3 ms·

no, because India's revenue is growing, that's how you get developing countries out of the mud. Look how China developed since they became the world's factory.

freeflight 9y ago
Revenue is of no use when nobody is being paid living wages anymore. As good as China is doing, it still hasn't solved the basic issues and a growing middle class in China (and India) is only gonna worsen the situation. I don't believe this planet can sustain billions of people living with the same standards/ways like Northern American or Western European people do, that's a pipe dream equal to "Everybody can be a millionaire". Sure, everybody could be a millionaire, but at that point nobody wants to a millionaire anymore but rather a billionaire, the same applies to living standards.
- nraynaud 9y ago
  so we are selecting who is gonna die so everybody raise to our standard of living? Are we selecting some people who we will purposefully maintain in poverty so that we keep our standard of living? Or are we reducing our standard of living down to some sustainable world average?
  - freeflight 9y ago
    Who's selecting? I'm merely stating the obvious: Depending on how you count, there are around 1 billion people living in the "developed world" and it's already wrecking havoc on the environment and even the human psyche. Yet people think it's viable to extend that same kind of lifestyle to additional 6+ billion people? Let's not forget that a large part of these 6 billion people are not even close to a Chinese or Indian middle class, but are stuck way below the poverty line. And it's not like India or China have solved environmental issues, imho there is massive "environmental debt" building up in India and China, people merely tend to ignore those in light of high renewable adoption rates, but that's only one part of the issue, waste management is another one. As much as I wish it'd be possible, I simply don't see how this is supposed to work out with constantly rising living standards for everybody. So the other outcome is most likely that standards won't rise for everybody, but rather that they equalize on a "middle level", which still means close to a billion people gonna have to "lower" their standards and a couple of billion have to rise theirs quite a bit.
  - featherverse 9y ago
    Everybody's going to die. I'm not sure what you're talking about.
- zzzzzzzza 9y ago
  just because people get richer doesn't mean they will or even could make the same unhealthy lifestyle choices as americans. There will never be huge suburbs of mcmansions outside of every indian city - there's simply not enough room, even if everyone had the purchasing power of an american. (I say this as american who lives in the suburbs). Not saying that all the growth will be environmentally sound growth, but perhaps not as bad as it was in the past.

freeflight 9y ago

Revenue is of no use when nobody is being paid living wages anymore. As good as China is doing, it still hasn't solved the basic issues and a growing middle class in China (and India) is only gonna worsen the situation. I don't believe this planet can sustain billions of people living with the same standards/ways like Northern American or Western European people do, that's a pipe dream equal to "Everybody can be a millionaire". Sure, everybody could be a millionaire, but at that point nobody wants to a millionaire anymore but rather a billionaire, the same applies to living standards.

nraynaud 9y ago
so we are selecting who is gonna die so everybody raise to our standard of living? Are we selecting some people who we will purposefully maintain in poverty so that we keep our standard of living? Or are we reducing our standard of living down to some sustainable world average?
- freeflight 9y ago
  Who's selecting? I'm merely stating the obvious: Depending on how you count, there are around 1 billion people living in the "developed world" and it's already wrecking havoc on the environment and even the human psyche. Yet people think it's viable to extend that same kind of lifestyle to additional 6+ billion people? Let's not forget that a large part of these 6 billion people are not even close to a Chinese or Indian middle class, but are stuck way below the poverty line. And it's not like India or China have solved environmental issues, imho there is massive "environmental debt" building up in India and China, people merely tend to ignore those in light of high renewable adoption rates, but that's only one part of the issue, waste management is another one. As much as I wish it'd be possible, I simply don't see how this is supposed to work out with constantly rising living standards for everybody. So the other outcome is most likely that standards won't rise for everybody, but rather that they equalize on a "middle level", which still means close to a billion people gonna have to "lower" their standards and a couple of billion have to rise theirs quite a bit.
- featherverse 9y ago
  Everybody's going to die. I'm not sure what you're talking about.
zzzzzzzza 9y ago
just because people get richer doesn't mean they will or even could make the same unhealthy lifestyle choices as americans. There will never be huge suburbs of mcmansions outside of every indian city - there's simply not enough room, even if everyone had the purchasing power of an american. (I say this as american who lives in the suburbs). Not saying that all the growth will be environmentally sound growth, but perhaps not as bad as it was in the past.