Why We Stink at Tackling Climate Change - Issue 69: Patterns

If human beings are as Hamlet suggested, "noble in reason, infinite in faculty," then why are we facing so many problems? In many ways, people are better off than ever before: reduced infant mortality, longer lifespans, less poverty, fewer epidemic diseases, even fewer deaths per capita due to violence. And yet global threats abound and by nearly all measures they are getting worse: environmental destruction and wildlife extinction, ethnic and religious hatred, the specter of nuclear war, and above all, the disaster of global climate change. For some religious believers, the primary culprit is original sin. For ideologues of left, right, and otherwise, it's ill-functioning political structures.