How to Think About Climate Change Beyond the Culture War

Climate change has become a central concern because there is a widespread assumption that it will have an impact on society, and that this impact will be negative.

However, this suggests that, to understand climate change's societal impact, we need not only a working theory of the climate, but also a working theory of society - what it is, what it ought to be, and how it interacts with factors like climate change. 

The problem we face is not that we do not understand the climate, for we do and the science of climate change is very good. Rather, the problem we face is that we do not understand society. As such, we might say that our understand of climate change is less marked by a rich understand of the science, and more marked by an impoverished understanding of ourselves. 

In this essay, Dr Calum TM Nicholson, Director of Research at the Danube Institute, makes the case that, on the question of what we mean by society, there is no consensus, and that therefore debate is not only possible, but necessary.