“When it comes to climate change it's all the usual barriers: greed, mendacity, ignorance, short-sightedness and so on, manifest in the extreme power of corporations, the weakness of government, and the indifference of citizens.” GovernmentIgnoranceCitizensWeaknessClimateGreedClimate ChangeExtremesCorporationsIndifferenceBarriersManifestUsualMendacity Author:Dale Jamieson
“It's true that climate change is an unprecedented problem so it's not surprising that it's so difficult to address.” ProblemDifficultClimateClimate ChangeAddressesSurprisingUnprecedented Author:Dale Jamieson
“We need to use economic instruments such as carbon taxes, cap and trade, tax and dividend and whatever else to help incentivize behavior that will move us to a post-carbon, post-animal agriculture world, and make our societies more resilient to the shocks that are already baked into the system. But that doesn't make climate change an "economic issue."” WorldNeedsHelpingUseMovingAnimalIssuesEconomicTaxesBehaviorInstrumentsTradeClimateClimate ChangePostsShockOur SocietyAgricultureCarbonCapsResilientDividendsEconomic IssuesAnimal AgricultureCarbon Tax Author:Dale Jamieson
“Climate change involves fundamental choices about how we want to live and what kind of world we want.” WorldWantKindChoicesFundamentalsClimateClimate Change Author:Dale Jamieson
“Climate change involves behaviors that are individually negligible, whose impacts go far beyond the spatial and temporal constraints that define our sense of community.” CommunityBehaviorImpactClimateClimate ChangeConstraintsSpatial Author:Dale Jamieson
“If you have a flat, fixed view of state interest then it is difficult to understand why some states adopt aggressive climate change policies, even when that risks economically disadvantaging them, and other states do not even when it would be in their economic interests to do so.” IfsStatesWould BeDifficultInterestViewsRiskEconomicPolicyClimateClimate ChangeFixedFlatsAggressive Author:Dale Jamieson
“If you look globally you see a patchwork of jurisdictions (nations, states, provinces, cities) that have taken aggressive action on climate change, and a patchwork of jurisdictions that have not. These various policies reflect the politics of each jurisdiction and the values of its citizens.” IfsLooksStatesActionValuesNationsCitiesTakenPolicyCitizensClimateClimate ChangeVariousAggressiveProvincesJurisdictionPatchwork Author:Dale Jamieson
“The Paris climate conference in December, 2015 was a recognition that countries bring their climate policies to international meetings rather than create them during the negotiations (much less do they receive orders from the international community and then go home and implement them).” CountryHomeOrderCommunityPolicyMeetingsClimateInternationalRecognitionParisNegotiationConferencesDecemberInternational Community Author:Dale Jamieson
“Every country now has its own domestic political debate about how to respond to climate change. This is where the action is.” CountryActionPoliticalClimateClimate ChangeDebatePolitical Debates Author:Dale Jamieson
“Climate change is not going to be prevented. It's not even going to be mitigated to the degree a rational person would want. As a result we're going to have to live with climate change and try to reduce the extent and rate of change as much as possible. This is not an inspiring or sexy project.” WantTryingPersonsResultsDegreesProjectsClimateRateClimate ChangeSexyRationalRate Of Change Author:Dale Jamieson
“It's possible that we'll screw up the climate so badly that most of us will die and a few breeding pairs will remain somewhere in the arctic. What's more likely is that we'll continue remaking the planet, driving many species to extinction, killing millions of people through the indirect effects of climate change, making life even harder for the poor and powerless than it is now, and making it a little more difficult for the global middle class to live the lives to which they have become accustomed - in other words, business as usual, only worse.” PeopleLittlesDiesDifficultPoorClassMillionsMiddleEffectsPlanetsHarderClimateSpeciesKillingClimate ChangeDrivingMiddle ClassPairsUsualPowerlessScrewsAccustomedExtinctionBreedingScrew UpsArcticIndirect Author:Dale Jamieson
“When I first started studying climate change back in the 1980s, I was struck by how difficult it was be for people to understand this issue.” PeopleFirstsDifficultStudyIssuesClimateClimate Change Author:Dale Jamieson
“Climate scientists think of nothing but climate and then express their concerns in terms of constructs such as global mean surface temperature. But we live in a world in which all sorts of change is happening all the time, and the only way to understand what climate change will bring is to tell stories about how it manifests in people's lives.” PeopleThinkingWorldWayMeanStoriesTermHappeningsConcernScientistClimateClimate ChangeSurfaceConstructsTemperature Author:Dale Jamieson
