[RubenSandwich]

Not doing something because "you'll be dead before it happens" is pure selfishness. My personal observations from those close to me who don't want to act on climate change seem that their reasons have changed within the last 5 years. They no longer claim that it isn't real or happening, they now dismiss it on grounds of losing the personal liberty provided to them by our over consumption lifestyle. (If you live in the West, then you are likely over consuming.)

So I actually don't think the "doom and gloom" is causing people not to act, if anything the younger generation are acting on that message. (Fridays for Future, etc.) Instead what is delaying action, in my mind, is that the West's middle class is disappearing and now with climate change demanding a further reduction of consumption it is casuing people to try to hold on tighter to their already disappearing lifestyle.

[PeterisP]

If you want to figure out how to do something, you have to take pure selfishness as granted - that's how people and society works; huge parts of sociology, economics, political science, etc are about structures and processes that allow to get large scale coordination and results despite lots of pure selfishness involved.

If any proposed solution (to climate change or anything else) relies on huge numbers of people not exhibiting pure selfishness, then it's not a solution but wishful thinking disconnected from reality. We have a good idea on how large groups of homo sapiens function. Selfishness is unavoidable. There will be lots of great unselfish, heroic, altruistic exceptions, but the mass behavior will still be overwhelmingly selfish in aggregate.

People trying "to hold on tighter to their already disappearing lifestyle" is a very important factor that needs to be taken into account for any calls to action. This is what's happening already and this will be happening - and I'm not pointing out this as something that "needs" to change; it kind of does, but it doesn't matter if it "needs" to change because it will not change, I'm pointing it out as something that's inevitable, people will try to hold on tight to unsustainable lifestyles (and fight to gain unsustainable lifestyles that they never had but others did) and any proposed solution needs to work despite that trend in order to be plausible and feasible.

[Ensorceled]

> People trying "to hold on tighter to their already disappearing lifestyle" is a very important factor that needs to be taken into account for any calls to action.

This is what concerns me, calls to action that require our better nature to override our immediate self-interest require thoughtful and inspired leadership.

We have a real leadership vacuum right now: Boris and Donald, lightweight leaders in many countries (my own country, Canada, included), rise of Dictators and Fascists. We are not solving this problem with this team.

[PeterisP]

This is not an accident, but a causal relationship - the increaseing desire to "to hold on tighter to their already disappearing lifestyle" is a factor that's likely to drive the people even more towards populistic leaders like the worst cases in multiple countries now, or "strongman" fascist-like parties.

As the effects of climate change become apparent and causes economic strain either due to attempts to prevent climate change or the consequences of not preventing it, well, in times like these that's the exact type of team that people will vote for.

And even more, as the global 'tragedy of commons' scenario of splitting the burden of mitigating climate change becomes even harsher, and the very unequal burden of consequences of climate change strains relationships, we should expect that agressive nationalistic movements will become even more popular both in developed and developing countries. In short, we'll have a situation that has many parallels with the worst aspects of the 1930s and the type of autocratic leaders that people in so many countries worldwide chose back then.

[pathseeker]

>Not doing something because "you'll be dead before it happens" is pure selfishness.

What are you doing to deal with the sun expanding and consuming the Earth?

>If you live in the West, then you are likely over consuming.

What a weird normative statement for something where there is no agreed upon bar. What is an acceptable amount of "consuming" in your mind? Does it align with a poor rural Chinese resident's view?

[luckylion]

> (If you live in the West, then you are likely over consuming.)

Is there any data on the spread of average vs median? From my personal experience, it seems that there are two peaks: one group of people are consuming far above the average while another is far below it (e.g. some travel by plane internationally or intercontinentally two or three times a year, others maybe once every three or five years). If you nag those below the average how they need to stop over-consuming, you'll likely yield nothing but confusion that might turn to anger and fundamental opposition if you continue.