After decades of warnings, Climate Change is beginning to bite. Fires, floods, storms and the impacts of sea level rise are becoming the commonplace backdrop of daily life. Yet the collective human response remains muted. Some people, including senior political figures, persist in denying the realities. We are participating in an historic folly. It’s not rocket science to understand why. The human brain evolved to cope with very different circumstances than those we face today. Similarly, our institutions and social systems evolved during a period of unusual climatic stability for purposes misaligned with reducing carbon emissions or responding in a coordinated manner to a globally distributed threat.
Professor Chris Rapley CBE, Professor of Climate Science at University College London explores the factors at play to see if and how we might do better.
