It's really quite gross.
Climate change is due to, and a threat to, the status quo, and those who have gained their societal positions on the back of this status quo will defend the righteousness of their status literally to the death.
And these folks typically have communication platforms that reach a long way and therefore muddy the waters, often with the sideline cheering of said politicians.
You have a real problem (climate change) and you have an effective solution (carbon tax refunded as a dividend), but that doesn't really serve anybody's political goals.
Doing that would destroy the fossil fuel industry as people switch to electric cars and generate power with renewables or nuclear to avoid the carbon tax. Fossil fuel industry is a Republican constituency, so they fight it.
Doing that wouldn't serve any partisan political agenda. Given the choice most people would just buy an electric car, not ride the bus. It would likely require a significant number of new nuclear power plants. All of the money is being refunded to the population, not diverted to cronies and political donors. The most cost effective source of solar panels is currently China, not domestic union jobs. But Democrats keep asking for those things instead, which is dumb and most importantly less effective, so instead we get nothing.
In my experience there's no group better at that, and with the best platform, than politicians.
However, you're not wrong in your statement that there are other groups trying to push their own fringe agendas that just end up scaring the normal/middle majority. But, politics also has the power to guide the narrative incredibly better than it has been, and to properly address said fringe agendas.
> A lot of the rhetoric and policy proposals related to climate change seem designed to foist a reduced standard of living on the middle and lower classes in Western countries.
The problem is that's the reality, so the hard work that politicians just don't want to do because it requires collaboration with "the dreaded other side" is determining the framing and choice of what standards of living can be maintained and what needs to change and by how much.
However, if the worlds politicans are actually good judges of the tolerances of society and they've correctly decided that society can't tolerate any decline in lifestyle, then there was no way to win anyway so might as well "get what I can when I can before the music stops".
A paper on exactly this : https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abcd5a
My suggestions would be these:
* Think about where your food comes from, and how it is fertilised. Read about different modes of agriculture.
* Think about minimising your energy usage, especially fossil fuels. Look at heat pumps, cycling infrastructure, that kind of thing.
* Learn about alternatives for building and anything else. Building with straw bales is a particular favourite of mine because it can be done so simplistically by people with relatively little training.
* Find projects where other people are doing stuff and join in. See the above article - self-efficacy is a muscle, build it by exercising it.
A great source of inspiration: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
Edit: also, we'll blow the 1.5C carbon budget in 8 years. Sorry - we'd have to cut emissions by 20% a year every year to avoid that. Plus sequestration of course.
I know it seems like a nut job question but, if we assume global warming is nothing we've seen before event then wouldn't at least some governments fail?
Is there some way to predict it? Let's also assume some radical change in some governments like to a fascist or communist type regime is possible as well
What's scary to me is the malign actions that are possible in the name of climate change. Imagine you're living in Pakistan and your home has been washed away. Is it so hard to believe someone somewhere will choose to pursue revenge?
Armed with the simple fact that Americans have higher per capita carbon emissions than any other people - double as much, if memory serves - then someone sufficiently angry may well be able to justify indiscriminate killing of Americans to themselves.
Apologies for the morbidity here, but what I'm saying here is that by not adopting explicit policies of "just transition" we're setting up the conditions for climate fascism in the west and climate terrorism too.
I believe people will choose furthering climate change over massively lowering their standards of living. And they would be violent in these goals. So nations might stay, but they will just throw away most of actions taken.
Eventually, if we don't do anything, we'll reach a point where the amount we're spending on mitigation measures becomes nearly equal to the the damage caused from the consequences we're supposed to be mitigating. At that point, it all becomes pretty pointless.
I would add: start growing your own food. You don't have to grow all your own food; you can start small. It's easy, anyone can do it, and you don't need much space to get started - you can even grow some things indoors if you don't have a garden.
I only grow a fairly small amount of my own food but it's been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, and it's completely changed my relationship with food and the way I see nature. The post-carbon future can only be a future in which far more people take a closer interest in food production.