Attention has an important role to play in influencing people’s beliefs and directing what they take to be epistemically, politically, or socially relevant. For particular views to have any influence on what others believe they first need to be paid attention to. Not doing so, restricts epistemic agents from contributing to the shared common ground, the ability to set the agenda, and the opportunity to influence people’s beliefs. But when we pay undue attention to some perspectives and less to others, the common ground naturally shifts. The importance of agenda-setting is clear: those who set the agenda determine both what counts as knowledge and the social and political spheres worthy of engagement. It follows that variable attention budgets at a minimum consisting of motivation, memory, and context variables are also needed for recursive joint individual attention. Without directed epistemic attention to attain the “why” of sustainability, public policy would be at sea in search of direction, focus, and purpose.