Climate Change Is a Human Problem

By Jeff Wheeldon

Climate change is no longer a scientific problem.

There will always be important scientific work to do regarding climate change. We need to know as much as we can about the nature of our climate, the warming effects of air pollution, the acidification of the oceans, the way weather patterns will change. All of that is absolutely crucial. But climate change is not caused by scientific charts and graphs and Al Gore, and the scientific answer for what really does cause climate change is very clear and well-established. Climate change is caused by human beings burning fossil fuels, an inconvenient truth that no amount of denial can change.

Climate change is no longer a technological problem.

Yes, burning fossil fuels causes climate change, and we do so to power our technology. The “anthropocene”, the geological era defined by human impact on the planet, really ramped up during the industrial revolution and our impact has increased exponentially as our technology has increased, so technology plays a pivotal role in the problem of climate change. But we have already invented clean energy technologies that, if brought to scale and backed by political will, could quickly replace almost all fossil fuels. The technology for a greener world already exists, and in some cases (such as the electric car), even predates our fossil-fuel-dependant technologies. We aren’t waiting on some kind of miraculous techno-fix.

Climate change is a social problem.

Not just in the sense that it increases social and economic inequality as the world’s poor and indigenous communities bear the brunt of the effects of warming while the world’s (mostly white) rich contribute most to it. When I say it is a social problem, I mean that it is a human problem: it results from human behaviour, behaviour that we seem unable or unwilling to change.

Consider that some of the brightest minds in the world today are putting significant hope in geo-engineering, the idea that we can solve global warming by dimming the sun, primarily by pumping pollution into the stratosphere without knowing exactly when and how we might be able to stop doing so, if ever, and with a high probability that doing so will save some parts of the world from climate change but will drastically disrupt the climate and food supply in other parts of the world. Because that’s easier than getting politicians to implement plans to address climate change that might lose them votes in the next election, because we human beings don’t like to change our behaviour. We talk about technology and science to avoid the elephant in the room: us.

The science is clear. The technology exists. What we lack is the will to change, and the courage to face moderate costs now to avoid bigger costs in the future. If you have the will and the courage to change, ask your MP to represent that courage in Parliament. Change is hard, but courage is contagious.

Jeff Wheeldon is increasingly interested in social psychology and behavioural economics, to find out why it’s so hard to do the right thing.