When Washington DC and NY are under water, we’ll try to something about it. Collectively, humans will not lift one finger to prevent something from happening. It’s a real problem when it’s something that must be prevented and can’t be fixed after the fact. I wish it wasn’t this way, and I used to believe humans are better than this, but after being a lobbyist and activist, I simply don’t believe it anymore.

People say to be this is a defeatist attitude, but I see it as realistic. So anybody going down this path, needs be be realistic about how this is one of the most difficult problems we will ever face, what we are up against, and how massively difficult this is to make real progress - Ie what is the plan, and is it realistic.

I work now in cybersecurity (similar it that it is about managing risk) and the only way to get people to do something that one can’t readily see / measure is to FORCE them to do it, with commensurate penalties. This works in security because people have been hacked and lost hundreds of millions of dollars. And the corporate machine understands financial risk management at some level. And there are companies that have an incentive to spend a lot of money on making people secure - eg insurance companies, banks, certification companies who support them. These companies also hire lobbyists.

Who has lost a lot of money on environmental problems? Is it big enough to create a movement?