This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Though scientific studies confirm that rising global temperatures and shifting climate patterns threaten human health, biodiversity, ecosystem sustainability, food security, water and air quality, and other ecosystem services on which we depend, less than half of adults worldwide see global warming as a threat to themselves and their families. Why aren’t we more worried about this looming disaster?

Daniel Gilbert argues that our brains naturally react to threats that are intentional, imminent, immoral and instantaneous, while global warming lacks all these properties. To assess the threats facing us today he says we should open our hands not make a fist.