A recent episode of the excellent Hidden Brain podcast shared a great analogy about why most people aren’t too interested in fighting climate change.
You’re driving down the road, stuck in awful traffic. It’s stop-and-go for 30 minutes, until you finally get to the source of the problem. It’s a mattress in the middle lane, which everyone is having to drive around — but no one is taking the time to remove it from the road to fix it for everyone else.
The problem is two-fold: by the time you get to that point, you’ve already “paid the price” for the mattress to be there, and if you remove it you won’t see any benefit from that action.
Such is the issue with climate change and other “distant” problems, and why short-term issues get far more attention than long-term ones. It’s why many people don’t exercise enough or put enough money into their savings account.
There’s not an easy answer here, but like many things, simply being aware of the problem can help. Hit the gym today, slide another $20 over to savings, and stop to push the mattress aside to help those that come after you.
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