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Comment by laluser | Hacker News Reader

I think the general marketing problem with climate change is that people know it's going to happen, but not exactly when. Are we going to have issues next year, 5 years, 20 years, etc? How will these issues impact me and my neighbors? It's difficult to predict these things, so I think many people become skeptical of the milestones we are supposed to be hitting due to climate change and we just become reactive as a society rather than fully proactive.

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But... we are having issues right now? People aren't acting because there's no economic incentive, it is only in part due to denial or ignorance. Many of the world's leaders who have to power to shift the narrative are not doing so because it would be a short term economic loss and businesses aren't happy about it.

I mean, many technologies like carbon scrubbers already exist. Why aren't businesses buying them?

This is something we need to decide as a society to act on out of pure good faith, there will not be any profit to be made from the sacrifices that need to take place. People need to come to terms with just... being kinder. It would help if world leaders created jobs for this industry on a budget deficit and helped people get into those jobs.

Totally agree that we, as in the world, are having issues right now and this is clearly being observed. My only point with this is to say that the impact is not being felt by most people just yet. The economic incentives for reducing our carbon footprint are not there for the public market to make any significant improvements to the situation. If the economic incentives are not there for the public markets, then that means new policy needs to be enacted in order to tackle this, which given the state of the world right now, seems unlikely.

People could paint their roofs white, but they just buy more A/C units instead. Sadly I don't see people "deciding as a society" unless they're forced to by something or someone.

I live in a part of Germany, where I thought we would not run out of water. Some hot summers later we already have dying trees and crops because of a lack of water. And this will not get better in the future I fear.

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