I get this is a relatively slow-moving problem, unlike war or abrupt famine, but crivens.
The only way to solve this has always been governments enforcing the change via the law. If CO2 emissions reflected the true cost to humanity they would be a lot less competitive. Even then this requires legislation to move us on, such as banning new petrol and diesel cars sales by 2030. Neoliberal governments have passed on doing their jobs to solve this crisis by creating a fair environment where CO2 emissions can be replaced and the consequence is a disaster.
This is exactly the case of my mother and many of her peers (in their 70s, boomers). Whenever the topic comes up she'll say something to the extent of "well someone really smart will figure out a solution and fix it. I hope." It's not that any of them deny it's happening, they just think humans are smart and will figure out how to reverse the consequences of the way they lived their entire lives. I love my mom, but it's delusional to think this is a problem someone will have a single "aha" moment over.
The tough decisions are to be taken by a few very specific people, and the rest can either support them or not. The way I see it, we haven't reached the point where such decisions would be met with unanimous support yet.
The science has been clear for decades. But when their generation was younger and presented with the opportunity to do something about it, they punted. It was too difficult. It will let China “win”. It’s not even happening anyway, and if it is, it’s the sun and volcanoes but not anthropogenic.
Now that we’re all living in the future brought about by their political and economic choices, they’re supposed to get a pass because they’re too old to make an impact? Their generation is still the main voting bloc that prevents real change.
And the poor don’t want to give up the possibility of increasing their living standard to become like the rich.
In the developing world, millions of people dream of having air conditioning and cars. They will not be happy with politicians that do things that take away that possibility from them.
A heat pump is also an air conditioner, so lots of Germans are getting air conditioning for the first time while at the same time significantly reducing their carbon output.
Tragedy of the commons. Even when you know the problem, and solution, you can't get ALL parties to implement it.
Because there are people who are in denial, it's too much for them to acknowledge mentally/emotionally. There are also people with a vested interest in the status quo, and believe they can overcome/mitigate the consequences of climate change with all of the resources they are currently gathering. Just a couple of reasons, I'm sure there are more...
First, there are many myths about climate change that are believe by many [1].
Second, George Marshall investigated why 'we' don't take measures and wrote a book about it [2]. He found the problem is hard wired in our brains and caused by "our evolutionary origins, our perceptions of threats, our cognitive blind spots, our love of storytelling, our fear of death, and our deepest instincts to defend our family and tribe".
[1] https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php
[2] George Marshall - Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change
Right or wrong, it's hard for developed economies to destroy their economies while China (and others) are rapidly making the problem worse. [1] Progress is being made through:
"The Climate Action Tracker says that between 2015 and 2022 China's greenhouse gas emissions increased nearly 12%, while U.S. emissions declined some 5%. China's methane emissions rose about 3% from 2015 to 2021, the latest year with good data, while the U.S. cut them by 5%." [1]
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-kerry-china-climate-econom...
Expect to see those debates as long as civilization continues. :/
This, however, cannot be plainly acknowledged because it would incite people to revolt against those who impose this logic on everyone else. So, the only alternatives are to lie, dissemble, compartmentalize etc.
It’s a bit like asking why did they invent all those fairy tales about the divine right of kings and why did people ever believe them? The answer is because there was no other alternative on offer until the whole order became so violently unstable as to be usurped. Most people are not anything resembling brave until their baseline survival is on the line, and the the first world is ordered in such a way to foist the worst of its consequences onto the global south.
here's some from the past month (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=tr...):
"Climate change is overhyped in my view"
"While local climate change is always with us, the reality of global change is lacking, and the projections have been pushed out year for year over the last forty years now."
"Does it really seem reasonable that our little human technology, an infinitesimal fraction of the energy at work in the Solar System is making a huge difference?"
"I immediately know the article is trash the moment they start blaming global warming for how hot or cold it is today rather than broader weather patterns. The upper and lower bounds for temperature at a given time of year are far more dependent on geography. It's trivially easy to see that all this "record breaking" is just recency bias, not global warming."
"Climate has been changing since earth got a climate."
"I think it's unwise to constantly associate normal temperature fluctuations with any threat to civilization"