The "tons of fashion and crap" that you correctly identify as the elephant in the room is also the main source of employment and income for the majority of the population. The reason we are not doing anything about climate change (and will not do anything in the foreseeable future) is that any meaningful change will require abandoning the market capitalism and growth models that run the world economy. Try selling that to the voters or even here among the more privileged technocrats. Are you willing to take a major cut in your living standard in order to help people in Africa and Bangladesh? It's far more likely that the West builds walls on its borders and as a previous comment said, we start mowing down the hungry masses with machine guns. With the full support of its population of course, under an enlightened and highly developed democratic system.