I’m really worried about the state of the US despite being a white male who was I’ll coast right through it. I’ll also accept “I don’t” and “very poorly” as answers
I’m really worried about the state of the US despite being a white male who was I’ll coast right through it. I’ll also accept “I don’t” and “very poorly” as answers
What about climate change? Murder rates going down is nice, but murders impact individuals. Climate change impacts civilizations.
Pretty big topic but it’s improving in most regards. Things may seem bleaker but that’s because oil lobbyists have changed strategies from denying climate change outright to trying to convince people that it’s hopeless. This in and of itself is progress.
Here’s a smattering of other facts:
It is not too late, and for the first time, we are actually starting to win.
A little context on point one: annual CO2 emissions have more or less flattened out, but that means that the growth has stopped. We’re still emitting more CO2 per year than ever in history. (And it’s hard to say how durable that trend is, since it occurred over the years during which the pandemic drastically curtailed some of the top-emitting activities.) That’s a long, long, long way from net-zero.
The decrease in per-capita emissions from rich nations is consistent with the pattern observed for many pollutants. As economies gain wealth through polluting activities, the rising standard of living causes people to demand less pollution, and improving technology can meet the demand. The trick that we need to pull off here is for the wealthy nations to spread that technology as rapidly as possible to developing nations, so that they can increase their own standard of living without going through the polluting phase.
I feel like every time people say “yeah but it’s overall getting better” is missing the first for the trees. Because, yeah, what about climate change? Or the general trends in global politics?