[stevenwoo]

I post this a lot but it's a relevant but super long read/listen - Piketty at the end of a 45 hour long audiobook (Capital and Ideology with additional web resources - charts and data) concludes we cannot change our course ala the climate/economics without changing the national constitutions of all countries to incorporate some language like this to protect future generations from the current one, current property owners have more say than voters (amending many national constitutions is pretty rare short of widespread civil unrest) because of this basic issue.

[jacquesm]

Yes, this is fairly obvious. The question is whether or not it will happen on a scale large enough to make a difference. These things are global in nature and you can't really solve global problems with local solutions, though you can create global problems with local activities. The level of coordination required is massive otherwise the hold-outs will be able to reap the advantages of not playing nice.

[estebarb]

Probably not. See Latin America: most governments recently elected are against environment preservation efforts, and most people seems very happy with their suicidal plans.

For example, in Costa Rica the government is reactivating bottom trawling (which apart from destroying ecosystems also releases a lot of CO2), looking to extract natural gas, canceled the electric train plans, increased the maximum lifespan of busses even more (so, more polluting decades old units for population)...

[r00fus]

Sounds more like corporate-fueld corruption than "people seeming happy with suicidal plans".

[toomuchtodo]

Lots of humans die every year, and lots age into voting globally, in various forms of government. Electorate turnover is inevitable. It won’t happen overnight, constant force will be required. Success is not assured, but the effort is probably better than “smoke if you’ve got ‘em.” Collectively, we keep going until we can’t.

You don’t have to get to the goal, only to tipping points that lock in the desired outcome.