Why People Aren’t Motivated to Address Climate Change

Why People Aren’t Motivated to Address Climate Change

People will go out of their way to avoid threats to their existence, but not climate change, which, let’s face it, is starting to threaten a lot of people.

Change involves a combination of factors that make it hard for people to get motivated:

  • First, acting on climate change represents a trade-off between short-term and long-term benefits. Ignoring climate change in the short term has benefits both to individuals and to organizations.
  • Second, climate change is a nonlinear problem.
  • Third, many effects of climate change are distant from most people.
  • Fourth, the future is always more uncertain than the present.

It’s probably this and more for many people, but we’re running out of time to make necessary changes.

[Harvard Business Review]