Why Do Measurements Matter? An Important Lesson from Atomic Habits
Image courtesy of jamesclear.com
“Measurement is only useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits
Perhaps a little blunt but, whether a stalwart foot soldier, skeptic, or somewhere in the middle, the climate crisis has consumed us. And with all due respect to the skeptics (however little that may be), the climate science we have is irrefutable. For well over forty years now we’ve been hearing from top scientists about the increasing severity of rising global temperatures. The nine years from 2013 to 2021 all rank amongst the ten hottest years to date. That said, an adequate understanding of the science alone doesn’t appear to be enough to affect change on the timetable scientists keep outlining. For this reason, much of what I write, I hope, may be of service to reframing our relationship with the living planet each of us calls home.
As global temperatures continue to rise, lobbyists and special interest groups have done their best to continue seeding doubt in the mind of the public. A public that, if I may be so bold, just wants to leave a healthier planet to the next generation. The challenge is no longer to make sense of the science but, rather, to reorient our communities around shared values worth living for. So, how might we begin to tackle this seemingly Herculean task? Start small.
I recently read James Clear’s wildly popular, Atomic Habits. One of the many solutions-oriented processes Clear advocates for is a habit tracker—you guessed it, a system for tracking one’s followthrough and progress towards a desired goal or habit. While useful for laying the foundation, Clear’s is also careful to caution the pitfall of clinging too closely to this metric or that in one’s quest to improve.
Named after the economist Charles Goodhart, Goodhart's Law states, "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Useful as measurements are, if our sole aim is to meet predetermined criteria, our actions no longer serve progress. Rather, they run the risk of reinforcing stasis, or worse, we lose sight of the horizon and give up the project entirely. Clear didn’t hesitate to elaborate.
“In our data-driven world, we tend to overvalue numbers and un-dervalue anything ephemeral, soft, and difficult to quantify. We mistakenly think the factors we can measure are the only factors that exist. But just because you can measure something doesn't mean it's the most important thing. And just because you can't measure something doesn't mean it's not important at all.”
Our capacity for measurement is truly remarkable. It allows us to communicate across cultural boundaries, amassing a wealth of multi-generational knowledge. But, it’s little more than a tool. How we employ any tool is a function of our relationship with it. What we measure should inform our actions, not simply justify them. When our actions are limited by targets along, we cease to explore the infinity life has on offer. If the task is simply to count trees, one is unlikely to ever find the forest. And while critical to developing strategy and policy, if we only focus on rising global temperature, sea-level rise, or atmospheric CO2 levels, it is possible to lose sight of why we need to reverse these trends in the first place. So that we may thrive alongside the planet, not in spite of it.
