1/ By now, you’ve probably seen the massive, 66-page climate history by @nathanielrich in @nytmag. But did we actually come perilously close to acting on climate - and was it human nature that stopped us? grist.org/article/what-t…
2/ “Almost nothing stood in our way - except ourselves.” That’s how Rich frames the problem. In some ways he’s right: climate change is a difficult problem, or a “wicked problem”, as social scientists say.
3/ It has no simple solution, no silver bullet. It requires dedicated, intergenerational work to solve. It’s difficult for humans to make decisions when faced with long-term harms.
4/ But that’s also why climate change would not have been solved by a few signatures at the 1989 climate conference.
5/ What the NYTimes chronicled - in an engaging and fascinating way - was the failure of a few individuals to enact a top-down solution.
6/ But we know already that environmental problems aren’t ONLY solved from the top down, they’re also solved from the bottom up.
7/ Nobel-prize winning economist Elinor Ostrom proved as much, when she showed that the #tragedyofthecommons wasn’t always a tragedy.
8/ “Losing Earth” is meant to break your heart, but it sometimes comes off defeatist. Yes, in the 80s the highest level of decision-makers failed us.
9/ But in the decades since then, climate change has become a mobilizing force - for young people, for activists, for states and community groups.
10/ Humans are “incapable of sacrificing present convenience” for “future generations,” Rich says.
11/ That’s a dark take on human nature - and it’s often wrong.
