As sad as it is, I'm pretty much convinced that humanity as a whole simply won't act in the best interests of the planet and the human race as a whole.
Let's start with the obvious: who defines what's "best"? Even with global warming there will likely be areas that benefit from this (eg more livable climate, more rainfall). And even if you could quantify that it's better for X people but worse for Y people (where Y>X), which itself would be impossible to start with, but you immediately get lost in the weeds of trying to qualify just how much better or worse it is.
Second: some seem to view some reasonably recent snapshot of the Earth (on human time scales) as "normal". Of course the problem now is how rapid these changes seem to be occurring but if you put that aside, the Earth has both been hotter and colder than it is now and, left to its own devices, it likely would be both of these again. What exactly is "normal"?
Third: inequity. The developed nations largely pulled themselves out of an agrarian existence plundering natural resources and now have a disproportionate share of global wealth as a result. It's a tough sell to tell the developing world they can't do exactly what we just did.
And then you go down the rabbit hole of wealth redistribution, which has the obvious problems of deciding who gets what plus the history of human systems to redistribute wealth have tended to be unmitigated disasters for all involved.
Lastly: humans think in too short a time frame and that's not easily changed.
So I've come to the conclusion that any solutions to this are going to be economic in nature. For example, what will drive down fossil fuel usage and emissions is not some sudden global altruism but rather that there is a cheaper alternative.
It's worth noting that I'm somewhat of an optimist here, believe it or not. I don't believe for a second that Earth is the only place that can hold us. Space habitats seem more likely (IMHO) as where most of our descendants will eventually reside.
Let's start with the obvious: who defines what's "best"? Even with global warming there will likely be areas that benefit from this (eg more livable climate, more rainfall). And even if you could quantify that it's better for X people but worse for Y people (where Y>X), which itself would be impossible to start with, but you immediately get lost in the weeds of trying to qualify just how much better or worse it is.
Second: some seem to view some reasonably recent snapshot of the Earth (on human time scales) as "normal". Of course the problem now is how rapid these changes seem to be occurring but if you put that aside, the Earth has both been hotter and colder than it is now and, left to its own devices, it likely would be both of these again. What exactly is "normal"?
Third: inequity. The developed nations largely pulled themselves out of an agrarian existence plundering natural resources and now have a disproportionate share of global wealth as a result. It's a tough sell to tell the developing world they can't do exactly what we just did.
And then you go down the rabbit hole of wealth redistribution, which has the obvious problems of deciding who gets what plus the history of human systems to redistribute wealth have tended to be unmitigated disasters for all involved.
Lastly: humans think in too short a time frame and that's not easily changed.
So I've come to the conclusion that any solutions to this are going to be economic in nature. For example, what will drive down fossil fuel usage and emissions is not some sudden global altruism but rather that there is a cheaper alternative.
It's worth noting that I'm somewhat of an optimist here, believe it or not. I don't believe for a second that Earth is the only place that can hold us. Space habitats seem more likely (IMHO) as where most of our descendants will eventually reside.