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Well, India is a pretty big place, so I'm sure there are some nice smelling places out of the way here and there. But yeah I bet some of the cities smell about as unpleasant as any other city under a heat wave.
And NYC is pretty clean.
And here in the western world, people still don't like using public transport and their bikes (when they can). It's difficult to be optimistic, but it seems there is nothing that will truly limit fossil fuel consumption. Maybe some oil producing countries could get in some sort of alliance, and artificially limit the amount of oil they extract, in return for subsidies? Those countries could also put a tariff on oil.…
This is a difficult equation to balance when India and China burn cheap fuels while petrostates trade their reserves for bombs.
Reminds me that I should finish reading The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future
My main gripe with it was that it leaves the reader thinking that climate change can be combatted with sensibility and reason. The idea that our global elites will come to their senses if we shove a few incidents in front of their faces goes against the fundamental narcissistic arc western civilization is currently enamored with.
The world he presents is predominantly western and China barely gets a mention. While he does start off in India most of it takes place in Switzerland, a country that doesn't really matter all that much for the climate. He's American, so he probably thinks China is inherently a bad place where stupid things happen. But I don't know why one wouldn't center a fictitious future of climate change there, and worse leave it out entirely. It's civilization is ascending while western white European culture is obviously descending.
I don't want my criticism of the book to lie entirely on Robinson's euro-centrism, but it is my primary complaint. Not because this makes the book racist, and I'm not accusing Robinson of that, but because it shows how Robinson's limited view of the world shapes his fiction. He gives us a white saviour story primarily taking place in Switzerland and yet claims to be speaking to the world. It's just dumb.
And here in the western world, people still don't like using public transport and their bikes (when they can). It's difficult to be optimistic, but it seems there is nothing that will truly limit fossil fuel consumption. Maybe some oil producing countries could get in some sort of alliance, and artificially limit the amount of oil they extract, in return for subsidies? Those countries could also put a tariff on oil.…
> there are street vendors in major cities selling special fruit that supposedly helps protect people from the potentially damaging effects of above-normal temperatures. [...] "Instead of the regular synthetic fruits, you know, the ready-made fruit juice which is harm[ful] to the health, these are good for your health as well and these are the only way that you can manage the heat." What's this mysterious special fru…
Most likely Ice Apple [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borassus_flabellifer
Climate change in action, only going to get worse.
Is nature going to put a stop to our rape of this planet by directly killing millions (maybe billions) through heat, fire, flooding, famine, drought, etc.? Is that what it will take? Am I wrong to be despondent about our capability as a species to prevent this coming catastrophe any other way?
Probably. That said, the brunt will be born by the poor. America may face a deep recession. India, starvation and a political reboot.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, why care for the poor population even when Europe is busy buying oil for itself. It’s not like per capita consumption of the west is 10x or greater.
Europe is stopping it, India is asking for more. 140 countries could condemn the war in an UN vote - India couldn't.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/9/infographic-which-co...
When half of your military weapons depend on another country you don't really risk angering them over some inconsequential vote.
And here in the western world, people still don't like using public transport and their bikes (when they can). It's difficult to be optimistic, but it seems there is nothing that will truly limit fossil fuel consumption. Maybe some oil producing countries could get in some sort of alliance, and artificially limit the amount of oil they extract, in return for subsidies? Those countries could also put a tariff on oil.…
I don't understand why we aren't pouring massive amounts of money into public transport. Apparently many people in Western Europe seem to enjoy being stuck in traffic for hours every day. For some reason, company cars are still a thing in Belgium, very nearly everyone working in IT gets one. I can't wrap my head around how stupid this is.
Not only does there seem to be no sense of urgency, there doesn't seem to be much interest in doing anything at all..
India has been happily buying discount fossil fuels from Russia. Foot, meet gun
Similar to the India criticism above, in Europe it is always Germany that is criticized for importing natural gas from Russia. This week it turned out that Poland and Bulgaria (which Russia has just cut off) relied to the order of 45% and 90% on Russian gas. Poland is now re-importing Russian gas from Germany!
Other European countries also rely on Russian gas.
I suppose we should instead buy from virtuous countries like Saudi Arabia (Yemen war, human rights violations).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't seem to get talked about as much it should but the economically efficient way to net zero is for rich, but non-sunny places to install solar in poor but sunny places and split the carbon reduction 'credit'. It’s a win-win-win. I wonder how much more effective in economically damaging Russia it would be to push solar (and efficiency, insulation etc.) in regions on its southern border. EU should do it at hom…
India is already doing it. Not at a rapid enough pace to meet all of the national demand, but at least my state (KA) has the lowest coal consumption and is still selling electricity to other states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_sta... sort by year and by capacity for highlights.
But that gain, unlike the carbon output, will be bounded by the national border, unless there's some way of exporting it for cash.
EU carbon tariffs will have a similar effect, making Indian goods relatively cheaper on the export market if they invest in solar.
This comes up again and again. The famous "Renewable Energy Without the Hot Air" for example is about how the UK could generate it's own power cleanly.
Which is effectively irrelevant in a global context of 60 Million vs 11 Billion people, but it makes phasing out fossil fuels seem harder so there's a lot of people pushing it as an unstated assumption.