Future generations may well view climate change as the defining issue of our time. The worst-case scenarios of climate change are truly terrible, but even middle-of-the-road scenarios portend environmental change without precedent for human society. When future generations look back on our time in charge of the planet, they will either cheer our foresight in dealing with this issue or curse our lack of it.

Yet despite the stakes, the world has done basically nothing to address this risk. The reasons are obvious: The threat of climate change is really a threat to future generations, not the present one, so actions taken by our generation will mostly benefit them and not us. Moreover, such actions may be expensive – reducing emissions means rebuilding our energy infrastructure, and we have no idea how much that will cost. In such a situation, it is easiest to do nothing and wait for disaster to strike – which is why dams are frequently built after the flood, not before. Nevertheless, pushing this problem off onto future generations is a poor strategy. The impacts of climate change are global and mainly irreversible; by the time we have unambiguous evidence that the climate is changing and its impacts are serious, it will be too late to avoid these serious impacts. The only hope that future generations have to avoid serious climate change is us.