The Climate Change Challenge: How to Maintain Order

Governments do not have the power anymore. It has shifted towards private corporations and conglomerates who know how the financial power to lobby in favor of laws and public policies according to their interests. Maybe it has always been this way, but never at a global scale.

As information becomes ubiquitous through communication technologies and social media, your everyday citizen is becoming not only a potential change agent but also an engaged global citizen. Very soon the citizens of the world will become aware of the power they could have if they organized themselves. And they won't necessarily try to seize power democratically or peacefully. The Arab Spring was a good illustration of this.

What does all of this have to do with climate change? As more people become aware of the problem, they will start demanding greater participation in the way governments and corporations deal with the environment. Climate change is not a threat anymore. It is a collection of costs that are, as usual, borne first and foremost by most impoverished communities around the world.

Among all its costs, perhaps the highest to bear by nations is how to maintain social order. I strongly recommend governments to come clean with true information and science-based knowledge on climate change to prepare its people and to get everyone on board with bold ideas and actions to adapt and mitigate. Praying will do no good, but a great deal of faith might.