Climate Change Worldviews

Credit: Scwartz, M. and M. Thompson, "Divided We Stand: Redefining Politics, Technology, and Social Choice" (1990)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


An interesting piece from Howard Silverman in People and Place on how our different worldviews affect how we think about and what we believe about climate change.

 

Few aspects of modern life express our different worldviews more sharply than our responses to climate change. Why we respond so differently illustrates the different ways we rationalize the interaction between humans and nature.

 

The cultural theory matrix pictured here illustrates four opposing worldviews. In nutshell, acceptance of social controls is plotted on the vertical axis against levels of social commitment on the horizontal axis. The quadrants contain four worldviews, which manifest as the different ways of life that structure our social relations and support our particular blend of beliefs, values, emotions, perceptions, and interests.

 

The matrix includes these four stories:

The hierarchist’s story (nature perverse/tolerant): International protocols and national commitments are needed to address the tragedy of the atmospheric commons and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The egalitarian’s story (nature ephemeral): The underlying problem is consumption (resource throughput). Precaution, lifestyle simplicity and grass roots action are the most effective responses.

The individualist’s story (nature benign): To address climate change, rely on laissez-faire markets to spur competition and innovation. The benefits of climate change may even balance out the costs.

The fatalist’s story (nature capricious): Natural forces are beyond human understanding, much less human influence.

Silverman points out that a fifth worldview called “nature resilient” or “nature evolving” is sometimes pictured at the center of the axes of this matrix, overlapping the other four worldviews. Some have labeled the bearer of this fifth rationality as “the hermit,” whose worldview is flexible and adaptive, and who actively experiments with new institutions, seeking to gain insights.

 

The hermit’s story is explored in much current resilience thinking.

 

(H/T Garry Peterson at Resilience Science.)

 

For a larger view of the matrix, you can check out the original in the P&P blog post.

Which worldview do you identify with?

 

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate