Facing Climate Change: An Integrated Path to the Future

Facing Climate Change explains why people refuse to accept evidence of a warming planet and shows how to move past partisanship to reach a consensus for action. A climate scientist and licensed psychotherapist, Jeffrey T. Kiehl examines the psychological phenomena that twist our relationship to the natural world and their role in shaping the cultural beliefs that distance us further from nature. He also accounts for the emotions triggered by the lived experience of climate change and the feelings of fear and loss they inspire, encouraging us to retreat into fantasy.

But all is not lost. By evaluating our way of being, Kiehl unleashes a potential human emotional understanding that can reform our behavior and help protect the Earth. Kiehl dives deep into the human brain’s psychological structures and human spirituality’s imaginative power, mining promising resources for creating a healthier connection to the environment—and each other. Facing Climate Change is as concerned with repairing our social and political fractures as it is with reestablishing our ties to the world, teaching us to push past partisanship and unite around the shared attributes that are key to our survival. Kiehl encourages policymakers and activists to appeal to our vast interdependence as a global society, extracting politics from the process and making decisions about our climate future that are more substantial and sustaining.