Skip to main content
×
Blacklisted Listed News Logo
Menu - Navigation
Menu - Navigation

Cited Sources

2nd Smartest Guy in the World
2nd Amendment Shirts
10th Amendment Center
Aaron Mate
Activist Post
AIER
Aletho News
Ammo.com
AmmoLand
Alliance for Natural Health, The
Alt-Market
American Free Press
Antiwar
Armstrong Economics
Art of Liberty
AUTOMATIC EARTH, The
Ben Bartee
Benny Wills
Big League Politics
Black Vault, The
BOMBTHROWER
Brandon Turbeville
Breaking Defense
Breitbart
Brownstone Institute
Burning Platform, The
Business Insider
Business Week
Caitlin Johnstone
Campus Reform
CAPITALIST EXPLOITS
Charles Hugh Smith
Children's Health Defense
CHRISTOPHE BARRAUD
Chris Wick
CIAgate
Citizen Free Press
Citizens for Legit Gov.
CNN Money
Collective Evolution
Common Dreams
Conscious Resistance Network
Corbett Report
Counter Signal, The
Cryptogon
Cryptome
Daily Bell, The
Daily Reckoning, The
Daily Veracity
DANERIC'S ELLIOTT WAVES
Dark Journalist
David Haggith
Defense Industry Daily
Defense Link
Defense One
Dennis Broe
DOLLAR COLLAPSE
DR. HOUSING BUBBLE
Dr. Robert Malone
Drs. Wolfson
Drudge Report
Economic Collapse, The
ECONOMIC POPULIST, The
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Ellen Brown
Emerald Robinson
Expose, The
F. William Engdahl
FAIR
Farm Wars
Faux Capitalist
FINANCIAL REVOLUTIONIST
Forbes
Foreign Policy Journal
FOREXLIVE
Foundation For Economic Freedom
Free Thought Project, The
From Behind Enemy Lines
From The Trenches
FUNDIST
Future of Freedom Foundation
Futurism
GAINS PAINS & CAPITAL
GEFIRA
Geopolitical Monitor
Glenn Greenwald
Global Research
Global Security
GM RESEARCH
GOLD CORE
Grayzone, The
Great Game India
Guadalajara Geopolitics
Helen Caldicott
Homeland Sec. Newswire
Human Events
I bank Coin
IEEE
IMPLODE-EXPLODE
Information Clearing House
Information Liberation
Infowars
Insider Paper
Intel News
Intercept, The
Jane's
Jay's Analysis
Jeff Rense
John Adams
John Pilger
John W. Whitehead
Jonathan Cook
Jon Rappoport
Jordan Schachtel
Just The News
Kevin Barret
Kitco
Last American Vagabond, The
Lew Rockwell
Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion
Libertarian Institute, The
Libertas Bella
LIBERTY BLITZKRIEG
LIBERTY Forcast
Liberty Unyielding
Market Oracle
Market Watch
Maryanne Demasi
Matt Taibbi
Medical Express
Media Monarchy
Mercola
Michael Snyder
Michael Tracey
Middle East Monitor
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
Military Info Tech
Mind Unleashed, The
Mint Press
MISES INSTITUTE
Mises Wire
MISH TALK
Money News
Moon of Alabama
Motherboard
My Budget 360
Naked Capitalism
Natural News
New American, The
New Eastern Outlook
News Deck
New World Next Week
Nicholas Creed
OF TWO MINDS
Off-Guardian
Oil Price
OPEN THE BOOKS
Organic Prepper, The
PANDEMIC: WAR ROOM
PETER SCHIFF
Phantom Report
Pierre Kory
Political Vigilante
Public Intelligence
Rair
Reclaim The Net
Revolver
Richard Dolan
Right Turn News
Rokfin
RTT News
Rutherford Institute
SAFEHAVEN
SAKER, The
Shadow Stats
SGT Report
Shadowproof
Slay News
Slog, The
SLOPE OF HOPE
Solari
South Front
Sovereign Man
Spacewar
spiked
SPOTGAMMA
Steve Kirsch
Steve Quayle
Strange Sounds
Strike The Root
Summit News
Survival Podcast, The
Tech Dirt
Technocracy News
Techno Fog
Terry Wahls, M.D.
TF METALS REPORT
THEMIS TRADING
Tom Renz
True Activist
unlimited hangout
UNREDACTED
Unreported Truths
Unz Review, The
VALUE WALK
Vigilant Citizen
Voltaire
Waking Times
Wall Street Journal
Wallstreet on Parade
Wayne Madsen
What Really Happened
Whitney Webb
winter oak
Wolf Street
Zero Hedge

UK Using Behavioural Science Techniques To Nudge To Net Zero

Published: July 16, 2022 | Print Friendly and PDF
  Gab
Share

With legally binding targets of reaching net-zero, the UK government plans on radically reducing carbon emissions by 2030. And in order to accomplish climate goals, such as phasing out petrol and diesel cars, gas boilers, and changes to diet, behavioural science is being used as a method to move the population towards everyday decisions that will spur on environmental action.

The Nudge Unit, also known as The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), was established in the Cabinet Office in 2010 by former Prime Minister David Cameron’s government to apply behavioural science to public policy. The profit-making company was third owned by the Cabinet Office until the shares were sold to the innovation foundation NESTA last December.

‘Nudge’

BIT’s aim was to be the world’s first government institution to use behavioural economics to examine and influence human behaviour; ie to “nudge” people into making better decisions by applying psychology to policy. This can mean prompting people to pay their tax on time or getting people to turn up in court. BIT now has over 400 units around the world.

On the lower scale of environmentally-based nudges, this can mean making recycling bins more eye-catching to putting a plant-based meal as a default option in a university canteen in line with UN food policy agendas and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

But the nudge unit was accused of exploiting scare tactics during the COVID-19 crisis when the government embarked on a major campaign that used adverts with the slogans like: “Stay home to save lives” and “if you go out and spread it, people will die.”

BIT co-founder and behavioural scientist Simon Ruda told the publication Unherd that he feared the “most egregious and far-reaching mistake” made during the COVID-19 crisis was the “level of fear willingly conveyed on the public.”

“Nudging made subtle state influence palatable, but mixed with a state of emergency, have we inadvertently sanctioned state propaganda?” he said.

In terms of net-zero, nudge techniques are already embedded in UK media. Last year, the broadcaster Sky commissioned a report from the Behavioural Insights Team on “nudging viewers to decarbonise their lifestyles.”

BIT Chief Executive David Halpern championed the report saying that “broadcast organisations and content creators, therefore, have a unique opportunity to make a difference for the planet.”

Sky’s chief executive, Dana Strong said that by partnering with BIT, they wanted to show content we see on our screens can “influence the sustainable choices we make in our daily lives.” Some of the changes included proposing giving “green content more screen time, more salience in plots and scenes” to its television output, including kids’ content.

Ethical aspect

Advocate for climate change action Dr. Lory Barile, an expert in behavioural and experimental economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, argued that nudge didn’t have to mean manipulation.

‘It’s about helping people to make better decisions (for their health, wealth, and happiness) without restricting their choices, but changing the framework in which decisions are made,” she said.

“I see the word manipulation with a negative connotation and I think this is not what nudging individuals is. When it comes to identifying what is right or wrong for people, there’s always an ethical aspect to be considered. However, I don’t think nudging is manipulating people’s choices, it’s more about reducing frequency of mistakes among those behaving sub-optimally, without affecting those already behaving optimally,” she added.

Though Barile said that nudging individuals was not the solution to tackle the issue of climate change, rather that it’s only part of the suggested solutions to a global crisis “where all parties should play their role.”

“Nudges can play an important role to help us build a more sustainable place to live. However, it is important to emphasise that this is only part of the suggested solutions to a global crisis where all parties should play their role. A good starting point is to start to convince people to accept that their behaviour won’t be sustainable in the relatively short-run,” she said.

Manipulation

In Spiked, Philip Hammond, visiting professor of media and communications at London South Bank University, said that there are various eco organisations that draw on psychological models “not simply to understand our behaviour, but to manipulate it.”

One such group, the research and advisory group Counterpoint (pdf) said that post-COVID, “it is worth noting that attitudes are most easily ‘refashionable’ in people whose attitudes and emotions are ‘up for grabs.’

“The idea that climate policy should be sold to the public by manipulating people’s emotions and waging ‘semiotic warfare’ should be a scandal,” said Hammond.

Environmentalism skeptic Ben Pile, co-founder of the Climate Resistance blog, said that he believed that nudging was not ethical.

“A lot of political thinking these days is based around utilitarian principles that the ends justify the means. We all know where that takes us at a policy level, emergency after emergency, you can justify anything on that basis,” he said.

“I am not so convinced it will work. The intention behind it if they think it’s their place to mould and modify and engineer the public’s perceptions, that’s a grotesque inversion of how democratic politics should be. I couldn’t put it in more damning terms if I tried, the principals are completely debased. Once authority takes it on itself to do that, then democracy is all but dissolved,” said Pile.

TOP TRENDING ARTICLES


PLEASE DISABLE AD BLOCKER TO VIEW DISQUS COMMENTS

Ad Blocking software disables some of the functionality of our website, including our comments section for some browsers.


Trending Now



BlackListed News 2006-2023
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service