[falserum]

I would like to label guilt/innocence as irrelevant.

The scenario above, describes the dynamics of how incentives work.

As long as consumers expect stuff to be cheap, somebody will step up to provide that (reaping profits). Only highly conscious society or totally authoritarian one can make these changes (though probability of dictator caring about environmental effects is low, and probably not sustainable).

Edit: guilt/innocence are irrelevant in the sense that they do not change the outcome. If human gets into a tigers cage and gets eaten (or seriously injured), outcome was predictable without the need to know who is at fault (tiger or human).

[antihipocrat]

We could somehow account for the cost of these negative externalities in financial reporting, or tax them.

A part of the general public is only whipped into a frenzy against these measures by vested interests.

[falserum]

Some part yes (maybe..).

But I doubt that it’s majority.

Whatever policy you implement, end result must be that stuff costs more and people live with less: virtually no personal cars, no for-fun-flights (vacation), force people to wear same pants for years and repair them when they get damaged.

That is hard pill to swallow for many, even for somewhat environmentally-aware beings.

Assuming no free energy is invented.

Related: exponential growth (x % each year) is not sustainable (approx 2500 years to consume whole universe converted to energy on 5% yearly growth); effectivity increases only multiply exponential function by a constant.