Climate Change and the Clash of Worldviews: An Exploration of How to Move Forward in a Polarized Debate

The current gridlock around climate change and how to address our global sustainability issues can be understood as resulting from clashes in worldviews. This article summarizes some of the research on worldviews in the contemporary West, showing that these (ideal-typical) worldviews have different,...

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Bibliographic Details
Subtitles:Why do we disagree on climate change?
Main Author: Witt, Annick de (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Open Library of Humanities$s2024- [2015]
In: Zygon
Year: 2015, Volume: 50, Issue: 4, Pages: 906-921
Further subjects:B gridlock
B Worldviews
B Climate Change
B cultural polarization
B Sustainability
Online Access: Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:The current gridlock around climate change and how to address our global sustainability issues can be understood as resulting from clashes in worldviews. This article summarizes some of the research on worldviews in the contemporary West, showing that these (ideal-typical) worldviews have different, and frequently complementary, potentials, as well as different pitfalls, with respect to addressing climate change. Simultaneously, the overview shows that, because of their innate reflexivity and their capacity to appreciate and synthesize multiple perspectives, individuals inhabiting integrative worldviews may have particular potentials with respect to addressing climate change. In the conclusion I argue that the policy challenge is to develop strategies that inspire the different worldview groups to actualize their potentials while mitigating their pitfalls, as well as to unite and mobilize them around a single vision that speaks to them all.
ISSN:1467-9744
Contains:Enthalten in: Zygon
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/zygo.12226