Bold statement upfront: Different fields see different environmental problems, and that gap shapes the solutions they trust—and this misalignment helps explain why some debates stall. But here’s where it gets interesting: the disagreement may start with what each discipline even considers “the” environmental issue.
Imagine someone with chronic pain. One doctor fixes the specific body part that hurts, repeatedly treating the symptom. A second doctor takes a broader brain–body view, asking what keeps the nervous system stuck in a state of alarm—stress, fear of symptoms, or learned triggers. Because their starting questions differ, so do their treatments. The same logic applies to environmental debates. Experts disagree about which fixes work best and which priorities to pursue, and my colleagues and I recently found that the split may begin even earlier: economists and environmental scientists tend to disagree on which environmental problems matter most.
In a global survey of 2,365 researchers who publish in top economics and environmental science journals, we asked them to list up to nine environmental issues they currently deem most relevant. The results show two disciplines looking at the same planet through different lenses.
The issues researchers notice tend to steer the solutions they advocate. If a researcher focuses mainly on climate change, they are more inclined to see market-based methods (like a carbon tax) as promising. If they recognize a broader set of environmental problems—such as biodiversity loss or pollution—they are more likely to favor broader, systemic approaches.
Climate change stood out as the most frequently mentioned issue across the board, cited by about 70% of respondents. The second most mentioned category was biosphere integrity (nature loss), noted by roughly 51%.
Some issues deemed crucial for planetary stability—like novel entities (synthetic chemicals and plastics), biogeochemical flows (fertilizers, etc.), and ocean acidification—were mentioned far less often: about 43%, 9%, and 8% respectively.
These economists and environmental scientists appear to carry different problem maps. When we compared the two groups, environmental researchers listed more categories and a broader range of issues than economists did. Both groups commonly mentioned climate change and related topics like greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, but gaps emerged for issues less tightly linked to carbon, such as biodiversity, land system change, novel entities, and pollution.
One possible explanation is disciplinary training. Like photographers, we tend to notice what our field teaches us to frame. Economists typically study prices, incentives, and carbon-related policies, so climate change naturally sits at the center of their analysis.
We also asked respondents to rate the potential of seven approaches to mitigate environmental problems. All approaches were deemed to have at least moderate potential.
Overall, technological advances were rated highest, while non-violent civil disobedience was rated lowest. Economists tended to favor market-based solutions and technological innovations more than environmental researchers did. In contrast, environmental researchers gave higher marks to degrowth (a shrinking global economy) and non-violent civil disobedience.
When we looked deeper, a pattern emerged: researchers who named a broader range of environmental issues tended to favor more systemic solutions—environmental regulation, degrowth, and non-violent civil disobedience—while they associated less potential with purely technological fixes.
Economists and environmental scientists often advise governments, serve on expert panels, and shape what counts as a solution. If two influential groups start from different problem lists, it’s unsurprising that they advocate different remedies.
This also helps explain why some debates feel stalled. If you view climate change as the sole relevant issue, you’re more likely to trust cleaner tech and market incentives. If you also see biodiversity loss, chemical pollution, and land-system change as critical, the issue looks less like an engineering challenge and more like a web of interlinked pressures requiring changes across production, consumption, and economic organization.
Our related work on green growth—ponding that GDP growth may not be easily decoupled from environmental harm—shows that researchers across disciplines are far from convinced that economies can keep growing while emissions and resource use decline rapidly enough.
In short, you can’t agree on routes if you don’t share a map. A more shared, multi-issue view of the environmental crisis won’t instantly solve everything, but it can foster clearer research questions, richer discussions about trade-offs, and a wider range of viable solutions.
If you’d like a regular briefing on climate topics without digging in each week, consider this: a weekly, concise newsletter from The Conversation’s environment editor that goes deeper into one climate issue each Wednesday. It’s already attracted more than 47,000 subscribers.
