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Comment by dkarbayev | Hacker News Reader

One thing that I fail to wrap my mind around: aren’t all those corporations executives, politicians, and poachers living on the same planet Earth as all of us? Don’t they ever think that they’re actually destroying our planet and there’s no other place to live? I can imagine that they don’t believe pro-climate change people, but they could simply hire an independent group of researchers, don’t they? And I mean actually independent researchers, not those who will produce any outcome you demand from them.

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Don't underestimate the ability of people to ignore evidence if it challenges their personal beliefs. I know way too many retired engineers who refuse to believe the science because a certain TV network has convinced them that it's a political hoax.

That attitude even trickles down to more local issues -https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/02/20/3m-vs-minnesota-wat... here in MN for example. Many of the people I refer to above are 3M'ers and believe that the State is extorting 3M. A couple of them are very vocally opposed to anyone installing water filters because of this.

That's the not-so-funny element. Companies like Exxon were the first to hire independent researchers back in the 70s and helped pioneer climate research, with management being briefed on the as far back as 1977, and had developed its own models by 1982 that were widely circulated within the company.[0][1] That research was allowed to continue for nearly a decade, and Exxon researchers consulted on DOE research and reports throughout the 80s. It wasn't hidden, either within the company or without, until management decided to take a somewhat different approach with its lobbying efforts. They saw the word "uncertainty" with regards to climate modeling as a lifeline, and they took it.

It's easy to generalize interested parties that promote climate change denialism as not giving a damn since they'll be long dead before the worst consequences hit. That may very well be a partial explanation, but if you look at how some of the rhetoric has shifted with talk of geoengineering, there's this idea that a future generation will be able to deploy technical fixes. And once you buy into the hope that offers, it's inevitable that you'll downplay the sheer cost and scale of such an intervention. After all, computers are cheaper now than they were in the 80s, so who knows how expensive geoengineering will be in a few decades? There's a hope that an easier, cheaper solution will present itself in the future.

So I think a larger part of the answer isn't so much that corporate executives and politicians don't believe in climate change (though there are probably plenty who have bought into their own spin), as it is that they've pinned their hopes on the terribly alluring delusion that maybe it'll be cheaper to reverse the trend tomorrow than make the sort of difficult choices needed to start mitigating it today. Or, more accurately, over three decades ago.

0. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-...

1. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18092015/exxon-confirmed-...

Pretty sure Hollywood with all the films about a few thousand people escaping an uninhabitable earth only to settle on a desolate rock is not helping at all. I’m betting people watching that stuff imagine themselves on the escape ship, not as the billions who don’t make it.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

― Upton Sinclair

> Don’t they ever think that they’re actually destroying our planet and there’s no other place to live?

They might, but monetarily speaking, they can afford it. See: home protection via private firefighters [1], ability to buy citizenship in nations which will be less (only a little less) affected by rising surface temperatures [2], and of course more extreme prepper stuff [3].

[1]: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/priva...

[2]: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/silicon-valley-doomsday-p...

[3]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-...

Pointing with the finger on others is not going to help. We're destroying our planet together. Nearly everyone is involved, and most of the problems are hard to solve because they are 1. collective action problems whose right solution is not a Nash equilibrium, and 2. involve long term risks.

Humans are not bad at solving the first category, according to some theories social institutions evolve out of a need to solve these kind of problems, but we're very bad at the second category, as every smoker can attest you. Humanity has never displayed any ability to think and plan ahead fifty or hundred years, let alone longer periods.

A lot of people live pretty disconnected from nature. In cities and suburbs it can feel like we’ve conquered nature; so it can be hard for people to grasp how dependent we still are on biodiversity. We’re also poorly wired for prioritizing long term plans over short term rewards. Even when, rationally, we know a crisis is looming. Then there’s plain old cognitive dissonance — our inability to accept facts that conflict with our worldview. And lastly: being wealthy and powerful doesn’t always equate with being intelligent.

About 30% of people seem wired as non-cooperators even when this is disadvantageous; they only ever transact competitively. That's a good trait to have for certain social niches; but to the extent that those social roles shape the environment for everyone else it's a problem.

They will just usually say "let the others do it". Game theory says that all parties could be better off by co-operating but if you get benefit if you defect while others co-operate then everyone would end up defecting. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma#Internation... for an example.

We live in a winner-takes-all world, or conversely, an eat-or-be-eaten world. Giving in to the environment means your competitor is now one step ahead of you.

This holds for individuals (politicians), companies, and even countries (e.g. US versus China).

Yes, now watch me derive all of human history from first Darwinian principles. (smh)

Edit: got me with that downvote.

I had this thought every time I see a certain group in the US demonizing the EPA. We all use the same air, water and soil. Aren't they afraid if their kids take in the toxins that are allowed into said resources because the EPA's funding is cut or they push through laws that prevent the EPA from doing what they should be doing??

Maybe they don’t think they will suffer the consequences because they can screen their own water and soil. It could be that they have a scarcity mindset where their potential wealth is being used to test soil and water of other people at the expense of protecting them.

I mean, I live in Russia and I ask myself the same question about our "president". And the North Korea, that's a nightmare on a country scale. It seems, once you get up there, your humanity somehow gets abstracted away by either power or groups with interests...

They're investing in apocalypse bunkers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-rich-new-zealand-doo...

reading your comment made me think about this video where a green activist ask during a session with lawmakers in Luxembourg « who among you has read the ipcc report ? »

https://youtu.be/KSxIbJlkKD0

Don't try to scapegoat, it's a collective action problem, everyone on the planet is responsible for this. Think about how painful it would be for you to totally wean yourself off fossil fuels. It's the same at the nation level.

What are they supposed to do? Run their company into the ground to be a sacrificial lamb in our capitalist society? Humanity is still a competition. Worrying about nature will get you bulldozed.

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It would be more accurate if you replaced "greedy capitalists" with "humanity". I have been all over the world and materialism that is so denounced as a US/capitalist vice is actually prevalent EVERYWHERE. The desire to improve ones life and acquire material is universal to all people regardless of the ruling structure of their country. It is my opinion that what we need to focus on is a reduction of consumerism that prioritizes short term gratification; the "greedy capitalist" can't make money if no one is buying.

You're equating the human drive for a better life with capitalism. This is a common propaganda talking point that attempts to paint 'capitalism' as a natural drive rather than an ideology.

Capitalism is merely the private ownership of the means of production (i.e. farms, factories, utilities etc.) for personal profit. Capitalism is not the same as resource collection or trade. Capitalism is a specific model of how to manage those resources and trade in society.

And let's not pretend like its the garbage pickers in Bangladesh, or the subsistence farmer in Kenya, or the local shopkeeper in London that is the problem here. It's the elite class of hyper-capitalists for whom greed is a mantra.

It's these people that cut costs in favour of using plastic packaging for their mass-produced crap. People weren't clamouring at the gates of the company demanding their shitty sugar water in plastic bottles.

It's these people that have lobbied and coerced for the perverse incentives we see in capitalism today. These are the people who will never stop trying to sell you cheap shit and it is these people who will continue to buy off your representatives to ensure that the healthy ecosystem the 99% of us need to survive is theirs to rape.

Don't blame the average person. They are not even close to the main problem. The main problem throughout history has always been the same; a small cartel of obscenely wealthy individuals and families with an out-sized share of wealth and power, and the divisions they sew amongst us to entrench themselves.

This isn't the outcome of just a small group of 'bad guys'. Extinction is a byproduct of the increased footprint of humankind as our populations and their associated demands grow. Climate change is one problem, but it isn't the full problem. For example, you need education (to reduce demand for poached goods), political and economic stability (to reduce conditions of poverty that make poaching a rewarding pursuit, or which might drive people to despoil the natural environment to survive in extreme conditions), and somehow a way to defuse the current engine that requires population growth to fuel economic growth.

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