ABSTRACT

It has become almost a cliché to say that global climate change represents the defining challenge facing humanity in the twenty-first century. The consensus among climate scientists is that the challenge is existential: the effects of climate change, if not addressed proactively in the form of fundamental social and political changes, have the potential to bring human civilization to the brink of extinction. Activists, scientists, and policy makers who seek to promote such a proactive response, however, face a significant paradox that requires a special effort to help people make the connection between what they might be observing locally and what is happening at the planetary level. On the one hand, the sheer scale and dire nature of the problem mean that its importance should be obvious to everyone who learns about it, regardless of their social location. On the other hand, precisely because the problem is so all-encompassing, one can easily fail to “connect the dots” among various local manifestations. Similarly, because some changes occur very gradually over long periods of time, they may not be noticeable to those who are immersed in them.