Comment by user3939382

It’s a white noise so hard to notice, but our behavior is fundamentally driven by the design of our nervous system. Thus the more immediate the consequence, the better we link our behavior and can adjust. Since this is true at an individual level, the dynamic emerges from societies and populations as well, even large ones.

For example, something is red, you touch it, get burned. You won’t touch it again.

Environmental harm unfortunately is precisely the opposite. Consequences arise on a very long arc, in some cases beyond even our lifetimes. We register problems like this only intellectually, and even that becomes clouded with politics.

So the problem is kind of inevitable unfortunately.