The part of climate change / rising carbon levels that we created before about a decade ago is excusable, maybe. But since then? After we understood that there was a very strong likelihood that our behavior was changing our atmosphere? Maybe it was even two decades ago -1987 was the year of the ozone hole, after all.
Short term thinking says I'm going to drive today, use too much power today, invest in oil stocks today, whatever. The results of short-term thinking are all over our current economic woes. We get told to spend out way to a healthy economy whether we need anything or not. Short-term thinking - money spent today doesn't give us money for tomorrow. Businesses live on tiny, tiny margins. For example, Linens and Things is expected to go under because of slow spending. That means they didn't have a few months of cushion. Banks go under because they lent money with no safety net since it looked so good and sweet on the bottom line (WaMu is in that situation).
Short-term thinking will get us past the tipping point in climate change. We have to think longer and harder. We need to accept slowing down so we can be more deliberate. We need to accept short term pain for long-term gain.