Nature is out to kill us. We’re doing a far better job in this fight than we ever have. I’d rather deal with problem of climate change than the problems of our ancestors.
That's not true at all. Remember CFCs and the ozone layer? That was a comparable problem, except people actually stopped that one, by no longer emitting the gasses causing the issue.
I don't know that's it's comparable. The ozone required manufacturing changes, it didn't require an upheaval on how we live. Sure, it's "don't emit the bad gas", but the gases come from different sources.
The primary difference was that the ozone depletion didn't gain much traction as a political wedge and world leaders were able to take the threat seriously. 14 years after scientists published basic research warning of potential risk, the Montreal Protocol was signed. 25 years later there was a 98% reduction in release of ozone depleting substances and the ozone layer has begun to heal. Throughout all of that, DuPont lobbied and testified that ozone depletion was a hoax / fake news / scientists making stuff up / etc.
Contrast that to today, where the entertainment news outlets have people, who don’t even cook, up in arms that someone will take away their god-given right to a gas range, and who in turn view it all as a hoax and conspiracy for corrupt politicians to profit.
I’m not sure the world would be able to pull off the Montreal protocol today, even if largely manufacturing changes and having to find a new hairspray brand.
I have the sense that people back in the 60-80s had a bit of an innate trust for scientists born out of the rapid technological progress that preceded that time period, but that has since gone away.
Things like CFCs were taken seriously. Things like radiation were taken seriously (for better or worse, yielding our insane regulatory landscape around building new nuclear power plants).
The last major thing that scientists warned about that was really taken seriously (in the sense that something was done about it before it had/would have had massive negative effects) was world overpopulation, with the publication of things like "The Population Bomb" and China's one-child policy, etc.
Unfortunately, that one was gotten wrong; we now know that without any intervention, world population will tend to moderate itself and we won't actually see mass starvation due purely to too many people. I think that error was the first major blow resulting in people no longer really trusting catastrophic predictions.
I wonder what the world would be like if instead climate change was put forth as a catastrophic issue with the same fervor back then.
With the ozone layer, we already had alternatives to CFCs that were viable. A handful of companies lost out on product lines, but they're all still doing fine today. Individuals didn't have to do anything.
With the problem of CO2 emissions, lifestyle changes are required to fundamentally solve the issue, and people aren't willing to make them. Yes, it's possible that geoengineering can buy us some time. It's possible there will be a battery revolution. Renewable energy is increasingly widespread. But there's nothing right now that's a drop-in replacement. The only sure-fire solution that we have right now is a widespread reduction of consumption and mobility, and very few people are on board with that.