Why We Failed

How we foresaw yet ignored the collapse of civilization

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust / Unsplash

The collapse has begun.

Climate change is no longer a theoretical future threat; it is here, and its effects are cascading across our societies. 2024 is on track to be the hottest year post-industrialization. Atmospheric rivers are devastating communities and agricultural land. Heatwaves kill.

Predictability is giving way to erratic extremes, threatening food and water supplies. Yet, humanity is largely complacent.

We've known for decades - arguably for over 100 years - that greenhouse gasses cause the planet to heat. Yet, we've doubled-down on the status quo, emitting as much in the last 30 years as the last two centuries.

Why did we allow this to happen? Despite decades of warnings from scientists that our survival was at stake, why did we do next to nothing?

In this article, I will explain how we rationalized our way to extinction.

The Psychology of Inaction: How We Justified Ignoring the Crisis

The human brain isn't built to manage slow-moving, complex, systemic threats. This doesn't mean we're incapable of thinking long term. When the incentive, means and cooperation exists, humans have undertaken grand projects with intangible long-term payoffs. However, this requires power that often conflicts with the greater good.

Fascilitated by corporate and government propaganda, we have been guided to make decisions based on heuristics and biases, prioritizing short term gains over our long term survival. Our brains cheerily comply.

Cognitive dissonance: For years, many recognized the problem but continued to engage in behaviors—driving gas-powered cars, rabid consumption—that we knew contributed to it. To reconcile this contradiction, we rationalized our actions. “My individual choices don’t matter,” we told ourselves. “The real problem is big corporations.” By shifting the blame or minimizing our own impact, we avoid confronting the need for personal and collective sacrifice.

While corporations had the power to make impactful change, individuals had the power to elect leaders to build a framework that incentivizes change. True, we weren't presented with real leadership choices that supported a degrowth agenda, but arguably the power rests with society to create new choices (American, French, Russian revolutions).

Individuals also had the collective power to alter consumption patterns. But we didn't. Instead we deluded ourselves to reconcile the conflict in our heads.

Moral licensing: Our small positive actions—recycling or switching to energy-efficient light bulbs—gave us a sense of accomplishment, reducing the perceived need for more meaningful action. People believed they were “doing their part” without questioning whether those efforts were sufficient to address the scale of the crisis.

Hyperbolic discounting: We consistently prioritized short-term comfort over long-term survival. Cutting emissions or adopting new technologies would have required immediate costs—higher energy prices, less convenience—in exchange for benefits that wouldn’t materialize for decades. For most, the future always felt too distant to justify the discomfort of change. Even today, as collapse is increasingly present, people are still unwilling to pay a minor carbon tax.

Compounding this is the lack of immediate feedback. Unlike clear, visible dangers, climate change’s effects are unfolding gradually, making it difficult to connect actions to results. Humans are hardwired to respond to immediate threats, not abstract, cumulative ones.

Denial: The fear, guilt, and helplessness that come with understanding the scale of the crisis are too much for many to bear. Denial allows individuals to maintain emotional stability, even as evidence mounts.

Human behavior is deeply influenced by social norms, and climate inaction is no exception. For years, sustainable practices were portrayed (by those in power) as niche or radical. Consequently, those who adopted environmentally friendly behaviors often felt isolated, while mainstream culture celebrated consumption and convenience.

The 'system' defines success in terms of consumption. A better car, bigger house, luxurious vacations, status symbols. Sustainable lifestyles are stigmatized. Not only do people not want to be ostracized, they feel a competitive drive to keep up with their friends and neighbors.

Throughout the 20th amd 21st centuries, as the consumption-based lifestyle spiraled, people remained passive to the growing risks. Many people fell into a bystander effect, waiting for others—governments, corporations, or neighbors—to take the lead. This passivity created a vicious cycle. The lack of visible action by others reinforced the belief that the problem was too big or that solutions were someone else’s responsibility.

Adding to this was the global disparity in who suffered most from climate change. Wealthier nations often ignored the voices of those in the Global South, where communities were said to be the first to experience the brunt of climate impacts. The lack of visibility for these affected populations further diminished the perceived urgency in wealthier countries.

Short-Termism: The Enemy of Long-Term Survival

At the heart of our failure was short-termism, the tendency to prioritize immediate rewards over future stability. This mindset infected every level of decision-making, from individuals to governments and corporations.

Politicians, bound by election cycles, prioritized policies that offered quick wins over those that required long-term investments. Implementing carbon taxes or phasing out fossil fuels—actions that might have averted today’s disasters—were deemed politically unpalatable. The electorate, concerned with immediate economic pressures like gas prices and job security, resisted measures that demanded sacrifice. Political leaders, in turn, lacked the courage to enact the transformative policies needed.

Corporations, meanwhile, operated within a system that rewarded quarterly profits above all else. Executives who prioritized long-term sustainability risked losing market share or being ousted by shareholders. Entire economies were locked into continuous growth. Corporations could never be part of the solution, and any presentation as such was a farce.

Ironically, corporations also often fail when acting in their own best interest, competing their way into oblivion. Prior to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, I witnessed companies loosen restraints on risk exposure, not because it was wise, but because their competitors were doing so. The drive for short-term profit forced institutions to take risks they knew could be catastrophic. When the financial collapse came, it was the public that bore the cost of their recklessness. Similarly, with climate change, governments and corporations prioritized immediate gains, knowing the eventual catastrophic costs would be borne by future generations.

Structural Failures: How Institutions Let Us Down

While individuals bear some responsibility for inaction, the larger failure lies with the institutions that should have led the charge. Governments, corporations, and international organizations understood the science decades ago but chose to protect the status quo.

Special interest groups, particularly those tied to the fossil fuel industry, spent decades deliberately undermining climate action. They funded think tanks, political campaigns, and media outlets to sow doubt about the science. Their goal was not to disprove climate change—it couldn’t be—but to create doubt to delay action long enough to maximize their profits. By the time the truth was undeniable, the damage was irreversible. These tactics fed into existing confirmation bias, giving people a convenient excuse to dismiss or downplay the issue.

Governments also failed to rise to the challenge. International climate agreements were consistently watered down, postponed, or ignored. Even when targets were set, enforcement mechanisms were weak or nonexistent. Politicians spoke of green transitions but balked at the costs of implementing them, again prioritizing immediate economic growth over long-term sustainability.

Adding to these failures was the “free rider” problem, where nations hesitated to take action, fearing that other nations would benefit from their sacrifices without contributing themselves. This lack of global coordination ensured that emissions continued to rise unchecked.

Individual Complacency: The Quiet Enabler of Collapse

For years, many of us looked to our leaders, waiting for bold action that never came. But our individual complacency enabled this failure. By accepting the status quo—by continuing to consume, pollute, and vote for leaders who prioritized convenience over change—we allowed governments and corporations to act with impunity. Our collective silence signaled that climate inaction was acceptable.

This complacency was fueled by a sense of helplessness. Climate change was framed as a problem so vast and complex that individual efforts felt meaningless. This narrative, though partially true, ignored the collective power of grassroots movements. In hindsight, our belief in our own powerlessness - and unwillingness to join niche organizations to challenge those in power - became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Unavoidable Costs

The collapse we now face is defined by costs—human, economic, and environmental—that could have been avoided. Rising seas and extreme weather events will displace millions. Food and water scarcity will spark conflicts and exacerbate inequality. Governments will scramble to adapt, but the institutions that define modern civilization will soon crumble.

Some might argue our failure was not inevitable. It was the result of choices made by individuals, institutions, and systems that prioritized convenience, profit, denial and political expediency over long-term survival.

However, I believe those choices were built off a sociological and psychological foundation that defined our fate long ago. Our biases and mental heuristics helped us succeed as a species. In the end, the characteristics that created our success will be the cause of our demise.