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Originally Posted by Corral
Yep ^^ and I cringe at how the market ideology changed the narrative from a country of citizens to a country of consumers. What collective action problem has the market solved in the modern era? Poverty? Hunger? Pollution? Fisheries collapse? None of the above. The market needs help even in its home building the financial markets!
That being said I also believe it is too late for collective action to prevent the worst of climate change. Ie the conservatives are correct when they say other parts of the world will simply replace whatever emissions we cut.
There is no happy ending on climate change.
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The market solves every problem it’s been given the incentive to solve. Carbon is not a priced externality so the market doesn’t care. Overfishing - non priced externality. Hunger - the market did its job driving down food costs and ensuring that more calories are produced than required to be consumed. The market also excelled in making money through financial markets and they correctly priced in the externalities that governments would bail them out. The market responds to all incentives almost perfectly.
In 1990 a Carbon tax increasing modestly each year and applied globally would have solved climate change. It’s what the market does.
Too late for that now. Geo-engineering needs to begin aggressively to give time for the market to find the solutions.