Better Voters

We know we are at risk of extinction, and that knowledge can be paralyzing. The best science — peer-­reviewed and authoritative — tells us we must act with urgency for a complete global transformation. It tells us we must stop using fossil fuels as soon as possible. It tells us we must engage in massive forest restoration to sequester carbon and revive biodiversity. And it tells us that, even with immediate transformative action, we will continue to face massive climate disruption, for which we must prepare and adapt now.

Yet as a society, we behave as though the situation is manageable with conventional decision making. Or we tell ourselves we’ll make the tough calls down the line. Such is the human condition.

As human beings, we are capable of holding two mutually exclusive, even contradictory beliefs at the same time. Living in denial can be nice, and sometimes it’s just about trivial things. We tell our dentist we floss regularly, for example...