It’s just too expensive to save the planet. I’m glad that our governments were making the tough Choices, to continue burning coal and other fossil fuels because the economy just couldn’t handle the burden of not growing by another 5% every year.
That’s a fair complaint for developed countries, but I feel like it’s less fair for developing countries where each point of GDP growth has a tangible effect on poverty rates, education, health, economic mobility, and overall wellbeing. Hell, an increase in economic resources will probably even offset the decrease in crop yield from climate change. For countries that are still developing, these things improve the lives of citizens more than the impact of climate change would hurt them.
Living in a developed country, we have a disproportionate responsibility for both reducing our own emissions and developing the technology and infrastructure to reduce emissions for everyone else. We should have led the charge towards ever cheaper solar and ever cheaper wind. We should have given the world clean and cheap technologies they can use to fuel their industrialization to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. We haven’t, but looking towards the future there’s still a lot we can do.
Remember that you can influence global emissions far more than by bringing your personal emissions down to zero.
None of the countries historically responsible for the most CO2 emissions is growing at anywhere near 5%. If anything, we’re burning our only home for 1% year on year.
Had the misfortune of listening to State Department and White House policy ghouls talk to a class recently. They don’t believe moving to less fossil fuels quickly is viable because we’d become “dangerously dependent on Chinese minerals for batteries and solar cells” ignoring the fact that the entire globe is “dangerously dependent” on a liveable climate
It’s just too expensive to save the planet. I’m glad that our governments were making the tough Choices, to continue burning coal and other fossil fuels because the economy just couldn’t handle the burden of not growing by another 5% every year.
That’s a fair complaint for developed countries, but I feel like it’s less fair for developing countries where each point of GDP growth has a tangible effect on poverty rates, education, health, economic mobility, and overall wellbeing. Hell, an increase in economic resources will probably even offset the decrease in crop yield from climate change. For countries that are still developing, these things improve the lives of citizens more than the impact of climate change would hurt them.
Living in a developed country, we have a disproportionate responsibility for both reducing our own emissions and developing the technology and infrastructure to reduce emissions for everyone else. We should have led the charge towards ever cheaper solar and ever cheaper wind. We should have given the world clean and cheap technologies they can use to fuel their industrialization to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. We haven’t, but looking towards the future there’s still a lot we can do.
Remember that you can influence global emissions far more than by bringing your personal emissions down to zero.
Yes, exactly, the developed world should aid the developing world as much as possible in providing them clean technologies.
We are rich enough. We can afford that. And we all benefit in the end (because, after all, a lot of our supplies originate from developing countries).
None of the countries historically responsible for the most CO2 emissions is growing at anywhere near 5%. If anything, we’re burning our only home for 1% year on year.
I am so glad the shareholders got their money!
Just imagine some rich people didn’t get more rich, just stayed as rich as they were, so we could “save the planet”. Disgusting!
Had the misfortune of listening to State Department and White House policy ghouls talk to a class recently. They don’t believe moving to less fossil fuels quickly is viable because we’d become “dangerously dependent on Chinese minerals for batteries and solar cells” ignoring the fact that the entire globe is “dangerously dependent” on a liveable climate