In the US, as elsewhere in the world, the climate change debate has been defined by two extremes. On one end are the apocalyptic oracles; on the other, the denying pollyannas. As in most modern debates, the war for attention and persuasion has been waged across the media. In this effort, far and away, the apocalyptic oracles have been the most successful. The denying pollyannas have their say, and while they’ve never managed to match the influence of the other side, the current economic situation will ensure they’re heard more frequently than before.

The great challenge for governments and companies is the same when it comes to climate change: What is true, what does it mean, and how best to proceed? Neither side offers much help here.

It is possible to believe that the science is right, that anthropogenic warming is causing change, and that this change will be harmful to ecosystems, to humans, to life as we know it. It is also possible to believe – at the same time – that economic growth and its ability to improve the lives of vast numbers of people is critical, that human ingenuity and our ability to adapt quickly is a hallmark of our species, that self-interest is more than an historical idée fixe. In fact, we think that holding these two beliefs simultaneously offers the developed and developing worlds the only clear framework for addressing climate change.

The world is not coming to an end. It is changing. Nations and companies have an obligation – one born both of self-interest and community – to mitigate the rate of that change. Too much change, too fast, destroys those systems and processes that sustain, enrich, and encourage our lives. Lowland flooding, projected at a 2° C rise in climate temperatures, has effects – particularly in a global economy – well beyond the immediate.

Nations, companies, and individuals have a tendency – not constructed in response to some grand strategy, but as a characteristic of who we are – for adaptation. Adversary creates solutions. Whether it’s a barter market after Hurricane Katrina, a Jewish-run education system in Auschwitz, or something as comparatively banal-seeming as retraining or retrenching after an economic downturn, we adapt. To ignore this, as much of the debate on appropriate responses to climate change has, is to neglect a significant variable – one that is at the heart of who we are.

Adaptation and mitigation, to a greater or lesser extent, are frequently cited or discussed in serious engagements with climate change. Less frequently mentioned is the role of self-interest. It is here that we think most current climate change debate falters.

Climate change is a global issue, yet nations, companies, and individuals live their lives promoting interests that are concerned with the immediate and local. Rare indeed is the entirely altruistic act; what comes first is what matters most…and with a timescale that reaches well into mid-century, climate change isn’t it – despite the protestations of the apocalyptic oracles or the ‘green’ commitments of most companies.

Nations have interests that do – purely and simply – conflict with those of current and projected climate change agreements. This remains true whether the nation signs-on to such agreements and then either fails to meet the requirements or ignores them (both are happening now with Kyoto), or fails to join, thereby diminishing the effectiveness and even efficacy of such agreements (US at Kyoto). An 80% decrease in CO2 emissions against a 1990 baseline means very little when weighed against bringing a billion people out of poverty.

With little outside of tax incentives or anemic offset markets to promote action in line with climate change policy, companies – and the global economic system in which they are embedded – see little to benefit them. The situation is compounded, exponentially, with the competitive disequilibrium that is created when oversight varies dramatically country to country, region to region. Again, this is less a legalistic problem than one of nature. Companies based in countries committed to growth over much else will be more able to ignore international agreements with near impunity.

Individuals may have self-interested reasons to act aggressively to combat climate change. Or not. Citizens of the Maldives are very motivated; those of the American Midwest less so. Rising sea levels threaten the continued existence of a country in the first instance but may provide longer and more productive growing cycles coming from shifting weather patterns in the second. The real power, in any case, of individuals is limited in affecting climate change. Yet, the basics of food, shelter, energy, and protection remain central to individuals’ conception of self-interest, and there is little wiggle room available to companies, markets, and nations in ignoring them.

Nations can thrive, companies can prosper, and humanity can grow – all sustainably. Yet the paths that the two sides of the current debate would have us take to reach this goal are dead ends. As the world prepares to engage with discussions around Kyoto 2, as the US contemplates serious climate change legislation and the monetization of carbon, and as markets seek to find a way out of their current doldrums, a middle road is available. Finding a way down it will require leadership, nuanced and serious policy, and realism.