Long Problems: Climate Change and the Challenge of Governing Across Time

"This book argues that, just as the "widening" of political problems across national boundaries due to globalization has led to profound shifts in how we understand, study, and approach governance across space, so too does their "lengthening" across time horizons require a fundamental shift in thinking and policy.

Social scientists and policy-makers have yet to really appreciate the role that time can play, hampering our ability to find effective solutions.

In this book, Thomas Hale explores the implications of "long problems"- those, like climate change, whose proximate causes and effects unfold over relatively long time periods -for politics and governance.

Hale starts by defining long problems and then considers the three features that make these issues so challenging: institutional lag, the fact that future generations cannot advocate for their interests in the present, and the difficulty of acting early enough to make a difference.