>[!abstract] >A cognitive bias that manifests in a selective blindness to externalities. >[!example] >The prevailing economic system largely fails to internalize the environmental externalities associated with fossil fuel extraction and consumption, such as greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and resource depletion. This externality neglect creates an implicit subsidy for fossil fuel-based materials, artificially lowering their market prices relative to bio-based alternatives that offer superior environmental performance. Without policy interventions that correct these market failures, such as carbon pricing mechanisms, emissions trading schemes, or environmental taxes, bio-based materials will continue to compete on an uneven playing field ([[Sustainability Directory, 2025]]). We humans struggle to understand the fundamental implications of the second law of thermodynamics (specifically that entropy only ever increases over time). We use the adage "there is no free lunch" and yet are often blind to the drivers of growth that underpin our economies, for example. Humanity has gone through an unprecedented increase in its standards of living and material wealth since the Industrial Revolution; and this has been driven largely by the availability of cheap energy in the form of fossil fuels. The price of oil and gas, however, does not reflect the true cost of the environmental externality, that is, carbon emissions and the attendant climate change. By powering today's growth with cheap carbon, we create an environmental debt which will be paid by future generations. There is no multi-century free lunch here; we are borrowing economic assets and creating climate liabilities on humanity's inter-generational balance sheet. The living are breaking a tacit eternal pact with the unborn by greedily overspending Earth's resources at their expense. >[!related] >- **North** (upstream): [[Tragedy of the commons]] >- **West** (similar): — >- **East** (different): — >- **South** (downstream): —