We know it. We should reduce our carbon footprint with a three -factor to preserve our chances of living later on a planet that does not look like an oven, and where a sufficient level of biodiversity is maintained in order to allow our subsistence and avoid large Food, migratory or armed instabilities. In other words, in addition to an adaptation to climate change, we must now review our consumption methods to avoid going into the wall. Reduce the use of fossil fuels, thermal engines, airplane pleasure trips, meat consumption, superfluous renewal of electronic devices and wardrobes, purely recreational use of streaming video formats, etc. Why is that difficult to us?
The answer is simple: because we like it. Travel to have fun, buy a new car to have a status, use electric scooters so as not to get tired, surf the internet to distract yourself, eat red meat for the right dear, etc. And we like this because a part of our brain, the reward neural system, and in its heart a central area called striatum, continuously responds to these behaviors by a feeling of pleasure, concomitant to the release of a key molecule: Dopamine.
These facts are now established and documented. Our brain, fundamentally, will not spontaneously limit its pleasures which it obtains thanks to various acts of consumption. We will have to bring it there.
it’s not me, it’s my brain!
Faced with this data, criticisms are possible. One of them is to tax this approach to reductionism, to see an attempt to bring a complex phenomenon back to a simple and unique biological cause, necessarily partial and erroneous, therefore dangerous.
Another consists in considering this approach as a loss. In short, explaining our behavior by the action of a part of our brain would lead our fellow citizens to think: “Finally, if I destroy the planet, it is not my fault, it is that of my brain. What That I do there, that’s how it is, and in particular we cannot change anything by political action, since it is engraved in the deep circuits of my striatum. “Upon arrival, the striatum (and the circuit of reward, if we want to encompass all the neural structures involved) would cause depoliticization at a time when a deep change in society is necessary to avoid climate disaster.
You have 67.69% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.