Do we (as a society/species) though? If we cared about climate change we'd be doing something about climate change. And we're really not.
Everybody cares about somebody else making changes in their life to reduce pollution but how many people actually make meaningful change in their own lives?
And if you ask somebody to consider drastic change in their own life – driving as little as possible, never flying in airplanes, buying significantly less stuff in general, not having kids, not eating meat, living in apartments rather than single-family homes, etc. they'll just say the corporations are the problem and anything they do wouldn't matter at all.
I'm kind of at the point where I say we just all let our own metaphorical 4x4 engines run and see what happens. Most of us reading this will be long dead before anything heinous happens to us (or we're wealthy enough to be insulated enough from the effects to where we'll get by OK).
I’m cynical against peoples behaviour, I truly believe we won’t change and funds/research should be directed to mitigation than prevention.
The greater direct effect at much lower real personal cost, for billionaires, plus the greater likelihood of their influencing others to follow suit, makes the calculus a bit different for them.
The tragedy of the commons is a real sonofabitch.
The "tragedy of the commons" is a propaganda tool used to justify privatization of the commons. The commons were reasonably well-managed until a small number of people decided to extract maximum profit from them (and damn the consequences).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_Acts
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back