Speaker 1: This is a C. N. A. Podcast. If you've been
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, it's probably no surprise to you
Speaker 1: that dire warnings of extreme heat and deadly floods have
Speaker 1: not been enough to motivate people to take concrete action
Speaker 1: in the fight against climate change. And it now seems
Speaker 1: that when it comes to making decisions that benefit the planet,
Speaker 1: our brains can often get in the way.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the climate conversations. I'm your host, julie. You
Speaker 1: psychologists have found that the mental shortcuts we used to
Speaker 1: make quick and efficient decisions every day can in fact
Speaker 1: prevent you from making more sustainable choices.
Speaker 1: What is it about human psychology that creates deniers, despairs
Speaker 1: and doers. Why is it so hard to get humanity
Speaker 1: to care enough to do something about climate change compared
Speaker 1: to other issues such as Covid,
Speaker 1: my guest today took a deeper dive into these issues
Speaker 1: and are joining me to share more about what they
Speaker 1: found out.
Speaker 1: Edward choi and joe are a married couple and theater
Speaker 1: actors and they recently hosted a C. N. A documentary.
Speaker 1: Who cares about polar bears on this very topic. Welcome
Speaker 1: to you both have you you all work in theater
Speaker 1: acting hosting. And when you were approached to be part
Speaker 1: of this documentary about climate change and not only climate change,
Speaker 1: but this whole psychological aspect of it. What was your
Speaker 1: reaction Ed?
Speaker 1: So I think the first was genuine pleasant surprise because
Speaker 1: we are much better known for other things. So I
Speaker 1: was immediately like yes, I've absolutely got to do this
Speaker 1: because I'm the one at home who's completely obsessed with
Speaker 1: making sure the lights are switched off and that all
Speaker 1: the doors are closed when we've got air conditioning on.
Speaker 1: I'm hardcore that way,
Speaker 1: it was very obvious. I mean, I'm the one who
Speaker 1: tells that we should really be taking more public transport,
Speaker 1: but I have to say the first reaction I got
Speaker 1: when we were asked to host this was guilt because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of singaporeans as included do feel
Speaker 1: that we're not doing enough for the environment. We posted
Speaker 1: Children for the environment. I would definitely not say so,
Speaker 1: but I think this
Speaker 1: documentary was actually a great way to help us across
Speaker 1: this huge psychological gulf that, you know, just because you
Speaker 1: cannot be the only person to single handedly rescue Mother
Speaker 1: Earth from the brink of collapse. Doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't start somewhere. Absolutely. Your documentary really explores why our
Speaker 1: brains make it difficult to take action as climate change.
Speaker 1: The intro even wanted to say that climate change
Speaker 1: is said to be the worst problem for the human
Speaker 1: psyche to handle. So let's get deeper into that. Why
Speaker 1: aren't people worried or doing enough despite the rhetoric about
Speaker 1: doom and gloom messages? What are some of the key
Speaker 1: factors I found? I think we explored a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of psychological barriers. I mean, what was it we called
Speaker 1: cognitive descendants? Right, So it's what we know about something,
Speaker 1: but we don't act on it. And some
Speaker 1: of these examples would be hyperbolic discounting and that just
Speaker 1: means that okay I'm more focused on for example spending
Speaker 1: less today to get a product with a higher carbon
Speaker 1: footprint than thinking about the long term consequences of what
Speaker 1: I do. If I encourage this company to produce more
Speaker 1: of these things, it just seems very far away. This
Speaker 1: this whole psychological distance, human beings are really, really stubborn
Speaker 1: when people are told heart disease patients are told that
Speaker 1: they must change their lifestyles
Speaker 1: in order not to die. Only one in seven heart
Speaker 1: patients are able to do so and so this is
Speaker 1: literally a life or death decision. As joe has said,
Speaker 1: there are all these things that companies normally use that
Speaker 1: they know work on our brains to manipulate it to
Speaker 1: sell us things.
Speaker 1: Those same things can be used to help convince us
Speaker 1: to change our behavior so that we can do a
Speaker 1: bit more for the environment and maybe slow things down
Speaker 1: a little. Yeah, there's absolutely reason for hope and but
Speaker 1: sadly I'm sure
Speaker 1: what did you guys just said bring true for many
Speaker 1: people listening to the podcast who know that climate change
Speaker 1: is happening, the impacts are bad and only gonna get worse.
Speaker 1: So they make minor changes but overall continue to live
Speaker 1: a sort of a typical high carbon lifestyle. So to
Speaker 1: find out more about your psychological tendencies, you both have
Speaker 1: run
Speaker 1: multiple social experiments on this documentary out of all of them,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that we found most surprising? Okay,
Speaker 1: so one of the experiments that I led was actually
Speaker 1: in a little cafe in Mediacorp itself. We had this
Speaker 1: survey where we ask people, okay, so this is a
Speaker 1: $4 cup of coffee and this other cup of coffee
Speaker 1: is $6 but
Speaker 1: it has a much lower carbon footprint. And we asked
Speaker 1: people what they would choose and almost every single person
Speaker 1: went for the $4 cup of coffee. So that wasn't
Speaker 1: surprising to me. You know, it's a very singaporean thing
Speaker 1: to do, I would say. But another very singaporean result
Speaker 1: was that when we tied in a free reusable mug
Speaker 1: to the $6 cup of coffee.
Speaker 1: Then people were like, oh you know what I do
Speaker 1: like that, I will go for that bearing in mind
Speaker 1: that it is friendlier for climate change and I get
Speaker 1: a free gift, that's what we should go for. And
Speaker 1: I was just thinking, wow, that's it. We really are
Speaker 1: suckers for free gifts. And I actually tried that on myself, interesting.
Speaker 1: So you were talking about people's tendency to evaluate costs,
Speaker 1: benefits and we prefer to
Speaker 1: go for immediate benefits and delay cost. Is that what
Speaker 1: you're saying? Totally. Yeah, it's called hyperbolic discounting. But yes,
Speaker 1: yours is a much more understandable way of putting it.
Speaker 1: One thing I also noticed about one of the experiments
Speaker 1: that you conducted, it was on psychological distance, how we
Speaker 1: sort of tune out climate change from my conversations or
Speaker 1: actions when the problem seems far away abstract
Speaker 1: irrelevant. Tell me about that. What you found out. Thanks
Speaker 1: for asking that question because it's completely related to the
Speaker 1: title of the show. We don't care about polar bears
Speaker 1: because the only one we've ever had here passed away
Speaker 1: a few years ago, but now there's no polar bear
Speaker 1: to look at. When people tell us about polar bears
Speaker 1: literally halfway across the world, how does it relate to
Speaker 1: me in my everyday experience? However,
Speaker 1: when we tell people, hey, this relates to Singapore for
Speaker 1: you or for your Children,
Speaker 1: that Singapore is going to be harder to live in
Speaker 1: for yourself or your kids, that helps us latch onto
Speaker 1: ways in which we can get the message across me
Speaker 1: here and now. Right. And I guess it's tougher for
Speaker 1: a lot of us here in Singapore because we're sort
Speaker 1: of insulated from the worst effects of climate change we
Speaker 1: often don't talk or worry about.
Speaker 1: And another sort of theory that you guys dealt with
Speaker 1: what it's called? Bystander effect, joe explained to me how
Speaker 1: this sort of psychological phenomenon applies to So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: use Ed as a bad example, sorry, Ed. I mean,
Speaker 1: like a lot of the times, like during this interview,
Speaker 1: he was saying that corporations manipulate people corporations do these
Speaker 1: corporations do that. So bystander effect is, for example, when
Speaker 1: you assume that somebody else is going to do something
Speaker 1: because everybody knows about it
Speaker 1: and it's an easy thing for us to just go, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the corporations are causing a lot of this
Speaker 1: climate change, corporations need to fix this, what can I do?
Speaker 1: But the fact is that everybody can make a difference
Speaker 1: and when bystander effect kicks in, sometimes people forget that
Speaker 1: they can be the person to make the difference. Suppose
Speaker 1: one way that we learn to kind of hack our
Speaker 1: brains is to,
Speaker 1: I don't know it, I suppose just really just take
Speaker 1: more responsibility for it. You know, I mean what I
Speaker 1: said and I'm not very healthy for a marriage, but
Speaker 1: hopefully it's better for the environment, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: So that's not so much bystander effect as what we
Speaker 1: also studied, which was in group out group like, hey
Speaker 1: everybody is doing this so you should do that too.
Speaker 1: And I'm just really Nagy to add sometimes and it's
Speaker 1: Nagy the same way to me and that way we
Speaker 1: can hold each other accountable. I hope for real joe
Speaker 1: has gotten me to stop taking plastic bags from the supermarket,
Speaker 1: which is a big deal.
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Speaker 1: So overall we discussed some psychological barriers to go green
Speaker 1: with big names and scientific labels, but I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are those in Singapore wondering, come on, we're living in
Speaker 1: this tiny country. Our emissions account for with tiny amount
Speaker 1: relative to the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: Would you like to say to those who ask, is
Speaker 1: it worth altering our lives and overcome all these psychological barriers?
Speaker 1: What would you say to them? I would say absolutely.
Speaker 1: Because as consumers, we have such power. Right. What I
Speaker 1: personally do is that I have stopped buying any clothing
Speaker 1: that is not secondhand because I do find that waste
Speaker 1: from the clothing industry has been proven to be so
Speaker 1: damaging
Speaker 1: and it's increasingly becoming a priority for consumers in Singapore
Speaker 1: and beyond where they don't want to keep supporting unsustainable fashion.
Speaker 1: And that just pressures the people who are coming up
Speaker 1: with this fashion to go like, okay, we have to
Speaker 1: change our behavior, consumers have power. We need to
Speaker 1: generate their grounds well, so that there's enough of us
Speaker 1: to make a change on my side because as you
Speaker 1: can tell, I'm quite obsessed with the idea that Corporates
Speaker 1: have to change in order for there to be meaningful
Speaker 1: change for the planet. I'm also financial literacy advocate and
Speaker 1: as part of investing, I would encourage everyone to look
Speaker 1: into E. S. G. A lot of people here straightaway,
Speaker 1: this switch goes off in their head.
Speaker 1: It's nonsense. It's ridiculous. It's just another thing they use
Speaker 1: to make you invest in them. But that said there
Speaker 1: have been many companies that have been forced to work
Speaker 1: in ways which are a lot more green. We're talking
Speaker 1: massive companies making billions of dollars of investments. I would
Speaker 1: advise people and this is a deep rabbit hole. You
Speaker 1: can go into
Speaker 1: to look for funds that allow you to place your
Speaker 1: money with activist fund houses or fund managers that will
Speaker 1: actively pressure the boards of companies to do better for
Speaker 1: the environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe look like a drop in the bucket, but
Speaker 1: it can become a powerful force. So joe and Ed
Speaker 1: as a couple. I'm sure there are a lot of
Speaker 1: couples who are listening to the podcast. What are some
Speaker 1: of the ways that you have or will be incorporating
Speaker 1: sort of climate action into your daily habits after working
Speaker 1: on this documentary. Oh no, she's asking for commitment, public
Speaker 1: commitment to commit more behavior now. I think definitely for myself,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to switch to
Speaker 1: Buying everything as possible. 2nd hand. I've also become pesca
Speaker 1: teary in several years ago just to try to minimize
Speaker 1: my meat consumption.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go and try to keep pushing onto vegetarian
Speaker 1: because fish have feelings too. I don't know whether that's true,
Speaker 1: but I mean you better for the environment. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to commit to doing that and you guys are
Speaker 1: doing this as a couple or just, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's just me and tell me about your commitments. So
Speaker 1: instead of buying a car, which we've been thinking about
Speaker 1: for quite a while, we've discovered that close and very
Speaker 1: good alternative is actually electric car rental services.
Speaker 1: It's cheaper than buying a car. It's not as convenient,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely better for the environment. Internal combustion engines
Speaker 1: is the technology. I think that's going to be phased
Speaker 1: out the Singapore. Government agrees. My issue is that it's
Speaker 1: not as convenient as it could be.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful the government is doing their part to just
Speaker 1: change the infrastructure in Singapore. So I'm praying they will
Speaker 1: be easier and there'll be more service providers for people
Speaker 1: to rent these electric cars. And one of the fun
Speaker 1: things is that we've discovered how to create a cross
Speaker 1: wind in our house
Speaker 1: by opening the right windows so we don't need air conditioning.
Speaker 1: All right, so two heads obviously better than one and
Speaker 1: together you can make twice the impact in tackling this
Speaker 1: global challenge. Alright, so before I let you guys go,
Speaker 1: if you could change one thing about how most people
Speaker 1: approach climate change, what would it be?
Speaker 1: I think personally for myself I would say really just
Speaker 1: look into reusing the whole scene now where people gift
Speaker 1: each other things that you don't have a use for
Speaker 1: one man's meat is another man's points and there's so
Speaker 1: many forums, so many outlets, you can do that, you
Speaker 1: don't need to buy more stuff. My biggest bugbear is
Speaker 1: people not sorting their recycling. The other day, I saw
Speaker 1: a taxi driver step out of his taxi and throw
Speaker 1: his bag of copy that he just finished drinking into
Speaker 1: the recycling bin,
Speaker 1: which ruins the entire bin. By the way, folks, that's
Speaker 1: the one thing I would really want to change for people. Look,
Speaker 1: we have single stream recycling, we don't even have to
Speaker 1: sort it into separate boxes to put them in individually Singapore.
Speaker 1: Makes it that simple. If people would just stop throwing
Speaker 1: their used pizza boxes in
Speaker 1: to the blue bins, I'd be very, very grateful. Alright,
Speaker 1: great message to end on. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: making it to the end of this episode. I hope
Speaker 1: you've learned some new tips and how to hack your
Speaker 1: own psychology and to make more eco friendly choices our
Speaker 1: planet may just depend on it.
Speaker 1: But thanks for listening to the climate conversations. The team
Speaker 1: behind this podcast is Jacqueline, chan, Joanne, chan Tiffany, young
Speaker 1: and Christina robert and I'm julie you signing off till
Speaker 1: the next time