USofA was probably the only place that actively resisted the global effort.
I think people do want a better world.
Greed is not universal.
Most countries that grow a middle class find most people prefer to stop work. I.e. there are not that many infinitely greedy humans. And they can be taxed.
Despite neocon economic theory, most people aren't selfish. And those that are, are often happily rewarded with a plaque in their honor or a medal.
Just look at the length Trump goes to for an award.
COVID didn’t cost anyone anything in terms of improved standard of living. Curbing emissions growth would do that.
People aren’t “greedy,” but my family in Bangladesh absolutely wants to live like my family in America, or at the very least like my family in Canada. They don’t consider that “greedy” and if you tell them it is they’ll laugh at you.
The country’s CO2 emissions per person have increased by a factor of 5x since we left in 1989, consistent with per capita GDP going up by 10x. Even on an efficient development path it’s going to go up another 5x in order to increase the country’s GDP per capita another 10x, which will put it at the level of a poor eastern european country like Hungary or Croatia. That’s the earliest anyone is even going to listen to you about CO2 reduction.
> COVID didn’t cost anyone anything in terms of improved standard of living. Curbing emissions growth would do that.
We live in a horrendously inefficient way. We ship everything from half way around the world in diesel ships, trucks, and trains, we buy shitty single-use plastic items packaged and shipped in single-use plastic packaging, we replace our phones instead of our batteries, our clothing and shoes degrade within a couple years, our restaurants and grocery stores throw away half the food they purchase, our agricultural system spends nitrogen and pesticides like they're free to grow corn as an industrial chemical component. I don't know exactly how much meat there is on that bone, but there's a whole lot of emissions we could remove that wouldn't negatively impact our lives and would probably improve them.
Forget how we live. Take the per capita CO2 output of Norway—which already generates 99% of its electricity using renewables—and somehow halve it. If the Indian subcontinent increases to that level, the added CO2 output alone will be double that of the entire EU currently.
And that’s the steady-state number. It’s impossible to believe that these countries can become twice as efficient as Norway, which already has a fully renewable grid, while building a ton of housing and infrastructure that Norway doesn’t have to build because it’s already built.
USofA was probably the only place that actively resisted the global effort.
I think people do want a better world. Greed is not universal. Most countries that grow a middle class find most people prefer to stop work. I.e. there are not that many infinitely greedy humans. And they can be taxed.
Despite neocon economic theory, most people aren't selfish. And those that are, are often happily rewarded with a plaque in their honor or a medal.
Just look at the length Trump goes to for an award.