Living Off Self-Interest: Solution Against Global Warming

Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century greeted Europe first, then the whole world with a boom. It started with coal driven trains, steam engines, Ford's cars and other machineries that started to belch a devastating promise. Of course, we couldn't blame its creators then. They weren't even aware about the mechanics of the atmosphere nor if it existed. But not now, when we are advanced enough to fix things back.
Global warming is a clear manifestation of our ignorance. Victims can be found everywhere with their shelters ruined, wrecked sea ships that compromised thousands of lives, lost of livelihood due to unpredictable weather, and wasted effort trying to prevent global warming's secondary effects from happening again.
It is time to do the real fixing. However, the tough game of conscience and pragmatism keep us indecisive. There is the conscience that tells us to step back, learn to stop things right there and then. There is the pragmatism that keeps us with the virtue of practical ideas, wondering if it’s worth eliminating plastic and oil usage in exchange for something that could have already been irrevocable.
We are given the ability to think. It is the tricky part, though. We could arbitrarily react either for a reason or on self-interest. We choose to land a business to earn a living rather than bothering ourselves thinking and spending for eco-friendly products. We choose to write on clean, white paper rather than spending money on cheap brown recycled paper. I mean, yes, why wouldn't we? They are nice, clean and easy.
However, it will all go back-- to our advantage or disadvantage. And surely, it wouldn't require intelligence to comprehend for something yet to come. We've enjoyed resources, squandered with joy and glee, and God knows what comes next. It wouldn’t be more trees to give us food nor more oil to fill our tanks. It would be their absence. We will be left with suffering and regret. That's the time when we'll finally see what we have overdone.
Unti then, I am hopeful that we are still lucky to repent and do thing the other way. We need real effort and sufficient urge so our feet would scramble towards a real, long-time solution to appease Mother Nature. Otherwise, sometime in the future, bare metals would fail to support a living.