The human psychological approach to climate change is skewed, leaving a dire need for more productive dialogue to prevent further worsening of this issue.

We need to recognize that climate change should not be viewed as a “belief.” About half of US adults think global warming is due to natural causes or that there is no evidence at all. It is a fact, though, that the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are higher today than any previously recorded time period, and that human activity due in part to the burning of fossil fuels is to blame.

Climate change needs to be addressed as a relevant issue. It is often viewed as a distant problem in both time and prevalence to one’s life. But how do you make people realize this issue is directly impacting them?

The Engage Project at the University of California, Los Angeles studied people’s behavior and how it can be influenced, by tracking their amount of used energy and the effects. The researchers found that informing people about health issues led to an 8% drop in energy use, but the social pressure of exposing energy use to others caused the greatest decrease of a 20% drop.

It is easy to move the weight of climate change onto someone else’s shoulders, but each person is individually responsible for their environmental impact. Exposing one another’s personal use of energy may be the best avenue for changing our behaviors in business and everyday life. It is time to stop dwelling in persistent failure, and start praising our accomplishments of moving in the right direction of being fuel efficient.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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