Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology, speaks on why we don’t act against Global WarmingFrom fredericguarino:Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology, speaks at Harvard Thinks Big 2010 on the psychological impulses that make it difficult for humans to confront the threat of global warming.This is a great talk (I wish they didn’t cut off the very end!) and it’s something I spoke a bit about in the most recent 666cast (and I’ve spoken about this a few times before that in the 666cast), but I think Gilbert got something a little wrong.He says that we humans look for humanity in other things—it’s why we “see faces in clouds but not clouds in faces.” Well, actually, that’s not true—with the right face, you’ll see all sorts of other things because it’s not about anthropomorphizing everything we see, it’s about seeing patterns in everything we see. The same instinct we have for seeing faces in clouds is the same instinct we have for seeing a chair, as opposed to the molecules that make it up.The reason we don’t act against Global Warming is because we can’t see the problem closely enough to recognize it as a threat—we can’t see the threat pattern. It’s too far off.My point is that it goes much deeper than just an interest in seeing humanity everywhere. It’s a much more basic thing—something every living creature has, too.