Fourteenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

When people think about what they can personally do to address climate change, they usually come up with a list like this: reducing their carbon footprint, buying green alternatives, and political involvement. These things are important, but a key item is missing from this list: improving our cooperation abilities. In some ways the importance of better cooperation is obvious - we all need to work together if we want to solve climate change. Yet it is often overlooked. This paper argues that we need a concrete plan for improving humanity’s cooperation skills, and that the core of this plan should focus on building these capabilities at the grassroots level. When local community groups meet across political lines, religious affiliation, economic status, and race for the purpose of building understanding, working on solutions and sharing their lives with each other – the capability to work for the common good grows. These groups have the opposite effect of social media, were people tend to isolate into tribal alliances and demonize those they disagree with. Although practicing cooperation skills doesn’t sound very significant, we should not underestimate its importance. We became Homo sapiens when we evolved new cooperation skills that depended on storytelling. It is these unique skills that lead to our domination of all the other animals, and where we are at today. A good understanding of these skills and how we can improve on them is critical to resolving climate change.