| They do not need to know what generates there electricity but... - when what generates the power changes the landscape they can see, many people get upset, however irrationally - many people are emotionally attached to lifestyle objects that use fossil fuels, i.e. cars, boats, planes, etc - even where there are good options, most people are not willing to spend one extra penny - even when there are options that cost less (i.e. bicycles, walking) humans spend a lot of their energy thinking about status and struggle to voluntarily choose things that they fear might result in a loss of status - even if you solve all that, collective action problems are a named thing for a reason - they are hard and don't necessarily have obvious answers. My point is not that everything is hopeless, but that OP who said "Have we ever as a species successfully changed our behavior on a scale..." has a point that we will have to grapple with if we want to actually change stuff. Wishing human nature away doesn't actually solve anything. |
Maybe everyone bitches about gas prices, but we would all get over it pretty fast if politicians just pulled the band-aid off. Instead they use it as an opportunity to pull down any crab that tries to save us from the bucket.