I would argue that achieving self-sustainability on Mars forces the issue, even. The problem we’ve had on Earth is that because the costs of being wasteful, polluting, etc are externalized, which makes such behavior “cheap” in the short term — on Earth, the environment is constantly handing out loans that we rarely if ever repay.

That’s not an option on settlements beyond Earth’s surface. There, you’re forced to live with every decision you make almost immediately, so if you’re wasteful or stupid it’s promptly going to bite you in the ass and potentially threaten the lives of everybody involved. You’re not given the option of fixing things later, you have to do the correct thing now, and I think that’s the type of environment it’s going to take for humanity to change its ways.