Albert Einstein once said: “Nothing truly valuable can be achieved except by the unselfish cooperation of many individuals.” Alas, when it comes to joining together to conserve Earth’s resources and protect our planet for future generations, we humans have proven to be a decidedly uncooperative lot.
“There has been a great deal of work on how people cooperate with those they see every day –- their colleagues or friends,” Dr. Martin Nowak, professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University, said in a written statement. “But an open question is how people cooperate with future generations. How do you make altruistic decisions today that benefit people tomorrow?”
For those who worry that we’ll never come together to protect our planet, a provocative new study involving game theory, conducted by Nowak and a colleague at Yale University, offers a glimmer of hope.