Seite - 12 - in options, Band summer 2017

options + winter 2016/2017 www.iiasa.ac.at32 D espite rising carbon emissions, pressing food shortages, dwindling water supplies, and other environmental problems, some people don’t bother to conserve. Airports are bustling with travelers even though flying is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. The habit of hopping on planes is a growing concern because the industry is expanding. By 2050, aviation may account for 15 to 40% of the world’s CO2 emissions. In the UK, passenger traffic is expected to surge from 219 million in 2011 to 445 million in 2050. A recent study in the country found that even though UK citizens were environmentally conscious in other areas of their lives, they didn’t cut back on flying. When we’re united in our efforts to tackle global problems, we’re far better able to manage limited resources and reduce carbon emissions, but ingrained habits are tough to break. New research suggests some possible strategies. Education empowers Can we change behavior by simply increasing time people spend in school? Recent work by IIASA researcher Raya Muttarak explored whether formal schooling promotes the adoption of better environmental habits. Muttarak and Thanyaporn Chankrajang from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand examined two national surveys conducted in Thailand in 2010 and 2013. Residents aged 15 and over, answered questions about the environment, global warming, and natural disasters. “We found that highly educated people had better environmental habits,” says Muttarak. “When people learned about the risks or dangers of climate change, it increased their awareness and gave them the means and ability to make a change.” Education doesn’t just change individual behavior—it also causes societies to evolve. It affects fertility, mortality, and migration. The highly educated have better health, live longer, and have fewer children. And the effect lasts a lifetime: “Education is human capital which people can take with them when they grow up or move,” says Muttarak. In a recent article, Muttarak and IIASA World Population Program Director Wolfgang Lutz proposed that climate change research should include the “demographic metabolism” of a population. The term refers to the changing characteristics of the people, from generation to generation. As more educated generations replace less educated ones, the world may see a shift towards more awareness of environmental change and higher adaptive capacity to already unavoidable change. Keeping an eye on the pie Education isn’t the only way of influencing people—if we could see how others behaved, we might change our own behavior. In fact, open exchanges of information about the amount of a resource and its consumption could help prevent the squandering of that resource, according to a recent study by IIASA researchers Elena Rovenskaya, Talha Manzoor, and Abubakr Muhammad. They incorporated psychology in a model of how consumers use a resource. “It models mathematically how people may change their behavior,” says Rovenskaya, IIASA Advanced Systems Analysis program director. Before deciding how much of a resource to consume, people look at two things: the amount of the resource and how much other people are harvesting. “Some people pay a lot of attention to what other consumers are doing and they adjust their own behavior,” says Rovenskaya. “Others do not.” In order to achieve environmental and sustainability goals, individuals around the world will need to change their behavior, to consume fewer resources and make less waste. But how can we break out of long-established patterns? ◼ summer 20171 BREAKING THE HABIT: THE PATH TO A GREENER FUTURE