This is an excellent analogy given that snowflakes don't exactly have any agency over whether they end up in an avalanche, and removing individual snowflakes from a mountain won't an avalanche stop.

> removing individual snowflakes from a mountain won't an avalanche stop.

That is exactly the point of the analogy. One single snowflake doesn't prevent the avalanche and therefore one single snowflake is not to blame. However if enough snowflakes are removed the avalanche is stopped. Similarly no single person is going to fix climate change. The only way we see results is if enough people band together to make changes.

And historically the best way for people to band together to collectively do the same thing is via government action. Far more important to do activism and press the government to solve it than to inconvenience yourself and think "Well, I did my part, now everyone should do the same".

tragedy of the commons is solved by regulation, not by hoping that individuals or corporations will discipline themselves

That's clearly true. Otherwise, why would the fossil fuel and related industries be spending so much money fighting any attempts to put a price on carbon or otherwise regulate it?

I agree. We need regulations to change and that includes both taxes and subsidies which are the main topics of the article and the top comment respectively. But in order to change those things, we need political will and that political will comes from self discipline.

Any regulation on corporate behavior is ultimately just a proxy for regulation on individuals (because it's often easier to regulate corporations, as they tend to be more accountable). Corporations will discipline themselves if the demand for their product goes away.

Who writes and enactsn the regulation?

> tragedy of the commons is solved by regulation

Tragedy of the commons is caused by regulation. That's how you get commons in the first place—resources that everyone is allowed to use but no one has any investment in. It's solved by allowing the commons to be homesteaded and converted to private ownership.