Solé’s fantastic and extremely recommendable book “Phase Transitions” covers this as well. Quoting Janssen et al.: “even when the group is faced with negative results, members may not suggest abandoning an earlier course of action, since this might break the existing unanimity.”
“More generally, the underlying problem here is why complex societies might fail to adapt […]. Even if there is some social perception of risk, short-term thinking often prevails when facing long-term vulnerabilities. Such undesirable behavior is often favored by a combination of incomplete understanding of the problem, together with the misleading view that all changes are reversible.”
Comment on a few centuries
WrenFeather@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Aren’t there still people trying to suggest that we still don’t know if climate change is scientifically understood/proven?
This is crazy that we knew about this so long ago!
PrimeMinisterKeyes@lemmy.world 4 days ago
kureta@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
misleading view that all changes are reversible
That is chilling.
Mammothmothman@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
Kind of the opposite in this case no?
kureta@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
hehe :)
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Not seriously, no. Are there people lying in order to betray their entire species for absolutely no benefit? Yes.
coffee_whatever@lemmy.world 4 days ago
No benefit? No, of course not. But for more money to the shareholders of the oil and coal companies which some politicians either are or get payed by. OF COURSE! They will do it gladly with a smile.
Renewables aren’t funded anything close to what governments of any country spend on oil and coal companies, and that’s for the benefit of the very few people who own them.
Didn’t we already figure out the whole climate change story way back long ago? And the only reason why we didn’t do anything about it were studies funded by the oil industry so that they absolutely have to show there was “no link” between our CO2 emissions and the global temperature? Because I’m pretty sure that’s the story.