Re:Antarctica Is Melting, and Giant Ice Cracks Are Just the ...
by DennisP on Saturday June 17, 2017 @04:16PM
(#14577542)
It's the world's biggest public goods problem. Let's say for the sake of argument that fixing global warming were worth $10K to you. You still don't contribute because it wouldn't help; the marginal improvement to the environment from your little personal contribution wouldn't make any significant difference to your life. It'd certainly be far less than $10K of benefit.
So it's entirely rational to skip the actions you describe. But that's true for everyone. We'd all be happier if everybody contributed, but for each of us, we're better off not contributing, whether other people contribute or not. So nobody does much and we all end up worse off.
Problems like this crop up all the time and we have a way of dealing with them. Instead of deciding whether we'll personally contribute, we vote on whether we'll all contribute.
So if you really believe your first four statements, maybe you could consider voting for politicians who support a price on carbon.
So it's entirely rational to skip the actions you describe. But that's true for everyone. We'd all be happier if everybody contributed, but for each of us, we're better off not contributing, whether other people contribute or not. So nobody does much and we all end up worse off.
Problems like this crop up all the time and we have a way of dealing with them. Instead of deciding whether we'll personally contribute, we vote on whether we'll all contribute.
So if you really believe your first four statements, maybe you could consider voting for politicians who support a price on carbon.