The normalization of (almost) everything: Our minds can get used to anything, and even crises start feeling normal Science

For a long time, many climate scientists and advocates held onto an optimistic belief that once the impacts of climate change became undeniable, people and governments would act. But whereas the predictions of climate models have increasingly borne out, the assumptions about human behavior have not. Even as disasters mount, climate change remains low on voters' priority lists, and policy responses remain tepid. To me, this gap reflects a deeper failure--not just in policy or communication, but in how we understand human adaptability. When I began my career as a computational cognitive scientist, I was drawn to a defining strength of human cognition--a marked ability to adapt.