Until climate change starts affecting our base hierarchy of needs, it's doomed to get more lip service than action. Outside of war efforts, have societies ever made sacrifices for the greater good?
the problem is about collective action, and justice/fairness/negotiation/geopolitics. like the iterated prisoner's dilemma. defectors get cheap energy, but then the next round your exports get a big tariff added, but then defectors of that get cheap shit, the next round they might get tariffs too, but then you hit a ceiling on this.
If a huge tree next to your house is starting to lean and is in danger of falling and causing tens of thousands worth of damage to your roof and exterior, is paying a few thousand to remove the tree a sacrifice?
Yes we could adapt to climate change but investing now in non-carbon-based technologies would be far cheaper and safer.
This wrong framing is actually the fault of the environmental movement which from the start has framed this like a moral panic and reform crusade. I credit that to the movement emerging from a culture with protestant puritan DNA. We got “forgive me nature for I have sinned” which is bullshit.
George Carlin gave a good retort. “Stop saying save the Earth! The Earth will be fine. We are fucked.”
We are what we are trying to save. “Nature” will be fine.
I think this has a lot more than simple science into it.
I am willing to pay the cost of transition as long as they give me dates and signa a contract saying they will give me my money back if things do not happen as in their calendar with a reasonable amoubt of flexibility.
Ozone depletion.
Here's a Fox News link on it: