Learning from Cognitive Deficiencies to Prevent the Next Pandemic
By Cassidy Soloff and Elizabeth Ouanemalay
Many of the major crises we face today stem from two limitations: our inability to think long term and inability to conceptualize exponential growth. Coupled together, these anthropomorphic shortcomings bring about both the crises and a lack of time to solve them.
For example, despite climate change being the most persistent threat, we find ourselves still unable to alter our damaging behaviors. First, there was the shortsightedness of our leaders over the past four decades to not phase out fossil fuels because of the short-term costs. Through a four decades analysis of Exxon climate communicates, we know that Exxon was not only aware human fossil fuel emissions were driving global temperature rise but they even funded research to assess the risks and search for solutions. After realizing the solutions would likely diminish profits, Exxon pivoted to public disinformation and highly targeted governmental lobbying.
Then came along exponential growth: the negative effects of climate change dramatically worsen with accelerating temperature growth. This non-linear growth is driven by positive feedback loops where cascading events increase the frequency of those same events. Polar ice caps melt, decreasing the reflectivity of Earth’s surface and releasing frozen greenhouse gasses, increasing temperatures and thereby causing more ice to melt.
The slow pace of the early phases in the exponential growth curve meant public awareness of the climate crisis was slow to gain prevalence. It is only recently that the majority of the world has been willing to take action. Now we are left with only a decade to take action. Over the past year, we have seen a condensed version of climate change failures through the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the pandemic spilled over to humans, the Trump administration disbanded the National Security Council pandemic unit and proposed cuts to the CDC. This is a policy philosophy that pervades conservative thought: a cut to government services and regulations will provide short term economic growth. However, this short-sightedness has stripped away invaluable time that would have prevented the first US cases from growing into thousands.
Ironically, the same conservatism that is brandished as pro-business crashed the economy. Our government bailed out the corporations, pumping trillions of dollars of liquidity with no conditions that would protect workers from losing their jobs. The lack of federal aid to the average American early in the pandemic left many without any option but to go back to work during a contagious and deadly pandemic. It does not seem to be a partisan issue to spend huge swaths of cash — at least when it is for corporations — but even modest investments in institutions that protect our health fail.
For a virus as contagious as COVID-19, the early cases imported from abroad and a lack of testing and quarantining protocol were enough to sow the seeds of exponential growth. President Trump exhibited a complete lack of understanding of how quickly cases could grow. On February 27, Trump touted that with the minimal amount of confirmed cases, the virus is “going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” Just two months later, the US had over 20,000 daily cases.
Beyond dismantling the pandemic unit and cuts to the CDD, Trump repealed over 70 environmental regulations, some of which contributed to the fatality and potentially the transmission of COVID-19. The fatal flaw of regulation and investment in public health is that when it’s working, you don’t notice it’s there. Many environmental regulations prevent negative outcomes rather than produce a direct benefit. A cognitive bias called hyperbolic discounting causes us to favor our immediate wellbeing over long-term threats.
Pollution is one of these long-term threats linked to chronic health conditions like asthma and respiratory damage — underlying conditions that make COVID-19 more lethal. Since his time in office, Trump has reversed over 20 EPA regulations on air pollution including easing regulation on pollution monitoring by refineries, a major emitter of particulate matter. A national study determined that a small increase in fine particulate matter exposure causes a 15% increase in COVID-19 fatality. Not only do these environments pose a higher risk of death, but preliminary research points to a “piggybacking” effect where COVID-19 could potentially attach itself to particulate matter, allowing it to travel deep into the respiratory system and cause an infection.
The damaging effects of pollution and deregulation have also disproportionately affected African Americans who are 75 percent more likely to “live near facilities that produce hazardous waste.” These factors could have contributed to more than double the cases and deaths experienced by Black Americans.
COVID-19 demonstrated the deep-rooted deficiencies of our public health and economic system. A weakened public health infrastructure left marginalized Americans vulnerable to the pandemic, while a lack of preparedness and economic relief forced a reopening without proper protections. We need to realize that investment in environmental and public health is working, especially when we forget it’s there!
Overcoming our inability to take action on accelerating crises requires engagement in these issues on a local level. The human mind is evolutionarily programmed to work more effectively in smaller communities and on local issues. In the case of climate action, discussing local environmental issues helps overcome the bystander effect where we assume someone will address an issue for us. Discussion of global crises on a national stage often distances ourselves from the day to day effects, making it harder to internalize the need for action. Small scale actions, especially in the case of climate change, are often unlikely to perceptibly improve global crises but these actions are more likely to create a population supportive of the state and federal legislation necessary to curtailing and preventing future accelerating crises.
While our species has issues of collective long-term thinking, on the individual level, we can better plan and anticipate future events for those closest to us. Amid the global pandemic, we see people make the tough decision every day to not see friends and family who are vulnerable to the COVID-19 out of fear of future sickness and potential death. Climate activists commonly cite ensuring their kids and grandkids have a livable planet as their motivation. The community-driven approach to fighting large scale crises motivates preventative action from compassion rather than reactive action based on self-preservation.
Cassidy Soloff is a senior (‘22) at Wesleyan University and an Undergraduate Research Fellow. His research focuses on exoplanet detection and atmospheric modeling. He is majoring in Physics and Astronomy and minoring in Environmental Studies.
Elizabeth Ouanemalay is a junior (’23) at Wesleyan University and is currently researching bacterial evolution. She is a prospective Biology major. When not researching, Elizabeth enjoys watching Anime.
