&gt; time and again people have shown that their economic calculations have a time horizon well short of a single human lifespan.<p>I don&#x27;t disagree with that either, but I think that has historically been largely due to our erroneous belief that we had a negligible effect on the world at most, which is thinking that is thankfully coming to and end.  I don&#x27;t doubt there was a time in the past where we believed we couldn&#x27;t affect the ocean, and prior to that a river or the soil in an area.  That isn&#x27;t a good track record to hoping we understand it earlier next time (if our species is lucky, in some number of decades or centuries the discussion will be about our effects on the solar system, not our planet), but it does point towards eventually getting the idea and taking steps to fix the problem behavior, even if it&#x27;s not always adhered to or a perfect solution.