Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm reminded of a comic about global warming, "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?": https://climateactionreserve.org/blog/2012/08/31/environment ... The people who've made the biggest contribution to creating a better world over the last 50 years have been the Chinese; powered largely by coal and petroleum. And in one of the most ironic results in the 21st century, they're now the lea…
Something that has been largely forgotten about is that it used to be routine to see pictures of smoggy Chinese and Asian cities, this was a problem for them that they solved. I can't help thinking we can't get this kind of preventative action on any large scale, we need to have severe issues first and that's not accounting for longer term/cumulative effects.
We can actually address problems when we want to. It's just pretty slow and requires people to actually give a shit and put in the effort to build support.