Climate Change: Addressing Climate Change and its Psychological, Ethical, and Socio-Economic Challenges

Thursday, May 27, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM EDT (-4 UTC)

Climate change yields potentially devastating political, socioeconomic, and environmental consequences. To address the challenges the planet confronts, we need to take urgent and wide-ranging action. How should we assess the vulnerabilities of human societies and natural systems to climate change, and what are the options for adapting to it? What factors lead people to deny or accept climate change and its impacts? What factors drive them to effective individual and collective action?

Psychology’s Role in Addressing Climate Change: What Are We Getting Right?  What Are We Missing? 

Susan Clayton, The College of Wooster, USA

This presentation will summarize some of the key findings from psychological research regarding climate change; describe the developing areas; and identify some ways in which psychology needs to do more to maximize its impact in addressing climate change. 

The Moral Psychology of Climate Change

Dale Jamieson, New York University, USA

Anthropogenic climate change involves the transformation of planetary systems that we do not intend and many of us feel powerless to stop.  It threatens to overwhelm our ethical, political, economic, and cognitive systems, thus presenting us with the most profound and systematic challenge that humanity has ever faced.  

Climate Change and its Psychological, Ethical, and Socio-Economic Challenges: A fast growing developing country perspective 

Joyashree Roy, Institute of Technology, Thailand

Fast growing developing countries in the 21st century face a dilemma about how to change economic activities and live differently than their predecessors of the past century.  For example, the lack of a power infrastructure and cold storage facilities keeps lives at a subsistence level for the farmers.  What ethical considerations prevent the use of artificial cooling during the hot summer, when days are 104° F with 98% humidity? 

Understanding Public Engagement With Climate Change Through the Tension Between National Interest and Global Benefits 

Kim-Pong (Kevin) Tam, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Climate change can be overcome only with concerted efforts by all countries, which inevitably entails tension between national interest and global benefits. In this talk, I propose to expand our understanding of public engagement from purely individualistic perspectives by taking into account people’s relations with their country and foreign countries.