Millie LaFontaine is a retired neurologist who lives in Concord.
My family sometimes teases me, “You’re a neurologist. Why can’t you explain how the brain works? And why can’t you fix it when it’s broken?”
I’ve been asking myself those questions a lot lately as I’ve thought of the climate crisis and wondered why we humans and our marvelous brains are so ill-equipped to react to and address the warming of our planet.
I recently heard a talk by a neurosurgical colleague of mine, Ann-Christine Duhaime, and her ideas about the evolution of the brain gave me some ideas. With gratitude to her, I offer the following.
We got to where we are, the dominant species on the planet, over millions of years. Our brains were absolutely key in allowing us to do that. Think of the neural systems that allowed that to happen. Humans evolved at a time when food was scarce, and it took skill and cunning to capture and gather those precious calories. Our brains came through, helping us work cooperatively and brilliantly to eat and survive.
We still eat as though our lives depend on it. They do, but few if any of us expend even a fraction of the creativity, communal effort, or just plain hard work our ancestors did to make that happen —and we are paying the price.
Think of the harsh lives our ancestors lived. There was never enough of the things they needed. Their brains evolved to crave and treasure warmth, protective clothing, and shelter from the elements. They became ingenious at discovering resources, acquiring them, and adapting them to their needs. And their societies evolved so the individuals they cared about shared in these resources. There was never enough, so “others” who might threaten their acquisitions and creations became “the enemy.”
Today we are still searching for the next shiny object, the next gorgeous or outrageous outfit, the next spectacular dwelling, and the next over-the-top experience, and we’re only willing to share with a limited few. Others become the enemy, threatening our way of life. And yesterday’s prize ends up in a landfill.
Our brains evolved at a time when escaping the next creature that wanted to make us his dinner was paramount on our agenda. By “next creature” I mean saber-toothed tiger or marauding mastodon, in other words, a very long time ago.
Our sympathetic nervous system is uniquely designed to enable us to switch into overdrive at a moment’s provocation, to see better, run faster, and make an hour’s worth of decisions in an instant, as our lives flash before us.
That sympathetic nervous system still works extremely well. Unfortunately, our circumstances today are vastly different. Our “fight-or-flight” impulses do not work to solve the chronic stressors we encounter day to day. We either learn to ignore those impulses to flee, or we become ill with anxiety.
Humans dominated the planet long before it was clear that the earth itself is a limited resource. We were always looking for the next place to live when things got too crowded, contentious, or depleted where we were. Our neural systems still think there’s another frontier around the corner.
So those are our brains’ strengths: surviving scarcity, enhancing life with acquisition after acquisition, escaping imminent threats, working cooperatively with our own people, and moving on to greener grass when things get tight.
How can we make those work when the parameters have changed so drastically? Most of us in the developed world live a life our ancestors would never have dreamed about. Ironically, we have too much of too many good things, no more shiny objects where the ones we already have come from, no place for the detritus of what we’ve used up, too many “others” looking in from the outside, and no new frontiers to explore. We can’t fight and we can’t flee.
Today, we as individuals and as a society need to use the best and biggest part of our brains, the part that actually makes us human. I’m talking about our frontal cortex and its networks with the rest of the nervous system. That’s the part of the brain that enables us to weigh alternatives, plan, teach, share, and put words into action for a common good outside ourselves.
The story of our brain’s evolution is one where we have become enormously successful by honing our impulses. With climate change, impulses only aggravate our situation. Our brains need to work collectively to solve our dilemma.
People, it’s time to use the best parts of our brains, to think creatively and generously outside of our own impulse box. There is simply no Planet B.