What's the Worst That Could Happen?

Climate change is a hotly debated issue with life-changing effects set to occur in nearly every part of the globe, with some even occurring today. There is debate over if it is occurring, if it is anthropogenic, and if those changes are bad. This study reviews recent literature from a variety of fields related to climate change to understand why uncertainty is so prevalent and how best to reduce uncertainty as a society. The uncertainty surrounding climate change enters the debate in two main areas. The first is in the physical realm of modeling the future changes and predicting climatic conditions at a given time in the future. The second is in the social realm where the differences in political and moral values among individuals give rise to a variety of actions in response to challenges faced by humanity. While uncertainty surrounding climate modeling is certainly a big problem that should continue to be studied, the scientific consensus is that climate change is anthropogenic and will have disastrous consequences for a large portion of the population if no action takes place. However, due to the social uncertainty, the inherent biases among people shift the public debate into skepticism over the science behind climate change. Instead, action should mainly be focused on tackling the uncertainty present in social areas to get as many people as possible motivated to take action to reduce the threat of climate change and global warming.