The Inaction Crisis: What’s Really Stopping Us?Growth Psychosis and the Psychology of Climate Failure
We are not failing to act on climate change because we lack evidence—we are failing despite it. Decades of scientific warnings have made the stakes unmistakably clear, yet the gulf between what we know and what we do continues to widen. This is more than a policy failure; it reflects deeply embedded, flawed assumptions that are driving systemic breakdown while simultaneously preventing us from responding at the required scale. There is a mountain of evidence supporting the veracity of anthropogenic climate change. We have known that humans are driving the climate crisis for decades. More than 30 years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change issued a report that was clear and unequivocal. Even the signing of the Paris Accord in 2015 failed to muster sufficient political will to alter our perilous trajectory. Despite the urgent need for action, our efforts remain critically insufficient. Ongoing climate impacts continue to outpace mitigation and adaptation efforts. To make matters worse, the climate is increasingly entangled in doom loops that are exacerbating multiple crises. We know what we must do, yet we are not doing it. Our failure to act is moving us ever closer to the collapse of civilisation. As Al Gore said, it is ‘literally insane’ that we are not doing what we must. We are left wondering what it will take to avert the looming catastrophe. We are witnessing biophysical breakdown in real time as we continue to breach planetary boundaries. Policymakers are moving away from sustainability. As evidenced by consumer consumption patterns, even the actions of private citizens appear to be faltering. So how do we explain the ever-expanding gulf between what we are doing and what needs to be done? Some are unaware of the urgency of the situation due to the boiling frog syndrome. For these people, the change is sufficiently gradual that they do not notice it. Some of those who are aware of the facts are overwhelmed by anxiety, while others are paralyzed by grief. There is also a group of individuals who appear to be willfully ignorant. Despite the vast and ever-growing pool of data that conclusively proves the veracity of global warming, tens of millions of Americans completely disregard climate science. According to a Yale Survey, roughly a third of Americans have remained “disengaged,” “doubtful,” or “dismissive” of climate change over the last ten years. It is as though people have a blind spot that is preventing them from acknowledging the facts. This has been described as ecological myopia, which refers to a short-sighted, narrow, or restricted view of environmental challenges that overlooks their systemic, interconnected nature. Such individuals often focus on immediate economic, political, or localized gains while ignoring long-term planetary stability. This blind spot cannot be attributed solely to right-wing politics; it is also driven by fossil fuel industry disinformation and the politicians that serve them. Ecological myopia may have roots that run even deeper. The ignorance that prevents many from acting may be attributable to psychological barriers and broken assumptions that prevent them from apprehending the scale of the crises. Examining the fundamentally flawed beliefs at the core of our societies goes a long way in helping us to understand why we are not addressing our perilous predicament. The preoccupation with growth is among the broken assumptions that are driving the climate crisis, and it is also one of the reasons why we are so reluctant to respond at the required scale. The obsession with growth is a mindset that emerged as an economic imperative at the core of the capitalist paradigm. From the moment we are born, we are steeped in the broken logic of growth. The fundamentally unsustainable fixation with growth is the driving force behind systemic breakdown. We have yet to understand that in a finite world, we cannot grow infinitely. Our failure to appreciate this simple logic is destroying the biosphere upon which all life depends. Despite the destructiveness of the growth mindset, it remains a quasi-religious dogma, or perhaps more aptly a form of psychosis, that is deeply embedded in our way of life. The preoccupation with growth frames the way we see the world, and prevents us from embracing solutions. Seen from this perspective, climate inaction is the predictable outcome of a system built on short-term thinking, distorted incentives, and a deeply ingrained belief in limitless growth. Until we confront the underlying drivers of ecological myopia—disinformation and the structures that reward inaction—we will remain locked in self-perpetuating patterns of inertia.
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