Let's face it; nobody is going to stop killing the planet just out of the goodness of their hearts. The incentives to do so are just too strong.
It's the perfect tragedy of the commons; as a person living in an industrialized nation you can stop eating meat and stop driving your car and try to live with below-2000 watts consumption[0] and it will not change anything at all. Because no one else (or; few enough) will do so to have an impact. As a person living in an industrializing nation; why the heck should you have to stop raising your consumption? The rich industrialized nations have ten times the energy consumption, why should you be the one to get the short stick?
The incentives of capitalism to just continue business-as-usual are too strong. And every attempt to reign in capitalism or to reduce the externalization of costs by certain players using carbon taxing or other approaches will invariably result in corruption and moral hazards.
Big Oil has known for more than forty years that they are killing the planet; they didn't care[1]. Profit was more important. Why should this change now?
Let's switch to green capitalism. Appropriate public policy can focus capitalism on mechanisms that reduce carbon emissions, on intangible assets, and preserving other species.
I don't like articles and headlines that blame "capitalism"; it's the lack of good regulation that's the problem. For example, let's focus on "How to turn the GOP green": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29049723
