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> As standards of living raise people find pollution is negatively affecting them and so they solve the problem locally. This works if the problem is local and

> As standards of living raise people find pollution is negatively affecting them and so they solve the problem locally. This works if the problem is local and bothersome to the locals -- rusting drums leaking poison or heaps of trash. Carbon dioxide and methane are invisible and odorless and instantly become everyone's problem, so we can't expect this mechanism to induce people to solve the problem locally.

bluGill 6y ago
You are yourself the counter example that proves you are wrong. People like you do in fact care about non-local pollution. there are steps: first you need to get far enough out of poverty that you can start thinking you can accept the lower standard of living not having poison around you is acceptable. When you don't have enough to eat or in danger of freezing to death (or other weather/nature related disasters) that poison is something you just stay away from - particularity if your job is with whoever is dumping it since making them clean up might me they don't pay you and then you can't eat. When you don't have those basic worries to you worry about more avoidable ones like local poison/pollution. Only after the above do non-local concerns matter.
- giantg2 6y ago
  It's all about perspective. Even the poor in developed nations have a much higher standard of living than the poor in developing nations. Most people only compare their situation with the situation of others in the same country/culture. So it's tough for most people to objectively say that they are doing well and would rather spend their limited money for a more expensive version of the same item. You also have human nature, where most people live nearly at their means, or even beyond them, rather than within them. I guess I'm basically saying there tends to exist a lot of scope creep in each individual's definition of when local and basic concern have been met.

bluGill 6y ago

You are yourself the counter example that proves you are wrong. People like you do in fact care about non-local pollution. there are steps: first you need to get far enough out of poverty that you can start thinking you can accept the lower standard of living not having poison around you is acceptable. When you don't have enough to eat or in danger of freezing to death (or other weather/nature related disasters) that poison is something you just stay away from - particularity if your job is with whoever is dumping it since making them clean up might me they don't pay you and then you can't eat. When you don't have those basic worries to you worry about more avoidable ones like local poison/pollution. Only after the above do non-local concerns matter.

giantg2 6y ago
It's all about perspective. Even the poor in developed nations have a much higher standard of living than the poor in developing nations. Most people only compare their situation with the situation of others in the same country/culture. So it's tough for most people to objectively say that they are doing well and would rather spend their limited money for a more expensive version of the same item. You also have human nature, where most people live nearly at their means, or even beyond them, rather than within them. I guess I'm basically saying there tends to exist a lot of scope creep in each individual's definition of when local and basic concern have been met.