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We have to adapt our brains to climate change

The psychological aspect of climate adaptation is often underestimated, according to Simon Elsborg Nygaard, a PhD student whose work explores the connection between subjective well-being and sustainable behaviour.

2015.04.29 | Camilla Schrøder

Our mental readiness to transition to a more sustainable lifestyle plays an important role in the process of climate adaptation. (Photo: Colourbox)

Our mental readiness to transition to a more sustainable lifestyle plays an important role in the process of climate adaptation. (Photo: Colourbox)

More often than not, discussions of climate adaptation focus on technological solutions. But according to Simon Elsborg Nygaard, a PhD student at the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at Aarhus BSS, our mental readiness to transition to a more sustainable lifestyle plays an equally important role in the process of climate adaptation.

“One of the biggest problems is that we associate a more sustainable lifestyle with something negative. Smaller houses, less air travel, less meat on our plates: we simply don’t want to reduce our consumption of resources, because the majority perceive this as synonymous with a poorer quality of life,” says Nygaard.

But the fact of the matter here in Denmark is that we consume four times the resources we should be consuming to live sustainably. In other words, if everyone lived like a Dane, we would need four planets to sustain our lifestyle. Globally speaking, right now we’re consuming the equivalent of 1.5 planets. At the same time, pressure on minerals, metals, water, farmland and other important resources is increasing all over the world as the economies of Asia and other regions storm ahead. According to Nygaard, this means that we simply must begin to acknowledge at a psychological level that we have to modify our way of life and behaviour significantly.

“The challenge won’t arise 200 years in the future. It’s here right now, and it’s something that affects us and our children’s lives. So we have to figure out how we can motivate people to live more sustainably,” he says.

Nygaard is currently working on his PhD project, which is an exploration of the relationship between sustainable behaviour and subjective well-being. One goal of the project is to crack the code for dissolving the opposition between subjective well-being and sustainable behaviour. According to Nygaard, from a psychological perspective, it can be easier for people to adapt to a sustainable lifestyle if they feel they can look forward to greater subjective well-being. In other words, if the stick of the negative motivation caused by scare campaigns is supplemented by the carrot of positive motivation.

“It doesn’t work to exclusively talk about climate change in terms of doomsday scenarios. Clearly, that isn’t something that motivates us sufficiently on a personal level. It’s also necessary for us to develop and promote possibilities for making this transition without compromising our happiness and well-being. This is what we call sustainable well-being. By taking this approach, there’s a grater likelihood that citizens and politicians will be motivated to embrace and adopt climate-appropriate behaviours,” explains Nygaard. He emphasises that sustainable well-being and mental tools are important both in relation to issues of climate change prevention and climate change adaptation.


FACTS

Simon Elsborg Nygaard, a PhD student at Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at Aarhus BSS, is heading a project to collect data from more than 1,200 citizens about their psychological profile, sustainable behaviour and subjective well-being. Sustainable behaviour is measured both in terms of actions like turning off the lights, recycling glass and bottles and saving water as well as in terms of a number of general parameters such as the size and type of the home, energy consumption for heating and electricity, travel activity, transport habits, eating habits and consumption. The final results are expected to be presented in the summer of 2015.

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