BLOOMBERG • November 28, 2023
Humans are very likely the only species that can imagine very distant futures. Unfortunately, our brains aren’t wired to behave in a way that optimizes those futures. Most of us don’t even save enough for retirement. Society as a whole is also prone to toxic short-termism. Take climate change. Burning fossil fuels, clear-cutting forests and mass-producing cows serve our immediate needs for lights, farmland and cheeseburgers, but at the cost of ruining the climate for many future generations. Even if we stop burning fossil fuels in the decades to come, most of the human-caused heating would likely stick around for another 100,000 years. At the moment, we are choosing very unwisely. The good news is that none of this is a mystery. And all the tools we need are at hand. “This is not a science problem; it’s a political problem.” ~ Mark Gongloff