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> This shouldn't be the argument anyway. Why not? The reverse sounds more insightful: If the rest of the world adopts and American standard of life, emissions
by itishappy 2y ago
> This shouldn't be the argument anyway.
Why not? The reverse sounds more insightful:
If the rest of the world adopts and American standard of life, emissions would be much higher.
Should we expect the world to adopt a sub-US standard of living forever, or should we address the impacts of our standard of living?
- goatlover 2y agoIf the rest of world adopts the American standard of life, that means technology continues to progress, and there's a lot more highly educated people innovating. Given that sustainability and climate change are serious concerns now, I don't agree that it will continue to be a bad thing.
- fmobus 2y agoRight, because the thing that is missing that will enable everyone to innovate is being able to drive a 3 ton monstrosity to the nearest (~4 miles) drive thru Starbucks.
- itishappy 2y agoThis assumes a novel technological solution exists at all, which today is unfortunately still a big unknown. I'm hopeful too, but I'm not sure we can afford to make that our plan. Thinking about it, another assumption implicit in both of our positions is that emissions and standard of living are directly related. I bet we could address this is other ways. I have restaurants and bars about a mile from where I live, if I could get there without crossing multiple four lane roads I'd drive a lot less and be a lot healthier. Maybe our technological solutions already exist...