21 Lessons for the 21st Century

by Yuval Noah Harari

An atom bomb is such an obvious and immediate threat that nobody can ignore it. Global warming, in contrast, is a more vague and protracted menace. Therefore whenever long-term environmental considerations demand some painful short-term sacrifice, nationalists might be tempted to put immediate national interests first, and reassure themselves that they can worry about the environment later, or just leave it to people elsewhere. Alternatively, they may simply deny the problem. It isn’t a coincidence that skepticism about climate change tends to be the preserve of the nationalist right. You rarely see left-wing socialists tweet that “climate change is a Chinese hoax.” Since there is no national answer to the problem of global warming, some nationalist politicians prefer to believe the problem does not exist.