don't believe altruism will solve greenhouse gas emissions and global warming: it'll only be solved when it becomes economic to do so.
You've listed altruism and economics, but may have discounted self-interest-- not financial, but survival. Young adults especially are both at an age where they can expect to feel some especially nasty impacts of climate change, and at a point in their career where they can begin making decisions accordingly.
The generations above that have family, children, etc, and that too is at least a mix of self interest and , I supposed, a form of altruism directed towards your family.
It's not easy for us to think in such timelines and abstract outcomes, but we're making progress in that direction.
I'm not saying self-interest in terms of self preservation will be the key factor here either, just that it not just about a sort of mechanical economic optimization point. At some tipping point, economic w/ technological advances will converge with self preservation. I guess the question is whether or not that will happen soon enough to really matter. Economics may be the dominant factor now, but the worse things get, the less that economics will matter in making decisions, the more that self preservation will become dominant.
I think environmental issues are the classic tragedy of the commons. The first to put aside environmental issues in favor of riches will have a disproportionate advantage with a proportionate impact. One country burning gas gets cheap fuel to expand their industries but only has a marginal increase in future global warming and (the worst part) almost no impact on today's temperature.
We need more than altruism, which is local sacrifice. We need global enforcement and agreement and, I agree with GP, incentive.
Global climate change is not something one person or family can affect, so I don't understand what form of self-interest driven action could impact it.
BTW, the "economic" solution consists of making it in everyone's self interest to work against COâ‚‚ emissions.
You've listed altruism and economics, but may have discounted self-interest-- not financial, but survival. Young adults especially are both at an age where they can expect to feel some especially nasty impacts of climate change, and at a point in their career where they can begin making decisions accordingly.
The generations above that have family, children, etc, and that too is at least a mix of self interest and , I supposed, a form of altruism directed towards your family.
It's not easy for us to think in such timelines and abstract outcomes, but we're making progress in that direction.
I'm not saying self-interest in terms of self preservation will be the key factor here either, just that it not just about a sort of mechanical economic optimization point. At some tipping point, economic w/ technological advances will converge with self preservation. I guess the question is whether or not that will happen soon enough to really matter. Economics may be the dominant factor now, but the worse things get, the less that economics will matter in making decisions, the more that self preservation will become dominant.