There are only six years left to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly to prevent the worst effects of climate change.
For more than 100 years, we’ve been aware of how gases such as carbon dioxide trap heat. Alarm bells have rung for over 35 years since climate scientist James Hansen declared that global warming began.
Many of us are wondering if extreme temperatures and weather needed to arrive before we took action. Were we required to see in order to believe? What role did our psychology play in our laziness?
Many people first noticed climate change after US scientist James Hansen spoke about its effects. NASA
How can we deal with threats?
Motivating people to act on climate change is a wicked problem. It isn’t easy to take action because of many factors.
Prior to now, the necessary policy and behavior changes were viewed as being too difficult or expensive. The consequences of not doing anything were considered distant problems until recently. Due to the complexity of climate models, scientists and policymakers have found it difficult to determine the environmental effects that would result from any action.
Climate change is a problem that requires collective action. If other countries continue to emit without changing, it would be of little benefit for Australia to achieve net-zero emissions.
Read more: Inside the mind of a skeptic: the ‘mental gymnastics’ of climate change denial.
When we write about climate change, we often frame it as an ever more urgent and significant threat to our way of life. We do this thinking that showing the seriousness of the danger will galvanize others into faster action.
Unfortunately, it’s not always the case. Some of us react unexpectedly when faced with large risks and the need to make a painful change from the status quo. Some of us may be motivated to find evidence that undermines the reality of the danger and use the uncertainty to justify continuing on the current path.
This leads to the unfortunate fact that those who are motivated to deny or avoid climate risk have a better chance of doing so if they have a more scientific background. They are better equipped to rationalize and counter-argue the dissonance with this background. Climate action is particularly harmed by misinformation and doubt. They make us feel comfortable with inaction.
The tendency to rationalize risk was also evident among those who minimized or denied COVID-19.
Is there a cure?
We have found that explaining in a simple, well-understood manner how emissions of certain gases trap the Sun’s heat and warm up the planet is effective because people cannot rationalize away these facts. Even those who are skeptical of global warming accept the greenhouse effect. It’s vital to life on Earth. Without these gases, the planet would be too cold to support life.
The greenhouse effect has been well-established and is not controversial. Shutterstock
Why finally act?
Climate change is no longer a computer model but a reality that we live in. We are now seeing more efforts to reduce emissions.
We are increasingly experiencing real events, such as forest fires and droughts. Hurricanes that intensify rapidly or heatwaves of record-breaking proportions. Inaction is now easier. The consequences of inaction seemed distant and uncertain until now. They are now seen as present and certain.
Clean energy and clean transportation have also seen a significant drop in price due to technological advances and economies of size in production.
There are now measures that can be taken at the government level and by individuals. They are not expensive and have immediate benefits, such as reducing power bills or avoiding fuel price increases. In many countries, a greater political consensus is helping to challenge the inertia that has surrounded the status quo. Another barrier to action is evaporating.
We’ll likely see more and more warnings as climate damage worsens. Does fear motivate us? We are more likely to act when faced with threats.
We have a very short window of opportunity to prevent the worst. We also have greater certainty about climate change and its damage.
Years ago, our psychological barriers slowed efforts to make the massive changes required to stop using fossil fuels. At least some of these mental barriers are shrinking.
