Quote:
Originally Posted by Jebby
I don't get people who fret so much over how much their carbon emissions are. It's not like you, living in a first world country, are going to any difference whatsoever to overall carbon emissions considering the population growth and industrialisation of the third world. Even if carbon emissions caused "global warming" I personally would not care at all.
My emission levels are probably off the chart. I have a Viper and a Dodge Ram in Vancouver and an F-150 in Colombia and take 3-4 round trip flights per month.
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Collective action problems, on the scale of cities or countries, typically require compulsion in the form of taxes and laws. But you can't get those taxes and laws passed in a democracy without some form of informed public consent.
If everyone thinks their emissions don't matter, then there's no pressure on local or national government to do anything. And nothing happens.
Further up the chain, if there's no pressure between countries to control emissions, then no government will do anything, including developing nations. Change in this case really does start with individual attitudes in rich democracies, trite as it may sound. (Apologies for the thread digression.)