31–40 of 67 posts
It brings this up in the article, but I have a very difficult time believing this isn't just because rich countries have shifted manufacturing and mining to poor countries. Look at recycling. We all thought we were so environmentally aware by recycling, but turns out so much "recycling" was just "ship to poor countries to deal with the fallout".
And literally export all their garbage to China.
Because rich countries brings their products from somewhere else, they don't have to produce them, they don't have to deal with the environmental impact of producing them.
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Industry/Man...
Then the first line of the author's thesis (more capitalism needed) doesn't follow from the premise:
As China and Sweden demonstrate, advanced economies need not necessarily be strictly capitalist.
I think another attribute of this is education and being aware that there is slightly more to life than just the pursuit of money. Sure, people with means fall for this all the time, but I think poor people also commonly enter the same trap. Note that a pursuit of saving face and appearing rich is entirely different than the pursuit of wealth - but a pursuit of money could take either path. For instance, understandin…
I'd argue that this is a huge issue in the Western world that we could theoretically solve, though how it would happen practically I'm not sure. Stable homes for all, reduce and/or eliminate the worst forms of advertising. With some luck you then have a relatively happy populace, content to spend time with their family and on leisure etc without wanting to get big 4x4s or jet around the world or whatever. Kill off th…
I think the most interesting thought experiment here is when you consider extremist progressives who want to "kill the rich and elite" - in reality if this actually did play out I think they'd just end up killing people who are most evidently "rich" but not actually withholding wealth from the poor. In essence, they'd be killing all the self-obsessed and narcissistic consumerists. Anyone who was actually rich or still in control of banking infrastructure would be smart enough to not be showy. (yes, I understand this is a pretty extreme tangent)
All in all, I do think the rat race is empowering to people who are able to understand what is really valuable to them.
I recently finished Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker and this exact point was made in that book. I'll paraphrase a salient quote from the book: poverty is the greatest polluter. Intuitively this makes great sense: when you're eking out a subsistence living you're not going to care about the environment, but when resources are plenty you can afford to consider other living things too.
That's just not true. The US emits 16 tons of CO2 per capita. For many African countries, that number is 1-2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_... The greatest polluter is everybody living in large single family homes full of things manufactured on other continents, with AC, multiple cars, eating red meat every day.
Makes sense: when a country has an industrial revolution it just wants to grow fast. Then when the extreme growth part passes it starts to stabilize: this is when the country & the people start doing well enough so that they can look at other issues (environmental impact) without having to sacrifice their livelihoods. The human will always prioritize his own and his families livelihood. Only once that is stable can o…
This is exactly what I think of when I see hopefuls talking about climate change, among other topics. The guy who doesn't have enough money for rent? He's not buying the expensive free range eggs. If I were in a developing country, I would be worried that climate accords become a other way for those on top to stay there.
I suppose you were just providing a random example, but if you're curious the production of free-range eggs almost certainly pollutes more carbon than caged eggs [1] while being less ethically sound (assuming that was the consideration for cage-free), environmentally responsible, and typically more expensive than plant alternatives.
[1] https://www.smh.com.au/national/free-range-hens-boost-carbon...
Because rich countries brings their products from somewhere else, they don't have to produce them, they don't have to deal with the environmental impact of producing them.
Figures from the abstract - somewhat out of date but true to a lesser extent today - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2851800/
Ignoring all the cost reaching to current state. Isn't this what we call fake news?