MEETING ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES:
The Role of Human Identity
by Crompton, Tom and Kasser, Tim

“Never have environmental problems appeared so insuperable. Whatever the past victories of the environment movement, we need a new and deeper approach – one that begins to engage the human values and identities that lie at the heart of environmental challenges. Meeting Environmental Challenges: The Role of Human Identity does not flinch in insisting on both the possibility and the absolute necessity of working in this way. As such, it makes a clear and important contribution to a realistic response to today’s environmental crisis.�
– James Gustave Speth, author of The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability

“A huge shift in public attitudes to global warming is vital to secure our future. The new strategy put forward in this superb book is subtle, powerful and based on cutting edge psychological research. It’s probably our last best shot.�
– Clive Hamilton, author of Growth Fetish and Scorcher: The dirty politics of climate change

In addressing environmental challenges like climate change, governments, charities and business tend to focus either on changing policy or business practice, or on urging individuals to adopt different behaviour. The role of human identity is largely absent from the debate. And yet, our identities – who we see ourselves as being – have a profound impact in shaping the responses we make to environmental challenges.

This provocative book will rattle the cages of many environmentalists, ‘green-minded’ business-people and policy makers. In it, Crompton and Kasser suggest that many current approaches to addressing problems like climate change may actually inadvertently serve to reinforce those aspects of identity that drive us towards unsustainable behaviour in first place. They suggest that it will only be by re-shaping political debate and social institutions in order to promote more helpful aspects of identity that we can have any hope of meeting environmental challenges.

The book closes by highlighting the opportunities that this perspective presents for building new alliances between people working not just on environmental issues, but also on a range of social and developmental concerns: Many of those aspects of human identity that frustrate progress on the environmental agenda also frustrate progress on meeting other challenges