Although personal responsibility is never a bad thing, we need to focus on the big companies that have been deliberately hiding climate science for decades - they're the ones doing the lion's share of the polluting and suppressing alternatives.
People dream about living a good life. Our fossil fuel consumption has afforded this to many. That is why it's difficult to change. Companies don't make stuff for fun, they do it because there's consumer demand for it.
> Companies don't make stuff for fun, they do it because there's consumer demand for it.
Companies have so much power that they can fabricate (or suppress) their own demand by manipulating the political sphere. The situation exists because it's more easily profitable, the alternative takes time/effort, and our market/government incentives only focus on short-term thinking. The same companies that profit prevent changes to such incentives.
Clearly, some people care about the now more than the future.
We may just have to use solar radiation management instead.
This teaches us a valuable lesson though - money from carbon taxes must not go into the government budget. It should instead be distributed to something automatically (eg equal payments to everyone or the poorest). If it becomes part of the budget then governments might try to maximize revenue rather than deal with the problem.
Hahahaha. I can see it now: "Exxon Stratospheric Sulfur Shield - using dirty fuels in long-haul flights to create a particulate-based solar shield [0]. Partnering with governments around the globe [1] to protect the earth and boost tourism. Because we care."
[0] https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/stratospheric-aer...
[1] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trill...
There is an alternative however, and countries like China are pursuing it. Want to look at what life would be like with less petroleum usage per capita? Look to Asia. I'm not some tankie, but I also don't have blinders on.
The same arguments can be made for future of your own children, retirement plans, planting trees, long term investments, etc. Yet these are not as controversial and we accept them, more or less, as generally good practices.
This natural instinct on its own is not enough to make people forget the coming danger. You need constant advertisement, news cycles, opinion pieces, disinformation campaigns, etc. to make it stick.
Of course, you'd have to actually destroy that 10%, if you leave it on a bank account the bank would lend it, or the government would use it, which would prevent this from having an impact.
