The root of the climate crisis is a psycho-social-political crisis – and should be treated as such

After I already pointed out that the root of the climate crisis is psycho-social-political, not natural, at a meeting with members of the German parliament in October 2019 [1], I listened today to an interview with world-leading climate scientist Prof. Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber with newspaper “Svenska Dagbladet” today [2]. I was more than happy to find out that he actually mentioned one of his recent papers, which studied social tipping elements (STEs) and social tipping point interventions (STIs) for stabilizing Earth’s climate [3]:
These social tipping interventions, which could trigger the tipping of social tipping elements subsystems include:
  1. Financing:
    1. Public: removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation (STE1, energy production and storage systems),
    2. Private: divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels (STE3, financial markets),
  2. City infrastructure:
    1. building carbon-neutral cities (STE2, human settlements),
  3. Education on climate, ethics, and social interventions
    1. strengthening climate education and engagement (STE5, education system), and
    2. revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels (STE4, norms and value systems),
  4. Evaluation:
    1. disclosing information on greenhouse gas emissions (STE6, information feedbacks).
His research reveals important areas of focus for larger-scale empirical and modeling efforts to better understand the potentials of harnessing social tipping dynamics for climate change mitigation.
I am looking forward to learn more about this topic, to provide an empiry-based strategy for ecological movements to protect the Earth’s biosphere. Please share any references you find useful relating to this topic (wilmar.igl[AT]gmx.de).
References:
[1] http://biosphere.wilmarigl.de/en/?p=1437
[2] https://www.svd.se/ingen-lyssnade-da–det-haller-mig-somnlos
[3] Ilona M. Otto, Jonathan F. Donges, Roger Cremades, Avit Bhowmik, Richard J. Hewitt, Wolfgang Lucht, Johan Rockström, Franziska Allerberger, Mark McCaffrey, Sylvanus S. P. Doe, Alex Lenferna, Nerea Morán, Detlef P. van Vuuren, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (2020). “Social tipping dynamics for stabilizing Earth’s climate by 2050”, P
[4] Roberts, D. (2020-01-29). Social tipping points are the only hope for the climate. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/1/29/21083250/climate-change-social-tipping-points

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