What Affects Every Human on Earth?

Humans are hardwired to react to immediate, visible threats—not abstract, long-term challenges like climate change.

Universal Forces Affecting All Humans

All human beings, regardless of culture, geography, or socioeconomic status, share certain immutable physical and biological conditions. These commonalities bind us together as a species.

Physical Necessities: We need air to breathe, water to drink, food for energy, and sleep for physical and mental restoration. These needs are foundational and non-negotiable.

Biological Realities: Our life cycle—from birth through aging to death—is governed by shared genetics, metabolic systems, and physiological functions such as thermoregulation, digestion, and immunity.

Environmental Exposure: We are all influenced by Earth's climate, including its daily and seasonal weather patterns, solar radiation, and the protective atmosphere that regulates life-supporting conditions.

Universal Human Experience: Every person processes emotions, stores memories, and interprets sensory information through similar neurological systems. We experience time, change, and mortality as defining elements of human life.

Cosmic Influences: Forces beyond Earth, such as solar energy and lunar gravitational pull, impact everything from tides to sleep cycles. Even if imperceptible, these cosmic rhythms touch all life on the planet.

The Climate Coverage Paradox

Despite the existential nature of climate change, media coverage has been declining in both volume and urgency. This contradiction reflects a dangerous gap between knowledge and communication.

In 2024, U.S. corporate media dedicated only 12 hours and 51 minutes to climate-related content. This represents just 0.15% of total programming time—a bafflingly small portion given the stakes.

This occurred despite 2024 being one of the most climate-disastrous years on record. Instead of ramping up coverage, media outlets scaled back, often citing low viewer engagement and advertiser sensitivity.

Reasons for this trend include competition from political stories (like elections), viewer fatigue, misinformation, and the fragmented nature of digital media. This lack of coverage exacerbates public ignorance and apathy.

Public Priorities vs Climate Logic

Data from Pew Research (2024) highlights a stark disconnection between public policy priorities and the real threat hierarchy posed by climate change.

While 73% of Americans see strengthening the economy as the top priority, climate change ranks 12th—even though it has the potential to undermine every higher-ranked concern.

For instance, climate-related disasters already cost billions, disrupt supply chains, and trigger inflation—directly impacting economic stability. Similarly, food, healthcare, immigration, and crime are all climate-linked.

The relegation of climate change to a lower priority suggests a cognitive failure, not a factual one. People understand science, but they often compartmentalize its implications due to psychological overwhelm.

Human Psychology and Denial

Humans are hardwired to react to immediate, visible threats—not abstract, long-term challenges like climate change. This psychological mismatch leads to denial and inaction.

The concept of 'psychological distance' explains why climate seems remote—happening in the future, to other people, in faraway places. This reduces urgency.

Many decision-makers are older and will not personally experience the worst impacts, leading to a fatalistic 'not in my lifetime' mindset.

Compounding this is the belief in future technology as a silver bullet, and a diffusion of responsibility that paralyzes collective action.

Industrial Complicity

Despite being aware of the impacts, major industries continue to accelerate climate degradation. This is particularly evident in the manufacturing and construction industries.

Manufacturing accounts for approximately 21% of global greenhouse gas emissions. From electronics to textiles, corporations prioritize speed, quantity, and obsolescence over sustainability.

Construction, particularly through cement production, contributes 8% of global emissions. It also produces over 40% of the world's waste, paving cities and ecosystems for speculative development.

Executives are often shielded from consequences—living in wealthier, better-protected areas—while vulnerable communities suffer most from pollution and climate hazards.

UN and Government Shortcomings

International efforts through the UN, including the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, have not significantly reduced emissions. Instead, global CO2 levels are 60% higher than in 1994.

The Green Climate Fund remains underfunded and mismanaged. Promised contributions are rarely fulfilled, and local adaptation goals are often unmet.

Political compromises, lack of enforcement, and overreliance on voluntary action have rendered many of these agreements symbolic rather than transformative.

Meanwhile, national governments, especially in wealthier nations, often reverse green policies under pressure from lobbyists or during economic downturns.

If Nothing Changes (2025–2075)

Staying on our current path could result in catastrophic outcomes within a single human lifetime. Scientific consensus warns of 2.4–2.9°C warming by 2100, possibly sooner.

Food systems will begin collapsing by the 2040s due to drought, soil degradation, pollinator loss, and extreme weather. This will spark geopolitical conflict and migration crises.

By 2075, over 1–2 billion people could be displaced. Key regions, including parts of Asia, Africa, and the Americas, may become uninhabitable.

Simultaneously, infrastructure will crumble under repeated climate stress, leading to financial market instability, supply chain failures, and state collapse.

Artificial Intelligence’s Role

AI has the potential to both worsen and solve the climate crisis. Currently, it's being used to optimize energy extraction, finance, and surveillance—exacerbating problems.

At the same time, AI offers hope: smarter energy grids, predictive disaster models, carbon accounting systems, and new materials discovery.

However, AI’s benefits will depend entirely on who controls it and for what ends. Without regulation and ethical design, it may serve elite survival rather than global sustainability.

 Sources and References

Media Matters for America (2024). How broadcast TV networks covered climate change.

Pew Research Center (2024). Americans’ Changing Relationship with Policy Priorities.

IPCC (2022). Sixth Assessment Report on Climate Change.

NBC News (2024). Environment and Climate Sections.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Reports (2023).

IEA (2023). Global CO2 Emissions by Sector and Subsector.

Brookings Institution (2024). Political Divide in Climate Media Coverage.

Reuters Institute (2024). Climate Change and News Audience Reports.