Because rural or urban, once people have access to enough energy to rise out of grinding poverty, they tend not to want to return to a precarious, labor-intensi

Because rural or urban, once people have access to enough energy to rise out of grinding poverty, they tend not to want to return to a precarious, labor-intensive subsistence lifestyle. Especially when their individual share of the resulting pollution is small compared to the degree to which it’s improved their lives. “Declined” growth of 5% this year still means that things there are 5% bigger than they were last year.