Dan Gilbert: Global Warming is happening too slowly

Dan Gilbert feels that a major problem with global warming inaction is that global warming is not happening fast enough. (Much of the following are paraphrased or quoted from his talk.)

Four features global warming lacks:

• A face: understanding what other people are doing is so crucial that our brain has developed an obsession about human agency. This is why we see faces in the clouds, but not clouds in peoples' faces. Global warming is not trying to kill us, and that's a shame.
• A violation of moral suasion: Visceral emotions are aroused by things our brains have been concerned: food and sex. NOT atmospheric chemistry. Societies are built around who you can sleep with and what you can eat, and not about how much you can consume.
  
• A threat to the present: The brain is an exquitely designed "get-out-of-the-way" machine. Only recently has our brain been able to think about the future and take actions againt a future event, which is why we use dental floss and invest in 401k plans. However, global warming is still in the "R&D" version.
  
• Ability to see absolute changes: Because we are so bad at percieving changes gradually, we are more likely to tolerate it since it was a day-to-day gradual change, not an abrupt one.