{"id":717,"date":"2022-08-10T22:51:01","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T05:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/?p=717"},"modified":"2023-06-11T15:51:23","modified_gmt":"2023-06-11T22:51:23","slug":"re-writing-the-climate-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/re-writing-the-climate-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Rewriting the Climate Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Whenever I think about the fact that climate change was discovered more than a hundred years ago, I find myself wondering: how have we not solved climate change yet? Well, turns out there is a simple explanation, but not one that is entirely obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"nv-iframe-embed\"><iframe title=\"Time to re-write the climate story\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HxuCLIxGtok?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, the world counts with all the necessary facts, technology and policy solutions to address climate change (Stoknes, 2015). This is because by the late 1970s, the existence of climate change was well accepted within the scientific community, which increased research funding directed towards climate science and allowed scientists to study the climate system very closely (Bolin, 2007). Since then, climate efforts around the globe have focused on figuring out the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change; and the vast majority of these efforts have followed the same premise: to tackle climate change we must reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mitigation) and prepare for the inevitable future climate impacts (adaptation). This has been, and continues to be, the main climate story today. The story of climate change as an environmental problem, where pollution is the villain and climate science is the hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This story has shaped the way we understand climate change, and in turn, the solutions that we come up with. Given that the current climate story has relied so heavily on scientific facts, it is not surprising to see that those are the areas in which we have made the most progress (Overland &amp; Sovacool, 2020). In fact, the assumption has been that if scientists find the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change, the world will magically change their behaviour to tackle the problem. However, it is clear today that this assumption has not the case (Overland &amp; Sovacool, 2020). Scientific data, facts and logic are not always enough to engage people, especially with a complicated topic such as climate change (Stoknes, 2015). So, what are we missing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, the current climate story covers the natural, physical and technical aspects of climate change, but it misses the social aspect of it. The fields of psychology, communications, economics and political science are crucial for engaging and mobilizing people, which is exactly what is most needed today. In fact, getting people to act remains the most urgent, unsolved challenge for tackling climate change, and yet, most climate funding is directed to projects in the natural and technical sciences, that is, mitigation and adaptation efforts (Overland &amp; Sovacool, 2020). This raises the question: if the biggest challenge to addressing climate change is engaging people (found within social science disciplines), why is climate action primarily classified through mitigation and adaptation (founded on natural and technical sciences)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today\u2019s challenges make it evident that we need a new climate story. One where mitigation, adaptation and engagement have equal importance in tackling climate change. Instead of an environmental problem, it makes more sense to define climate change as a social challenge. Telling this story would help realign the goals of climate action to match the magnitude of the problem. Since climate inaction is the biggest challenge to solving climate change, focusing our efforts in overcoming this barrier is crucial for tackling this problem. Including climate engagement as a third category of climate action is the first step in doing so. Redefining climate action to include climate engagement would ensure that resources are directed towards engaging and mobilizing individuals, communities, and nations into action. So, whenever I think about the fact that climate change was discovered more than a hundred years ago, I find myself asking: is it time for a new climate story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bolin, B. (2007). <em>A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The Role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change<\/em> (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/CBO9780511721731\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/CBO9780511721731<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overland, I., &amp; Sovacool, B. K. (2020). The misallocation of climate research funding. <em>Energy Research &amp; Social Science<\/em>, <em>62<\/em>, 101349. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.erss.2019.101349\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.erss.2019.101349<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stoknes, P., E. (2015). <em>What we think about when we try not to think about global warming: Toward a new psychology of climate action. <\/em>Chelsea Green Publishing<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whenever I think about the fact that climate change was discovered more than a hundred years ago, I find myself wondering: how have we not solved climate change yet? Well, turns out there is a simple explanation, but not one that is entirely obvious. Today, the world counts with all the necessary facts, technology and&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/re-writing-the-climate-story\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Rewriting the Climate Story<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cals502","tag-abstract"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1076\/2022\/06\/3.png",1080,1080,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1076\/2022\/06\/3-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1076\/2022\/06\/3-300x300.png",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1076\/2022\/06\/3-768x768.png",768,768,true],"large":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1076\/2022\/06\/3-1024x1024.png",1024,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1076\/2022\/06\/3.png",1080,1080,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1076\/2022\/06\/3.png",1080,1080,false],"neve-blog":["https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1076\/2022\/06\/3-930x620.png",930,620,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Patricio","author_link":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/author\/pgonzalezmarquez\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Whenever I think about the fact that climate change was discovered more than a hundred years ago, I find myself wondering: how have we not solved climate change yet? Well, turns out there is a simple explanation, but not one that is entirely obvious. Today, the world counts with all the necessary facts, technology and&hellip;&nbsp;Read&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":755,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions\/755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webspace.royalroads.ca\/pgonzalezmarquez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}