I am late to this, but I recently read the Cambridge Elements monograph on the gap between the prescriptions of even the most modest economic climate change models and the reality of our collective actions.
Decarbonise, that's the only solution. Neoliberal solutions like credits, ect. don't work because companies game the system like they are doing now: almost all offset schemes have been found to be fraudulent. And the latest research has found 'natural' gas - which isn't natural at all - creates 33 1/3% more greenhouse gases than coal the situation is even more urgent. Just ask a Floridian. Except the governor who's a climate change denier...
We cannot even get climate policy to be consistent within countries. Canada's Conservative Party has been advocating for carbon pricing for decades; now that the country has one (a carbon tax), implemented by the governing Liberal Party, carbon taxing is evil and "hurting Canadian families".
Essentially, political parties favour measures that in effect defer action that might be painful.
From p. 76: "At the core is a failure of self-control: impatience, the absence of sufficient willpower, and the inability to defer immediate gratification."
I would make an even stronger point: The situation resembles a variant of the prisoner's dilemma, where individuals face a choice between acting in their immediate self-interest or sacrificing personal gratification for the long-term benefit of others. In this case, the ‘cooperation’ option involves forgoing immediate rewards for the hope that (a) the majority of other people will also cooperate and (b) future generations—people you don't know and may not even care about—will benefit. The 'defection' option, meanwhile, is indulging in immediate gratification, with little regard for the long-term consequences. Now consider that humans are inherently poor at making sacrifices when the rewards are abstract and distant ...
I think part of the problem is that it is not very clear what to do.
It is very clear what to do: put a price on all carbon emissions and enforce that price.
We just don't want to do it.
Decarbonise, that's the only solution. Neoliberal solutions like credits, ect. don't work because companies game the system like they are doing now: almost all offset schemes have been found to be fraudulent. And the latest research has found 'natural' gas - which isn't natural at all - creates 33 1/3% more greenhouse gases than coal the situation is even more urgent. Just ask a Floridian. Except the governor who's a climate change denier...
We cannot even get climate policy to be consistent within countries. Canada's Conservative Party has been advocating for carbon pricing for decades; now that the country has one (a carbon tax), implemented by the governing Liberal Party, carbon taxing is evil and "hurting Canadian families".
Essentially, political parties favour measures that in effect defer action that might be painful.
From p. 76: "At the core is a failure of self-control: impatience, the absence of sufficient willpower, and the inability to defer immediate gratification."
I would make an even stronger point: The situation resembles a variant of the prisoner's dilemma, where individuals face a choice between acting in their immediate self-interest or sacrificing personal gratification for the long-term benefit of others. In this case, the ‘cooperation’ option involves forgoing immediate rewards for the hope that (a) the majority of other people will also cooperate and (b) future generations—people you don't know and may not even care about—will benefit. The 'defection' option, meanwhile, is indulging in immediate gratification, with little regard for the long-term consequences. Now consider that humans are inherently poor at making sacrifices when the rewards are abstract and distant ...