Are you experiencing extreme heat this week? (The Royal Society). The case for facts and figures

In a recent post on Facebook, The Royal Society asked: Are you experiencing extreme heat this week? Mainstream media followed suit with a similar message. Word constructions like 'climate crisis', 'extreme heat', and 'heatwave' trigger something called negativity bias, and our species has a tendency to fall victim to mental fallacies. Using Rational entrepreneurial thinking increases the probability that you will activate your inborn capacity for epistemic and instrumental rational thinking. Earth has been around for 4.6 billion years. Mammals have existed for the past ~225 million years, survived the Chicxulub impactor, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, and two super volcanic eruptions. Our species inhabits all climate zones on the planet. ~50,000 people die of heat every year, but 4.6 million people annually die of the cold. 6 pages.

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In a recent post on Facebook, The Royal Society ask: Are you experiencing extreme heat this week?

Link to source.

That was followed by: Here's the basics of Climate change in 60 seconds.

Noteworthy are the hashtags: #climatecrisis, #Extremeheat, and #Heatwave

Mainstream media followed suit with a similar message, for example: BBC, DW, Le Monde, The New York Times.

How should we react when an institution like The Royal Society, and the mainstream media is sending a message like this?

Word constructions like 'climate crisis', 'extreme heat', and 'heatwave' trigger something called negativity bias – a cognitive bias that human cognition is relatively more affected by a negative affect than an equally potent positive affect (Baumeister et al. 2001). Adding to that, our species has a tendency to fall victim to other mental fallacies. For example:

• Confirmation bias, the tendency to apply the same theory on all situations, or search for information which fits the conviction (Nickerson, 1998; Wason, 1960, 1966; 1968; Wason och Shapiro, 1971).
  
  
• Natural stupidity – our species propensity to rely on information which are either prototypical (Kahneman och Tversky, 1972), available (Tversky och Kahneman, 1973), or just easy to access (Kahneman and Tversky, 1977).
  
  
• Dysrationlia – the inability to think and behave [epistemic and instrumental] rationally despite adequate intelligence (Stanovich, 1993, 2011, 2016; Toplak, West, Stanovich, 2013).
  
  
• Continued Influence Effect – Misinformation continues to influence memory and reasoning about an event, despite the misinformation having been corrected (Cacciatore, 2021).

These biases interact in a reinforcing loop.

In order to escape the bias-loop, I propose Rational Entrepreneurial thinking (Österberg, 2021, chapter 3). The model suggests that we use three established theories in concert:

• epistemic vigilance (Sperber et al. 2010).
  
  
• numeracy (Brooks och Pui, 2010). Note. Numeracy is the foundation for instrumental and epistemic rational thinking (Stanovich, 2011, 2016; Toplak, West, Stanovich, 2013).
  
  
• disjunctive reasoning (Shafir, 1994; Stanovich, 2009; Toplak and Stanovich, 2002) in concert.

In this context, rational thinking includes taking a look at the Earth's chronostratigraphic, as well as our anthropological record.

Earth has been around for roughly 4,6 billion years, and chronostratigraphers have divided this time into eonothems, erathems, systems, and series.

Since the Cambrian explosion (~538 Mya), Earth has been in the fourth eonothem – the Phanerozoic. And since the Chicxulub impactor hit Earth ~66 million years before the present, Earth is also in the third erathem called Cenozoic – the age of mammals. Adding to that, since 2.58 million years before present, Earth is in the 21st system called Quaternary. And finally, since 11,600 years before present, Earth is also in a series called Holocene. There have been more than 30. Note. All of these eonothems, erathems, systems, and series are markers of changes in the climate.

Before the Holocene was the Pleistocene (2.58 Mya – 11,600 years ago). But before the Pleistocene was the Pliocene (5.33 – 2.58 Mya), and before the Pliocene was the Miocene (23.04 – 5.33), all occurring within the Cenozoic erathem.

But Cenozoic also contained the Oligocene (33.0 – 23.04 Mya), the Eocene (56 – 33.9 Mya), and the Paleocene (66 – 56 Mya).

During the climate change that replaced Paleocene with the Eocene, there was actually a heat wave. And it has a name – The Paleocene – Eocene Thermal Maximum, abbreviated PETM.

“The Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), alternatively "Eocene thermal maximum 1 (ETM1)" and formerly known as the "Initial Eocene" or "Late Paleocene thermal maximum", was a geologically brief time interval characterized by a 5–8 °C (9–14 °F) global average temperature rise” (Wikipedia).

PETM was short in geological terms, ~200,000 years, but at the same time long compared to human life span, as well as human living memory.

“Human living memory is the psychologically-based process of preserving, organizing, and recovering information. It spans both an individual's personal lifespan and the collective history passed down through generations. It is fundamental to human identity, enabling learning, decision-making, and continuity of consciousness” (Google/Gemini).

Note. Mammals, which have existed for the past 225 million years before present, survived the PETM. Not only that, they also survived the following Oligocene, and the Miocene.

During the late Miocene, 9-8.5 million years before the present, two super volcanic eruptions occurred in what is now called Wyoming in the US, causing a massive change in the climate (Knott et al. 2020).

Volcanic eruptions are assessed by the volcanic explosivity index (VEI) The scale is open-ended and logarithmic, ranging from 1-8, where 8 and above marks a super volcanic eruptions:

“The scale is open-ended with the largest eruptions in history given a magnitude of 8. A value of 0 is given for non-explosive eruptions, defined as less than 10,000 m3 (350,000 cu ft) of tephra ejected; and 8 representing a supervolcanic eruption that can eject 1.0×1012 m3 (240 cubic miles) of tephra and have a cloud column height of over 20 km (66,000 ft)”.

Again, our ancestors survived this massive change in the climate, and famously the anthropological record suggests that the human lineage starts 7-6 million years before the present (Pickford och Senut, 2001; Pickford, 2006).

5.33 million years before the present, Miocene was replaced by Pliocene. And 3.9 million years before the present, our ancestor – Australopithecus afarensis, a.k.a. Lucy – existed.

300,000 years into their existence, Lucy consumed bone marrow (McPherron et al. 2010; Thompson et al. 2019).

The new nutrient rich diet caused a reduction of their guts and triggered encephalization – an expansion of the brain, from the occipital lobe and forward (Aiello och Dunbar, 1993; Aiello och Wheeler, 1995; Hublin et al. 2015; Pontzer et al 2016).

2.8 million years before the present, our genus Homo existed (Kimbel och Villmoare, 2016; Villmoare et al. 2015; Villmoare, 2018).

During the next change in the climate, when the Pliocene was replaced by the Pleistocene, our ancestors ate meat (Pobiner, 2013, 2016). The brain expansion continued.

With a bigger brain, there was room for the executive functions, including social cognition (Ardila, 2008; Coolidge and Wynn, 2018).

~2 million years before the present, they changed their lifestyle to become hunters and gatherers; men hunted for nutrient dense food, and women gathered nuts and roots, and ruled the camp.

Our species inhabits all climate zones on the planet.

~50,000 people die of heat every year, but 4.6 million people annually die of the cold.

Ergo. Earth has been around for 4.6 billion years, and mammals have existed for the past ~225 million years, and survived the Chicxulub impactor, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, and two super volcanic eruptions. Our species inhabits all climate zones on the planet. ~50,000 people die of heat every year, but 4.6 million people annually die of the cold.

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