US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

So what if it's virtually impossible without warming?

There's no proof that any countermeasures might work, or that they can be applied cost effectively (that is, that benefit would outweigh cost).

It's been happening for a very long time. Some put it back to the times when humans left Africa. It's known as the Holocene Extinction [0]. Though, it has never been as bad as these last couple of centuries.

I think the fact that people don't seem to be aware of this is a massive failure of our society and in particular the education system. I do not know, but I would like to believe that it would have made a difference if we were all aware of how huge our impact is on the biosphere is.

Refs: [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

The primary reason is that every organisation focuses on their own personal gains (mostly: power and influence).

Carbon taxes are stupid because it's just another metric that can and will simply be gamed by the industry without any net positive effect.

It would be sufficient to just price goods and services according to their environmental impact. Example: most Spanish vegetables and citrus fruit should be priced at least 3-4x higher. Why? Because environmental costs aren't priced into the products and current irrigation practices are unsustainable [0]:

> In any case, it is apparent that if the full cost recovery principle is applied to intensively used aquifers, many existing uses would not be economically viable.

This applies to most industries today. Crabs caught in the North Sea are shipped from Germany all the way to Morocco for shelling and then shipped back to Germany for sale. Same with fruit produced in Argentina that is shipped to Thailand for packaging and then back to continental US for sale. This wouldn't be economically viable if it wasn't for huge discrepancies in cost of labour combined with heavily subsidised fuel costs.

Take away subsidies, stop nationalising environmental costs (that's what a carbon tax is) and make manufacturers take responsibility for the entire product lifecycle.

The latter is especially important: you cannot just start pumping out millions of car batteries per year without a solid plan for reuse and recycling. Same goes for wind turbine blades, IoT devices, etc.

Want to sell millions of phones in my country? No problem, as long as you also provide a way to reuse and recycle them and make up for the environmental damage caused in the production process.

This alone could be sufficient to steer things into a more sustainable direction and away from self-destructive behaviour.

Taxation is not the way.

[0] https://easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Spain_Gr...

Per capita, China does way better than many other countries when it comes to carbon emissions. Yes, as a country, they're the largest contributor to global warming, but they also have the highest population in the world. Some countries like the United States release over twice as much CO2 per capita. As India gains a higher standard for its citizens, their emissions will quickly multiply the coming years from what is already a significant factor in worldwide emissions.

And to be fair, why would China or India care about becoming greener when the United States, with all of their wealth and power, can expel 16.1 tons per capita per year without repercussions while China gets told of for their 8.0 tons? Let alone India, with their meager 1.9 tons per capita; why people from these countries be expected to give up on the quality of life and luxuries when the Americans get off scot free?

The oil kingdoms won't be giving up their emissions any time soon, tiny, overpopulated islands won't either, but even large countries such as Australia, Canada and Estonia pump CO2 in the air at twice the rate of China.

Saying "China won't do it so what's the point" is just pandering to the polluting masses to pretend they can't do a thing to change the world. Telling people that it's okay to let the tyre fire burn itself out because there's a much bigger tyre fire four streets down is still a terrible idea.

People won't give up driving cars every day, they won't give up AC and they won't give up cheap plastic. The best we can do is probably what we're doing now, using "green" technologies to delay our inevitable demise by reducing the footprint.

Green alternatives that are cheaper or as cheap as traditional items won't be available because oil is dirt cheap and easy to produce, the infrastructure is already there and everything from gas to processed food depends on oil products.

Tax carbon, then pay out what is collected evenly among all tax payers. The poor would stand to gain financially in that arrangement.