Climate change and our responses to it represent systems that are far beyond our capacity for mental stimulation, leading to some of the most important misconceptions about how to effectively address climate change, such as:

• The future climate will be similar to the climate of the recent past that we’re used to (Weber & Stern, 2011).

• Climate change will be imperceptibly slow and gradual and will not directly affect me or those close to me (Leiserowitz, 2005, 2006; Leiserowitz, Smith, & Marlon, 2011; Maibach, Roser-Renouf, Weber, & Taylor, 2008; Weber, 2006).

• Greenhouse gases dissipate out of the lower atmosphere, and into space (Weber & Stern, 2011).

• If emissions are stabilized, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will also stabilize (“stock-flow failure”) (Cronin, Gonzalez, & Sterman, 2009; Sterman & Sweeney, 2007).

• An appropriate response to climate change is “wait-and-see”—taking action to reduce emissions or invest in potentially expensive adaptation strategies does not make sense until the problem is manifest (Sterman, 2012).