Why climate change fades into the background – and how to change that

The public is tuning out the seemingly slow warming of the world, but it doesn't have to be that way, argue Grace Liu and Rachit Dubey

For a long time, many climate scientists and advocates held onto an optimistic belief: when the impacts of global warming became undeniable, people and governments would finally act decisively. Perhaps a devastating hurricane, heatwave or flood – or even a cascade of disasters – would make the severity of the problem impossible to ignore, spurring large-scale action. Yet, even as disasters mount, climate change remains low on voters’ priority lists and policy responses are tepid.

This widespread inaction is often blamed on political or structural forces. But decades of psychological research suggest something deeper is at play: the human brain tends to overlook slow, creeping change.

Cover photo:  Elaine Knox