I the book "Collapse", it gives a survey of dozens of civilizations tackling problems like this and how they did, or didn't, solve them. There are many cases each of market or grassroots based solutions and top down government based solutions.

My conclusion from this empirical evidence is that there are many ways to arrive at solutions, what is important is that someone makes it happen. Anyone claiming that only government, or only free markets can do it, is probably wrong.

My comment should be read as an observation on the current state of things not an absolute statement of universal truth.

Well, that's what "market leaders" have been paying the politicians to say for decades. It would be nice if a market-based solution could save the day, but the market can only go so far while politicians ignore externalities.

They could start by eliminating all subsidies for oil and gas exploration until that happens government is part of the problem.

We really are doomed, then. As long as we allow companies to externalize climate costs (which requires political decisions in order to change), there will be no reason for the market to care... at least not until it's too late to care.

Climate change is a market failure. Market-based solutions exists, but they require directly affecting market dynamics through policy.

The collapse of our civilization will be because we are no longer able to accomplish anything except via "the invisible hand".

At this point it looks to me like China is humanity's only hope since they don't have our society's extremist market ideology.

"The collapse of our civilization will be because we are no longer able to accomplish anything except via "the invisible hand"."

then you say ...

"China is humanity's only hope"

what on earth? am i missing a joke?

Well the capitalist extremist countries aren't going to do anything about it. The chip-on-their-shoulder countries like India and Brazil aren't going to do anything about it. I think it's up to China and maybe Europe to pull something off while USA prays for some Elon Musk billionaire to save us.

To the contrary I would suggest that the market will end up being the purest form of direct democracy ever to exist. This is only possible because modern technology lets everyone participate from anywhere.

That's right. In a democracy, a rich person can always vote more often than a poor one. Perfect democracy.

Sorry, that was a bit sarcastic. Obviously, the market is not a form of direct democracy. It's a form of resource allocation. And a pretty stupid one, where everything is allocated by short-sighted impulse decisions and without any consideration of emergent phenomena.

There are tons of scenarios where the free market simply does not have any solution at all. See the tragedy of the commons or of externalizing cost. Nothing in the free market will ever be able to address these issues. Even the often quoted and constantly misunderstood 'invisible hand' of the market is not some kind of mythical or emergent phenomena of the free market itself; it's the moral and social considerations of the actors themselves that make up the 'invisible hand'.

Pretty stoopid.

Money has always been an element of political influence. It’s just more obvious and honest in a free market.

Not every historical system has privatized profits with socialized costs. With regards to climate change, it is a vitally important blind spot.

A fatal blind spot?