Geoclimatic and Cognitive Shifts: An Analysis of Their Interrelationship in the Era of Global Crisis

This article examines and analyzes the typology of global geoclimatic shifts, classifying the types of environmental and climatic changes that change the face of the planet. The authors identified 4 types of geoclimatic shifts, such as gradual climatic trends, extreme changes in weather conditions, turning points in the Earth’s system, and changes in biosphere and ecosystem regimes. The authors also consider global cognitive shifts that classify changes in human behavior, values, and collective psychology in response to the global crisis. The types identified by the authors are as follows: climate anxiety, environmental grief and the psychology of crisis, digital transformation and cognitive overload, changes in values, worldview, and moral principles. For each category in the article, the authors identified the key driving factors, their characteristics and the observed consequences for environmental stability, human health, food and water security, as well as the sustainability of infrastructure. The authors draw on modern scientific literature in the fields of the environment, behavioral sciences, cognitive sociology, and moral psychology. A key analytical contribution is the study of the effects of the interaction between geoclimatic and cognitive shifts. In the article, the authors analyzed how climatic stress factors — extreme heat, lack of resources, population displacement, and exposure to natural disasters — can increase psychological stress, change moral priorities, and transform institutional trust, while cognitive models such as increased risk, cascades of misinformation, and failures of collective action, in turn, can influence the results of mitigation and adaptation. In conclusion, the authors consider how these shifts interact with each other (for example, how climatic stressors cause psychological reactions or social changes), and also consider how such a typology can help in research, policy development, and political sustainability planning.

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