Until wealth can't buy its way out of the consequences of climate change, this hasn't really happened.
Who cares about what's going on in SF when you can hop on your plane and fly to one of your properties elsewhere?
I lived somewhere where people would build multimillion dollar homes on the beach, and every few years hurricanes would wash them away. It's happening at an increasing frequency now. It's no big deal, though, because wealthy people can afford to insure and rebuild every time it happens. It's just one of the costs of having a beach house in a desirable area.
Similarly, wildfires are just one of the costs of having houses in the Bay Area.
Yes, but not the majority all at once.
As long as 51% of the electorate or more hasn't been personally inconvenienced you might as well be Al Gore shouting into the night.
A very partial list of headline impacts in the first world off the top of my head:
- US West Coast droughts and fires
- Pacific Northwest heat dome
- Texas cold snap
- Epic floods in Germany
- Australian wild fires
- European heat waves
- <fill in your favorite recent hurricane here>
Even when rich SF techies were under a terrifying orange sky, our behavior mostly did not change.
I think we need to start mobilizing the other dysfunctional aspects of our society to apply more pressure.
- Some were upset when propublica released info about the tax-avoidance strategies of the very wealthy, claiming it to be a violation of their privacy. Should we not also find and leak information on extravagant emitters, to be named and shamed in the press?
- Companies that spent years pushing opiods in the US were sued and came to a settlement agreement. NYC has tried to sue oil companies for their emissions. They're now trying to sue them over their false statements and misinformation campaigns. Perhaps _every_ state, county and city should be filing lawsuits against large emitters.
- I think _someone_ needs to press absence of carbon taxes at the WTO as a form of dumping, wherein goods are being exported for less than their true cost, once we acknowledge the externalities.
- Everyone hates this take, but I think local jurisdictions in which people die from climate-related disasters should press involuntary manslaughter charges against companies with terrible emissions records. If the headlines were, "Exxon on trial for deaths of dozens", I think companies would begin to change their behavior.