Most of us have heard of the ice caps melting. Few can still say they haven’t seen pictures of stranded polar bears or turtles choking on plastic—or wildfires in California, Greece and elsewhere. Not to mention floods in Texas, Pakistan, Beijing, as well as drought and crop failure in the Sahel. In other words, we are being warned now more than ever of the devastating consequences of climate change on our planet.

But why are so few people seeing the threat for what it is and acting accordingly?

While extinction and animal suffering is tragic, it is also far removed from our lives. It is hard to find someone callous enough to say they don’t care for wildlife; yet those who transform their lifestyles in response to its plight are also a minority.

Likewise, natural disasters may well be disastrous, but they are also natural, accidental, random—or at least appear that way in our minds. For the lucky among us they even remain distant and almost inconceivable risks. The fact is, it is hard to be galvanised by an increased probability of disaster, let alone when it comes to disasters you have never experienced or that are likely to occur far away.

Even if 3.6 billion people are highly vulnerable to climate change’s impacts, most of them may not yet have realised that they are in that position—or would act upon it even if they had. Part of the reason is because it’s so hard to recognise, on an almost subconscious level, that human action is in large part the cause of what appears so instinctively out of human control and in the hands of nature or other forces perceived as beyond human influence. We don’t internalise the damage we cause; we don’t see or feel the threat we face.

And what about the other 4.5 billion or so people, who don’t face the same immediate threats but whose lives will nonetheless be dramatically altered? The global challenge of climate change requires just as much action on their part.

Yet for better or worse, there is only so much real sympathy—sympathy that translates into action—that we have to offer as humans. There is also only so much we can actually relate to—so much that is real and tangible and provokes immediate and lasting responses in us.

Our brains employ all kinds of heuristics to navigate the complexities of life, and naturally these take shortcuts that focus on our own experience. Factoring in these remote, abstract and at times apparently random disasters, statistics, deaths, changes and transgressions of planetary boundaries is unsurprisingly an insufficient motivator for many of us. Whether we like it or not, a large part of our decision-making is (necessarily?) selfish in character and restricted in scope.

We thus find ourselves stuck in a slow-burn. Many may rationally accept climate change as a danger but struggle to muster the motivation day-to-day or at key moments to do with their lifestyles and wallets what the science is telling us is necessary.

We have busy lives and because of the way we respond to and prioritise things, the abstract danger of climate change is too often neglected in favour of immediate and familiar concerns. We may also feel that events are out of our control, and we would be spending our lives more productively on things within our own power.

Accordingly, thrusting the responsibility for reversing climate and nature-loss into the hands of individual behavioural change is irresponsible. In many cases, it is a harmful distraction.

However, raising censorious brows and chastising people for their immorality in doing little to save the polar bears, turtles, starving children and future generations might be just as unwise. The majority response of lacklustre engagement and piecemeal action to the sort of complex, existential threat we face is by-and-large a natural one. Besides, we are flawed, often "morally mediocre" beings; people aren’t evil because they have done substantively little in response to climate change. Imposing lofty, sanctimonious moral standards will just lead to dejection, resentment, politicisation and polarisation.

Now by no means is this intended to be an apologist piece for climate inaction. On the contrary, destroying environmental stability and health outcomes, decimating landscapes and ecosystems, degrading natural capital and passing on an annual $38 trillion bill to your children (the costs of climate have been estimated to reach that figure by 2049) is pretty inexcusable. And even the most amoral individual must realise that it is not a smart investment.

Rather, this article proposes a strategic re-alignment of efforts by rejecting the polarised climate debate and advocating the construction of broad-based coalitions for climate action. It promotes informing people on the direct costs of climate change and nature-loss for what matters to them—be it purchasing power, health, migration etc. It encourages building a positive narrative surrounding the individual rewards of a sustainable transition and giving people a stake in climate action. It recognises that to harness people’s capacity for good, climate action needs to be properly valued in our main decision-making and distributive tools, particularly price.

Above all, it espouses the view that climate action need not be individually cumbersome if collectively solved; even if you cannot find the motivation for any other action, at least remember that when you next vote or engage in public fora. Just imagine what steps governments could take if the global majority worried about climate change heeded this simple call.