Reply #13: The carrot is that we get to live. [View All]

[phantom power]

But it's the perrenial problem that the sacrifices are in the present, and the benefit is in the future. It's also the trap of the "prevented problem." You make sacrifices, and take preventative measures, and if it works... nothing happens. Of course, that's the point, but it's all too easy for our monkey-brains to say "hey, I made all these sacrifices and nothing happened."

It's also the Spanish-prisoner problem: If I make sacrifices, and nobody else does, then I lose. You can see this very nicely at the geopolitical level, with all the various countries pointing fingers and saying "you go first -- we aren't going to damage our economies by cutting emissions while you don't."

So, there are at least three deep-seated psychological barriers to doing anything about this.

Clever monkeys, but not wise.