> In fact, from the people I talk to, they don't even consider this a high priority. The fate of society is not a high priority in the lives of the average person.
I feel that's partly due to the fact that there is no common "us" anymore, even inside of individual countries. No feeling of a greater good to serve. It's all about individualism/individuality and small in/out groups. Politicians don't even see the future of their country as a priority anymore, it's all about "winning" against their opponents and productivity/economy, everything else is at the bottom of the list. Most people are struggling too much in their daily lives to care about these things anyway (and rightfully so).
"People" won't redefine their way of life by themselves simply because we don't know anything else anymore, we've been raised on consumerism, indoctrinated from birth that getting a 9 to 5 job and that accumulating money and gadgets are the main goals of the game, you can't tell people the rules of the game changed. People who aren't stuck in the hell of living life paycheck to paycheck are stuck in the rat race of consumption, projecting and planning their next moves to acquire a bigger house, nicer car, the new macbook, the latest camera, a larger TV, more bitcoins, &c.
The funny thing is that the system is so twisted that we think buying a Tesla and solar panels is somehow part of the solution, our whole economy is based on merchandising goods and we managed to merchandise ecology itself, as if it was a matter of simply finding an ever so slightly less catastrophic way of life instead of evolving into a whole new paradigm
> When the inevitable tsunami of refugees crashes on the shores of the rich countries they will blame the poor guys for being poor, not even contemplating the idea that our way of live was one of the main contributors to their fate.
Already the case in Europe so yeah, absolutely no way it'll play different next time.
> Any ideas on what we can do?
I think we're fucked, humans aren't wired to think about the wellbeing of large groups, even less about the entirety of the world.
Covid is at the same time the proof that we can stop a lot of things at once and somehow reduce unnecessary pollution/production/consumption(of goods and destinations), but it equally is the proof that people simply don't want to live like that, it's not enough to have a quality shelter, good food, more time, &c. we need to consume new things regularly, we always want more. I know people who had existential crisis because they couldn't go to their monthly weekend in an airbnb in Barcelona. "People" won't slow down willingly because it's inconvenient, countries won't slow down because it means their death on the geopolitical scene. My best guess is that we'll slowly adapt to increasingly harder life conditions, probably with some social uprisings and wars here and there. The actions needed for the long term prosperity of the group are viewed as hell on earth on an individual level.