Adam’s law of slow moving disasters only applies when the median individual can understand the problem, and the evidence that it is a problem. We didn’t get nuclear protests or treaties until overwhelming evidence that nukes were possible in the form of detonations. No one was motivated to protest or sign treaties based on abstract physics arguments about what might be possible some day. Action regarding climate change didn’t start until the evidence became quite clear. The outer space treaty wasn’t signed until 1967, 5 years after human spaceflight and only 2 before the moon landings.
Adam’s law of slow moving disasters only applies when the median individual can understand the problem, and the evidence that it is a problem. We didn’t get nuclear protests or treaties until overwhelming evidence that nukes were possible in the form of detonations. No one was motivated to protest or sign treaties based on abstract physics arguments about what might be possible some day. Action regarding climate change didn’t start until the evidence became quite clear. The outer space treaty wasn’t signed until 1967, 5 years after human spaceflight and only 2 before the moon landings.