Climate change requires shift similar to smoking, slavery - professor — The Daily Climate

In the 1700s slavery was a primary source of energy and wealth worldwide, especially for the British Empire. Abolitionism challenged that way of life and threatened to trigger economic collapse. It took more than 100 years, several uprisings and a civil war to change cultural norms and abolish slavery.

Just as few people saw a moral problem with slavery in the 18th century, Hoffman said, few in the 21st century see a moral problem with burning fossil fuels.
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Abolitionism gained traction with the advent of machinery and fossil fuels as an alternative to human toil. The Montreal Protocol, the international treaty protecting the Earth's thin ozone layer, was triggered after DuPont developed an alternative to ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs.

"If we developed feasible and scalable renewable energy tomorrow, public opinion on climate would shift fairly quickly," Hoffman said.