> "sooner the better" etc - but that's idealism, not pragmatism

I don't get this mentality at all. The more we put off curbing environmental change, the more expensive it becomes to fix.

I feel like it's analogous to credit card debt – what you're saying is, don't worry about that mountain of credit debt, with it's 14% interest rate; pay the minimum and contribute to a mutual fund instead. But the credit interest overruns the fund interest, so you lose money. Similarly, I think the costs of climate change are going to overrun any other economic issue we decide to focus on.