NAE Perspectives offer practitioners, scholars, and policy leaders a platform to comment on developments and issues relating to engineering. 

Adiba Proma is a PhD student in computer science, University of Rochester. Robert Wachter (NAM) is the Holly Smith Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. Ehsan Hoque is associate professor of computer science, University of Rochester.

When people think of technology and climate change, electric vehicles (EVs) are probably one of the first things that come to mind. There is no question that EVs and other technological breakthroughs that can lower the climate impact of daily activities are an important part of the solution. But helping people change their behaviors—such as buying an EV, riding a bicycle, or using recyclables—may be where technology can have its greatest impact on climate change. After all, in the past 30 years, technology has transformed how people shop, dine, entertain themselves, travel, and communicate. 

The concept of technology playing a crucial role to address environmental impacts dates to the early 1970s, when Ehrlich and Holdren [1] modeled an activity’s environmental impact as a product of the size of the human population involved in the activity, the level of affluence, and the technology used. In later years, Holdren built on that concept, emphasizing a holistic approach to sustainability [2].  

Alongside the search for climate-protecting technologies like EVs, more effort needs to be directed to harnessing technology to promote climate-protecting behavior change. This will take focus, leadership, and cooperation among technologists, investors, business executives, educators, and governments. Unfortunately, such focus, leadership, and cooperation have been lacking.  

Persuading people to change their lifestyles to benefit the next generations is a significant challenge. We argue that simple changes in how technologies are built and deployed can significantly lower society’s carbon footprint. 

While it is challenging to influence human behavior, there are opportunities to offer nudges and just-in-time interventions by tweaking certain aspects of technology. For example, the “Climate Pledge Friendly” tag added to products that meet Amazon’s sustainability standards can help users identify and purchase ecofriendly products while shopping online [3]. Similarly, to help users make more ecofriendly choices while traveling, Google Flights provides information on average carbon dioxide emission for flights and Google Maps tags the “most fuel-efficient” route for vehicles. 

“There’s an App for That” 

Computer scientists can draw on concepts from psychology, moral dilemma, and human cooperation to build technologies that can encourage people to lead ecofriendly lifestyles. Many mobile health applications have been developed to motivate people to exercise, eat a healthy diet, sleep better, and manage chronic diseases. Some apps designed to improve sleep, mental wellbeing, and calorie intake have as many as 200 million active users. The use of apps and other internet tools can be adapted to promote lifestyle changes for climate change. For example, Google Nest rewards users with a “leaf” when they meet an energy goal.  

It is even possible to “gamify” the selection of ecofriendly practices [4]. Apps award points when players recycle, conserve energy and water, or buy ecofriendly products, and the players can use those points to move from one level to the next in the game. Of course, appropriate ethical guidelines must be followed in the design of such games, taking into account transparency and privacy concerns [5].  

In another approach, apps can be designed to make switching to an ecofriendly lifestyle a more visible, social activity with meaningful measurement and feedback. Features such as a leaderboard, a community platform for users to interact with and learn from each other, and appealing infographics can all help users visualize the impact they are making.  

For example, on Strava, an app that tracks physical exercises using social network features, nearly 100 million users work toward their fitness goals as a community. The app developers designed features for users to see each other’s activities and achievements, providing a sense of accountability and further motivation in their fitness journey.  

Further research is needed on the nuances of social media to mitigate some of its potential negative impacts (e.g., “social media envy” [6]). Experience sharing on social media is a powerful form of interaction, and context-specific research on social networking can ensure that networks and apps do not end up accidentally promoting behaviors that do not in fact support sustainability and climate change mitigation [7].  

Combating Misinformation 

In addition to motivating climate-friendly behavior, technological approaches are needed to combat climate misinformation. For example, cognitive theory–based tools can be used on social media platforms to reduce users’ exposure to false climate news. From text-based fake news detection pipelines to graph neural networks [8], emerging research seeks to detect misinformation by modeling news diffusion patterns in social networks. Other strategies focus on the early detection of malicious accounts and the use of ranking algorithms [9].  

While these approaches can identify misinformation at scale, they don’t necessarily change how users interact with the false narratives and flawed data on social media. Some strategies to address this gap are designed to warn individuals against misinformation, provide education in critical thinking, and respond quickly with correct information. Unfortunately, these strategies are difficult to implement, and research has shown that, even when people are presented with the truth, they still have difficulty letting go of rigid, ill-informed beliefs [10].  

Applications that consider human psychology can make it easier for people to be receptive to objective evidence and to think critically about the content they see on social media. This is applicable to both believing and spreading climate misinformation.  

For example, suppose an AI-driven system checks claims on social media posts against peer-reviewed academic literature. Upon detecting false claims, the system not only informs the user but also explains its “reasoning” by highlighting misinformation, mentioning the sources it used to verify the claim, and explaining why those sources are credible. Similarly, the system could also warn the user if they are sharing or posting false information. Such warnings could nudge users to not impulsively share information without considering its impact.  

Accounting for Individual Preferences 

Incorporating cognition and recognizing users’ preexisting preferences can also help solve more nuanced climate-related problems. Consider someone who loves driving and does not enjoy outdoor activity. It might be more effective to convince them to buy an EV than to give up their car and start biking. Similarly, someone who earns minimum wage may be less likely to spend money on ecofriendly products but more open to reusing and recycling products.  

Attention must also be given to the user experience. Systems must be convenient, trustworthy, and explainable. For example, if AI models are deployed to detect ecofriendly products and recommend them to consumers without explaining why the products are better for the environment, many people will simply ignore the suggestions. A better approach may include components that increase explainability and trust in the model, as illustrated by the coffee example in figure 1.  

Similarly, users interested in biking more often must be easily able to find bike-friendly routes to destinations. A mobile app designed to facilitate adoption should provide information on the route’s estimated time of arrival, road conditions, traffic, and safety concerns in a way that is concise, clear, and does not overwhelm the user.  

What Are Feasible Individual Impacts? 

In 2020 the average American had greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 18 metric tons of CO2-equivalent (MTCO2e) [11], equivalent to driving 44,144 miles in an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle. This amount of pollution would require almost 300 tree seedlings grown for 10 years to offset [12].  

Let’s assume that every American commits to three lifestyle changes—reducing meat intake, biking to nearby places, and switching to cold water for laundry—to reduce their carbon footprint. They monitor these changes using an app that recommends vegetarian alternatives during grocery shopping, suggests scenic and safe biking routes to nearby destinations, and sends a reminder to use cold water for laundry. Moreover, all three lifestyle changes have financial and health benefits, and the app keeps track of and reminds users of these benefits.  

Our analysis of the impacts of these lifestyle changes yields the following estimates:

• Food contributes 10–30 percent of an average American’s carbon footprint. Cutting the intake of animal-based foods by half and opting for equivalent quantities of plant-based foods can reduce the carbon footprint of food by 35 percent [13]. Even considering the lower bound (10 percent), that is about 630 kg of CO2. Moreover, plant-based foods typically cost less to the consumer than meat.  

• The average passenger car emits .33  kg of CO2 per mile driven [14]. Assuming that the average number of miles driven per person per year is 13,476 [15], that amounts to 4447.08 kg of CO2 [14]. Driving just 10 percent less—by instead walking, biking, or using public transit—would decrease that emission by 10 percent and reduce the costs of gasoline to fill the tank, vehicle maintenance, and insurance based on use rates.  

• Washing clothes accounts for 2 percent of GHG emissions. Most detergents are now developed to be effective in cold water, and switching to cold water for even one load per week can save the equivalent of about 80 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle-worth of carbon yearly [12, 16]. And cold water is less expensive to use since it doesn’t require the use of resources to heat the water.  

Implementing just these three changes would reduce an individual’s emissions by 6.1 percent per year. If 50 percent of the population in America did that, GHG emissions would fall by 182.5 million MTCO2e per year, not to mention the health and financial benefits to the individuals. That is equivalent to the total electricity used by all residences in California, Texas, Florida, and Arizona combined for one year, or the carbon offset by growing over 3 billion tree seedlings for 10 years [12]. Of course, 50 percent is an optimistic number, but it puts into perspective the potential impact of such technologies on human behavior.  

While one can argue that technology (such as the combustion engine) is largely responsible for the climate crisis, technology also almost certainly offers the greatest opportunities for remediation. It has long been accepted that technological approaches are needed to reduce carbon emissions and stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations [17].  

In thinking about how best to deploy technology in the service of saving the planet, it is as important to consider the role of technology in changing human habits and behavior as its role in lowering the climate impacts of human activity. 

References  

[1] Ehrlich PR, Holdren JP. 1971. Impact of population growth: Complacency concerning this component of man’s predicament is unjustified and counterproductive. Science 171(3977):1212–17. 

[2] Holdren JP. 2000. Environmental degradation: Population, affluence, technology, and sociopolitical factors. Environment: Science & Policy for Sustainable Development 42(6):4 –5. 

[3] Amazon Press. 2020. Amazon Launches “Climate Pledge Friendly” to Make It Easier for Customers to Discover and Shop for Sustainable Products. Retrieved from: https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazon-launches-climate-pledge-friendly-make-it-easier-customers (Accessed: 5 October 2022). 

[4] Douglas BD, Brauer M. 2021. Gamification to prevent climate change: A review of games and apps for sustainability. Current Opinion in Psychology 42:89–94. 

[5] Kim TW, Werbach K. 2016. More than just a game: Ethical issues in gamification. Ethics & Information Technology 18(2):157–73.  

[6] Meier A, Johnson BK. 2022. Social comparison and envy on social media: A critical review. Current Opinion in Psychology 101302.  

[7] Liu H, Wu L, Li X. 2019. Social media envy: How experience sharing on social networking sites drives millennials’ aspirational tourism consumption. Travel Research 58(3):355–69. 

[8] Barnabò G, Siciliano F, Castillo C, Leonardi S, Nakov P, Da San Martino G, Silvestri F. 2022. FbMultiLingMisinfo: Challenging large-scale multilingual benchmark for misinformation detection. Internatl Joint Conf on Neural Networks, Jul 18–23, Padua. 

[9] Treen KMI, Williams HTP, O’Neill SJ. 2020. Online misinformation about climate change. WIREs Climate Change 11(5):e665. 

[10] Scheffer M, Borsboom D, Nieuwenhuis S, Westley F. 2022. Belief traps: Tackling the inertia of harmful beliefs. Proceedings, Natl Acad Sci U S A 119(32):e2203149119.  

[11] Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan. 2021. US environmental footprint factsheet (Pub. No. CSS08-08). 

[12] EPA. 2023. Greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator, https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator#results. 

[13] Heller, Martin, Gregory Keoleian, and Diego Rose. (2020) “Implications of Future US Diet Scenarios on Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” CSS Report, University of Michigan: Ann Arbor 1-24. 

[14] EPA. 2022. The 2022 EPA Automotive Trends Report: Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Fuel Economy, and Technology since 1975. 

[15] Federal Highway Administration. 2022. Average annual miles per driver by age group, May 31, https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm. 

[16] Mars C. 2016. Technical Brief: Benefits of Using Cold Water for Everyday Laundry in the US. Sustainability Consortium. 

[17] Pacala S, Socolow R. 2004. Stabilization wedges: Solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with current technologies. Science 305(5686):968–72. 

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this perspective are those of the author and not necessarily of the author’s organizations, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), or the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies). This perspective is intended to help inform and stimulate discussion. It is not a report of the NAE or the National Academies. Copyright by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.