Well good luck trying to get people to lower their standard of living in pursuit of an abstract solution to a problem that can only be represented with predictive modeling.
That's a large part of the issue: it probably won't. It will reduce the standard of living of future generations, but for people in the prime earning and consuming phase of their life (say 40-65 years old), climate change isn't going to have anywhere near as detectable, let alone large, effect on their life as spending $20K on heat pumps, giving up a car and taking more public transit, taking fewer tropical vacations, or even setting the heating thermostat to 69°F rather than 71°F.
