Your Brain & Climate Change — Explained over Coffee
When asked why we (humanity) hasn’t found the political will to adopt solutions to reduce greenhouse gasses, I find myself thinking about the human brain, and how we process information. This seems to serve me better than getting angry with politicos.
The true problem is our perceptual mechanisms … human brains are not wired to understand exponential change. You may have studied calculus, or think that you understand exponential growth, but the physical world, it is hard to see as it is occuring. That is the underlying reason politicians haven’t make more progress on climate change.
Our brains are wired to understand tangible items, and to assume everything will continue to move forward as it recently has. The past few years have amply demonstrated that the occasional dramatic event happens. Yet we still see them as discrete changes. Coping with significant change can be difficult and stressful. Even when reacting to change, humans still tend to overlook long-term trends because the human brain looks for stability and linear trends. We simply can’t easily understand or imagine exponential growth.
So, take a thought experiment with me:
Consider bacteria — a single, impossible to see without a microscope, bacterium — with the potential to wipe out all pets in the world. This bacterium has no constraints on growth, and splits in two every 60 seconds.
A single cell began life at noon, (again, this is a thought experiment) and is in a jar. When 1 cup of this bacteria exists, the jar will be overflowing and it will be almost impossible to save any pets in the entire world.
It will take 1 hour to multiply to the point of filling the 1 cup jar. To save our dogs and cats, all that is needed is to put the top on the jar before it is overflowing.
Ask the average, well-educated person when the jar will be half full, describing the doubling every minute and there being a full cup at 1:00. Most will say the cup will be half full at 12:30. But the correct answer is 12:59.
At 12:45, the colony of bacteria is so small as to be a faint dust in the cup. To help visualize this, consider coffee grounds in a measuring cup.
- At 12:50, there is 1/20 of a teaspoon.
- At 1:00, there is a full cup
- At 11:03, the coffee can is full
- At 1:11, a pickup truck is overflowing
- At 1:15, the bacteria colony is the size of a small house
“Pictures are worth a thousand words,” so this 2 minute video demonstrates the concept with coffee grounds:
These coffee grinds are representative of the effects due to climate change. We have written other articles describing nature-based solutions and soil based carbon sequestration.
The Cliff Notes version of why soil matters in the race to restore Earth’s balance: In nature, soil microbes live in symbiotic relationship with plants. The carbon from photosynthesis is converted to sugars and other complex carbon chains, which feed the soil microbe biome. The complete soil microbe biome, in turn, moves the key elements into a plant available form. In this process, one step is the growth of fungal hyphae, which are coated with bacterial glomalin — these cells of the fungi and their bacterial coating are where carbon from the air becomes permanently stored in the soil.
Soil microbes serve the same functions as chemical fertilizers and restoring soil health helps farmers lower costs. Along the way, the improvement in soil health increases the flavor and nutrient density of food.
You and I see plants, trees and leaves, where photosynthesis occurs. More than half of the sugars produced by these plants flow, unseen, out of the roots and into the soil to feed the microbes that digest the nutrients for plants. The soil microbe biome is very similar to the gut microbe biome.
Follow us for more insights into solutions to the climate crisis. We write on solutions to environmental issues, with a focus on soil biology. Trees and plants feed the soil microbe biome, which influences water, atmospheric carbon and human health.
Originally published at https://regen1milacres.com on June 1, 2022.
