Why has climate action been so slow?

Source: Givingcompass.org

In 1938, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius wrote a paper where he predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide will alter our planet’s climate. In the years that followed, many other climate scientists would publish subsequent studies that reiterated Arrhenius’s findings. As the years turned into decades, the message from scientists became increasingly coherent and overwhelmingly distressing. It was clear; something must change. So, in the more than 60 years since Arrhenius first published his paper, why has humanity been so slow to respond to the call for change?

As the news of climate change reached the TVs of millions of Americans in the mid-to-late 1900s, a group of scientists with similar political agendas worked to prevent government regulation by creating the appearance of scientific debate on climate science. These scientists- Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, Bill Nierenberg, and Robert Jastrow- who had received their scientific prestige as physicists during WWII, used their political connections to deliberately distort the public’s knowledge of climate change. This small cadre of scientists appealed to conservative presidents in the backdrop of the Cold War and represented the polarity between Capitalism and Communism. They presented environmental regulation as a slippery slope towards socialism and a step towards global communism. The doubt that these scientists sewed into the American public and politics meant that the country was decades behind in environmental protection.

This 20th century scientific fiasco presents the argument that free enterprise brings real and extensive damage. It demonstrates that an economic alternative for capitalism should be created, one in which there is a shift in focus from GDP and affluence to sustaining ecosystems and human well-being. A shift where we understand that we do not own the planet. Unfortunately, in a world where economic growth takes center stage, this shift may never occur.