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> I don't understand why Westerners are so keen to make major sacrifices to quality of life in the name of fighting climate change when nothing we do will make

> I don't understand why Westerners are so keen to make major sacrifices to quality of life in the name of fighting climate change when nothing we do will make a statistically significant impact in the long run with major population centers like China, India, and Nigeria continuing to grow more wealthy with rapidly increasing demand for reliable, 24/7 energy production, cheap air conditioning, etc. Can't convince the others to do it if you don't do it.

anonym29 4y ago
Is the strategy of doing it ourselves and politely asking China and India to get on board this century working so far? I'm not saying we shouldn't be taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint in the west, I'm saying that doing that and hoping that other countries will voluntarily join us isn't working.
- rocket_surgeron 4y ago
  >Is the strategy of doing it ourselves and politely asking China and India to get on board this century working so far? Yes. Western shifts to less-harmful methods and materials increases the size of the market for those methods and materials and lowers their costs, spurring adoption in places not as rich as the West. The early adoption of solar panels in the west drives production capacity in poorer nations that are more manufacturing-oriented. The increased production capacity increases supply, which lowers prices, which makes it more affordable for them to transition to solar (and other technologies). International conventions, treaties, and agreements headed by richer nations bring along poorer nations. In the US, harmful emissions like CO2 and GHG plateaued in the 70s and 80s and started declining on both a total and per-capita basis in the 2000s. They are still much, MUCH, higher than the rest of the world but are declining. In China and India emissions have started to slow their rate of increase or have plateaued in the last 10 years. China went from ~5% of their energy coming from renewables and nuclear in 2000 to 15% in 2019. The US was at approximately 40% in 2020. Given the rates of change China will probably surpass the United States in renewable/nuclear generation as a percentage of their electricity generation in 10-20 years. I would expect the emissions curves to mimic those of Europe and the United States, lagging by 30-40 years. This is a decades-long effort, not something that can be realized in years. The infrastructure built 20 years ago still has 30 years left in it, so the targets we want to hit in 50 years need to be planned for and built today. But as for your question "the strategy of doing it ourselves" isn't really valid. Each individual American emits roughly 3x the amount of CO2 that a Chinese person does. We're not "doing it ourselves" we are barely sacrificing anything while expecting people poorer than us to do what we don't want to do. https://robbieandrew.github.io/GCB2022/PNG/s76_2022_Continents_percapita.png https://robbieandrew.github.io/GCB2022/PNG/s76_2022_Continen...
- babypuncher 4y ago
  Absolutely. Wealthy nations like ours investing heavily in renewable energy makes the technology cheap enough that fossil fuels stop looking attractive even to poorer nations.

anonym29 4y ago

Is the strategy of doing it ourselves and politely asking China and India to get on board this century working so far? I'm not saying we shouldn't be taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint in the west, I'm saying that doing that and hoping that other countries will voluntarily join us isn't working.

rocket_surgeron 4y ago
>Is the strategy of doing it ourselves and politely asking China and India to get on board this century working so far? Yes. Western shifts to less-harmful methods and materials increases the size of the market for those methods and materials and lowers their costs, spurring adoption in places not as rich as the West. The early adoption of solar panels in the west drives production capacity in poorer nations that are more manufacturing-oriented. The increased production capacity increases supply, which lowers prices, which makes it more affordable for them to transition to solar (and other technologies). International conventions, treaties, and agreements headed by richer nations bring along poorer nations. In the US, harmful emissions like CO2 and GHG plateaued in the 70s and 80s and started declining on both a total and per-capita basis in the 2000s. They are still much, MUCH, higher than the rest of the world but are declining. In China and India emissions have started to slow their rate of increase or have plateaued in the last 10 years. China went from ~5% of their energy coming from renewables and nuclear in 2000 to 15% in 2019. The US was at approximately 40% in 2020. Given the rates of change China will probably surpass the United States in renewable/nuclear generation as a percentage of their electricity generation in 10-20 years. I would expect the emissions curves to mimic those of Europe and the United States, lagging by 30-40 years. This is a decades-long effort, not something that can be realized in years. The infrastructure built 20 years ago still has 30 years left in it, so the targets we want to hit in 50 years need to be planned for and built today. But as for your question "the strategy of doing it ourselves" isn't really valid. Each individual American emits roughly 3x the amount of CO2 that a Chinese person does. We're not "doing it ourselves" we are barely sacrificing anything while expecting people poorer than us to do what we don't want to do. https://robbieandrew.github.io/GCB2022/PNG/s76_2022_Continents_percapita.png https://robbieandrew.github.io/GCB2022/PNG/s76_2022_Continen...
babypuncher 4y ago
Absolutely. Wealthy nations like ours investing heavily in renewable energy makes the technology cheap enough that fossil fuels stop looking attractive even to poorer nations.