this is something that crossed my mind for the first time today.

I want to preface this by saying I stand behind green causes and I agree that environmental action taken now is essential to the life and wellbeing of future generations, but is it not wrong to worry about future generations when the lives and wellbeing of the current generation are in peril?

The simple answer is obviously to address both, and I think many governments (particularly the US) can do so, but am I wrong in thinking the environment has become too high on the priority list when there are so many other immediate issues that should be addressed first?

the cost of ignoring ecological sustainability will eventually exceed the benefits by an order of magnitude.

you could say present lives matter more than future ones, but it would be hypocritical- aren't we all angry at previous generations for putting these problems on the backburner?

Capitalists are incapable of thinking long-term. Your shareholders don't judge you by how your business will be in 50 yeaes, they want results every quarter. As more of the Western democracies get consumed by the corporate interests they are supposed to govern over, the governments too revert to short-term planning.

Furthermore, markets and long-term planning don't go well together.

Now add in normalcy bias.

Now add in the blame-games you can play in a multi-party system and the ability to shift blame every election cycle

i agree but i think hes looking at this from a moral perspective, not asking why it is the case that we're biased towards the short term

I guess that kinda just boils it down to an ends justify the means situation right? because by doing that we're acknowledging that we're not taking the best moral practice to present society for a better future.

if im understanding you correctly, i was sort of saying the opposite.

whatever marginal benefit we get out of ignoring the environment now will be massively outweighed by the eventual costs, probably

and who knows if there even is a present day benefit. hurricanes, wildfires, soil degradation etg. all have near-term consequences for our health and livelihoods

Everyone will be in poverty if we don’t address climate change

You can protect the environment and find ways to bring people out of poverty. You don't have to rape the land in order to live decently.

Some people still want to in order to get as much profit or excess wealth as they can before anyone else can

like others have said, ignoring the environment will result in more poverty and higher costs for the government in the long-term

since sustainability requires coordination across multiple areas, the proactive thing to do would be to implement poverty initiatives (or any future initiative for that matter) with the environment in mind, like building low cost housing out of sustainable materials

Not entirely.

More irresponsible to pay for wars and space travel instead of eliminating poverty tho

environmental destruction and poverty are linked by something -- capitalism. you cant reform these things by throwing money at it.

environmental decay will impact poor people the most--see katrina

there could be environmental destruction and poverty in any system lmao

Irresponsible to do neither. Environment will impact poverty tho

The clean energy thing is a front, these politicians are all about starting wars to profit arms dealers and buying stolen oil for pennies from likes of ISIS and ayatollahs

Those people can be given dignified, well paying jobs through that investment in environmentally friendly sectors. Stop pitting two good causes against each other.

its a false choice