alt Hacker NewsUltimately, it speaks to people's lifestyle choices. In the US people are used to a particular standard of living: driving big cars and eating big steaks. If you tell people you can't have those things, they will have a visceral reaction. Politicians caught wind of this and turned it into a divisive left vs right debate. Im oversimplifying, but at the core its an incentives problem: Why should I tighten my belt today for some future payoff I may not even be around to see?
It's more like - why should I tighten my belt today when the celebrities, politicians and corporations making a big fuss about climate change are still flying around in private jets, buying up coastal property, eating steaks and are responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions?