The climate justice movement, currently making appearances around the world, is the best available evidence that we have not yet become hostage to the logic of the market, that the prisoner’s mindset is not yet dominant.
I think it's moreso that there are 10 other people standing at the pond and none of them are going to risk their shoes to go after the child so if you do you'll be at a disadvantage compared to them. Also, why should you if thy aren't mentality.The “shallow pond” scenario imagines a hapless bystander who notices a small child in danger of drowning. The child can easily be saved, but a new and expensive pair of shoes will be ruined as a result. Most of us sense immediately that shoes are trivial compared to human life, yet it is precisely the specter of stunted economic growth that industrialized nations invoke to justify stalling on environmental issues. Our governments are too obsessed with the GDP to prioritize preventing harm
This is an interesting point. Of course, we don't want governments and corporations to act like people in some respects, however, they could be incapable of dealing with certain problems by design. We have systems at work, and some of them have aspects that represent (simplistic) notions that we have about how things are, or ought to be. Unfortunately, we are sold slogans such as 'free-market' or 'big government' or 'equality' or 'environmentalism', and as long as something carries the labels that we like, we buy in, regardless of our inability to understand their actual nature. We pretend that we do. Unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn't give a damn. We will emit a certain amount of greenhouse gases at a certain rate, and we will experience the consequences. Our global political situation is not designed to tackle these kinds of issues, so I have to assume that we will fail. I have no more faith in cap-and-trade than I do in one-person-one-share. Both are designed around ideological realities, not effectual ones. IMHO our only hope is technology that will be adopted for primary reasons that have nothing (or very little) to do with greenhouse gas emissions. IMO we can only hope that we can be tricked into saving ourselves. EDIT: Wow, that sounds cynical. :/Copenhagen demonstrated that governments don’t compromise and cooperate like regular people; neither do corporations. The prisoner’s mindset may be anathema to many individuals, but it’s a worldview more central to capitalism (an economic system that rewards greed above all else) than some may like to admit.
I guess that is what I am getting at. The problem is a global one, and the solution needs to be global too. I think that our world government's development lags the imperative of global warming. I can't see many countries outside of Norway pulling off one-person-one-share, much less an international effort.Most other societies have managed to create institutional change. I'm sure we can too.