you start buying bullshit.   One hundred and eighty cognitive bias circuits are hardwired into your brain, with a heavy bias for now over what may come later. 

Also helping you is the Easy Bias, providing for options that are much better than the hard ones that work, and this, with a bit of influence from the Status Quo Bias.  Let’s just keep things as they are, the Hope Bias says it’s much better than facing up to unpleasant facts.  

What do you, and your First Impressions Bias, think of when you hear the words Extinction Rebellion?  Extinction Rebellion (XR), is a climate change action group that promotes citizen actions and public protests that disrupt the status quo, often through actions of non-violent civil disobedience.  Not quite as nice and friendly sounding as a ‘Green Revolution’, and the greening of America.       

So, Extinction Rebellion is kind of up against it from the get-go, eh?  But let’s try to set aside as many cognitive biases as your thoughtful brain can manage and take a quick look at the three demands Extinction Rebellion is making on governmental bodies world wide.  

First, tell the truth. The government has been lying. Look up at the ‘comet’ in the sky and out at the weather in your own back yard. Yes, if everyone on the planet suddenly could see what is coming, and just how unavoidable it is at this point, that knowledge would have a huge impact on everything from Wall Street to the work place. In fact, it’s quite likely that if people understood the full scope of the crisis, a sense of panic would reverberate planewide and throughout all of human society.

But, as the young climate activist Greta Thunberg says, that might be exactly what is needed. Put simply, it is necessary for people to understand the severity of the problem in order for them to accept the kind of changes that need to happen now.  

That’s the second demand, act now! Catastrophic climate collapse is not a problem in a distant future. To begin with, it’s not actually a problem, it’s more of a dilemma or a predicament.  It is happening right now, and a big chunk of life-changing climate is already baked into the cake, already making this planet less habitable for all living things and all of the planet’s life sustaining systems. Governments, and their inherit complexities and vulnerabilities, can’t deal with a problem of this magnitude, especially when each and every single governmental official also has their own personal biases, as well as a healthy dose of Cognitive Dissonance. That’s what makes it necessary for these demands to be communicated via huge protests, complete with acts of non-violent civil disobedience, and people willing to get arrested while doing so.      

Third, “Beyond Politics.” Elected officials can not deal with a problem this systemic and of this magnitude. In order to avoid the worst consequences of our changing climate, the changes necessary exceed the abilities of a four-year term, and need to operate outside of election campaigns.  

Extinction Rebellion originated in the U.K., where when dealing with complex issues such as Brexit, a Citizen’s Assembly may be formed. Ordinary citizens, not elected officials, are charged with the task of investigating options and strategies in the absence of politics and big money, thereby side-stepping the political clusterfuck that often forms around such issues.  

Extinction Rebellion demands that a global Citizens Assembly be formed on climate change.  An assembly composed of ordinary people, selected randomly, from every nation on the planet, regardless of size, population, or the nations wealth and power. That the assembly should spend a period of one year hearing from all side, from all the experts, investigate all the science, and look at all the options, effects and outcomes. 

Most importantly, that every nation agrees to the findings of the Assembly and its conclusions. Did your ‘Doesn’t Stand a Chance in Hell’ bias just kick in? Give it a little more thought.  Try weaving your way through the web of biases that exist inside all our cranial cavities, and see what you can come up with.  Who knows, maybe you’ll be selected for the Assembly.  

Kurt Nelson lives near Cornucopia, Wisconsin and has worked for more than 30 years as a solar energy advocate, educator, and installer.  Now retired, he is still energized by the sun.