Individuals may be acting in their own self-interest, but civilisation is acting irrationally.
One of the roles of government is to impose rules and regulations that steer individual (and corporate) self-interest in directions which are widely agreed to be in the interests of civilisation (like preventing/mitigating climate change) but which would otherwise be ignored or worsened if left to individuals or corporations.
> Individuals may be acting in their own self-interest, but civilisation is acting irrationally.
Yes, individuals acting rationally is just the thing. If we look closely enough at a civilisation or other group of people, it does break apart into individuals. The individuals are the ones who ultimately has the capacity to act, and has goals (a utility function) and knowledge to base their acts upon.
Are you sure it is a matter of local versus global optima? Isn't it rather that what you refer to as the global optimum isn't the optimum for the individual actors, and that each individual benefits from deviating from it (at the expense of everyone else)?
This is the tragedy of the commons viewed as an optimization problem. A global optimum provides benefits essentially perpetually, making it more valuable than the local optimums which are arrived at by each actor individually. (It does require extending the time though the actor's descendents.)
Hence the old saw's insistence on "enlightened self interest".
One of the roles of government is to impose rules and regulations that steer individual (and corporate) self-interest in directions which are widely agreed to be in the interests of civilisation (like preventing/mitigating climate change) but which would otherwise be ignored or worsened if left to individuals or corporations.