> What's the point of having your belly full if you have asthma or get cancer at 30 or not have water to drink? Making it to 30 as a member of your nation's po

> What's the point of having your belly full if you have asthma or get cancer at 30 or not have water to drink? Making it to 30 as a member of your nation's populace is a better deal for your nation than starvation and food riots. When it comes to citizenry, nations have a weird, unspoken incentive to keep you alive and in the workforce so as to exploit your output. That's not sarcasm or pessimism; one just doesn't often think about it in that simple of terms, but that thought process is a useful illustration around the point you're making. I'm not well educated in economics but I'd wager this is a concept of some kind that is known. Belly full is near the top of critical sovereign state priorities. Environment is near the bottom. That's not really a dichotomy, one just has to understand the incentives for a nation. If a nation can work you for twenty years that's a start, and helps build the budget for 30, then 40, then clean air. And so on.