K. Levin, et al. introduced the distinction between “wicked” and “super wicked problems” in their discussion of global climate change.[22], revised and published in 2012, “Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change” Policy Sciences (May). They define super wicked problems as having the following additional characteristics:

1. Time is running out.
2. No central authority.
3. Those seeking to solve the problem are also causing it.
4. Policies discount the future irrationally.

While the items that define a wicked problem relate to the problem itself, the items that define a super wicked problem relate to the agent trying to solve it. Global warming as a super wicked problem, and the need to intervene to tend to our longer term interests, has also been taken up by others, including Lazarus [23].