Climate Change as a result of The Bystander Effect

Climate change- we all know the immensity of the problems it could cause, yet we are readily facilitating this catastrophe. There is no lack of evidence for climate change. According to NASA, Global temperatures have risen 1.1 degree Celsius since the 19th century. This is due to the increasing emission of carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons and other environmentally harmful gases released due to various human activities.

The oceans are warming, ice sheets are melting and sea levels are rising. There has been an increase in radical natural disasters in the recent years. The entire structure of the planet is bound to change- agriculture, transport and all our major activities will be affected.

So, with awareness about climate change being at an all time high, shouldn’t it be easier to reduce toxic human behaviour if 7.5 billion people decided to? Why does it take decades for a billions of people to collectively realize and reduce their destructive activities?

Well, the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility may be the reason. Diffusion of responsibility is a phenomenon where an individual fails to respond effectively to a critical situation by assuming that the other people present will respond. Individuals feel less responsible to help when there are more people present during a certain situation. Therefore, larger the group present, the lesser an individual is likely to help, making them a ‘bystander’. This is ironic because people think that the amount of help you receive is directly proportional to the number of people present. This does not seem to be true according to the bystander effect. For example, in the Kitty Genovese murder case, many people witnessed her attack, but didn’t rush to her aid.

Therefore, if some negative situation is occurring or has occurred, the probability of an individual helping is higher when they are alone or in a relatively less crowded area. These chances decrease if the amount of people present increases. (Most people just think “someone else will do it”. Unfortunately, since most people are like most people, most people end up not reacting 😉 ).

Applying this principle to climate change- climate change is the cumulative effect of the activities of billions of people. Therefore, an individual feels that their roles are insignificant. We start to diffuse our responsibility onto bigger industries who could do their part in reducing their release of harmful gases, and that that would make a bigger contribution than one person ever could. We all know many public figures and wealthy people who are far better equipped actually to make an impact if they wanted to. Thus, we wait in the backseat, not doing anything, because we feel like our activities are insignificant.

Another reason we tend to diffuse responsibility is that we feel distant to the victim. That is, there is no direct connection to the victim or that the victim’s alive-ness doesn’t really affect us.

So, since there is no immediate or transparent consequence of climate change to the people alive now, they are not forced to act. People don’t really feel temperatures changing, and they do not see the sea levels rising (Again, we’re assuming most people don’t do their research, and let’s be honest- they don’t). We don’t think of it as an immediate threat, or something that needs to fixed right away. Therefore, as most people will not live to see the destruction caused by their activities, they choose luxury (or comfort) over sustainability.

In conclusion, people are not hopping in on the ‘Go green’ bandwagon not because they think climate change is a hoax, but probably because of the bystander effect- a psychological phenomenon which we are all prone to. We may care about the environment, but we are just victims of our similar mentalities, and thus don’t spring into action to save or salvage the problems.

There are many solutions to overcome the bystander effect, but the first step is to be aware of the fact that we are susceptible to it.