The thing that really pisses me off about climate summits, accords, etc, is that the answer to making our planet cleaner is simple: use less, drive less, live in a smaller home, eat less meat, don't use plastic, have fewer, or no kids, etc. These are all things that can be done now, not starting in 2020, or whenever. US citizens have far more power then Donald Trump to make the changes necessary to make the planet cleaner. It's the dirty little secret to all of this that really has not been addressed. Politicians, and leading advocates dance all around the issue, but the reality is that economic progress and improvement in any way since the dawn of the industrial age, has also been linked directly with emitting and producing more carbon, because fossil fuel substrates are utilized for this for energy or product production.
So, yes, in the West and 1st world countries like the U.S., the one way to REALLY do battle with, carbon emissions and global warming is to do less, buy less, and in general make do with less, but that is NOT the way people want to live, and that's NOT the way the economy is structured it's all about doing more and buying more. That's why, while the Accords are important, they are doomed until this harsh, reality and dirty secret is brought forward.
Naomi Klein, who is about as left as they come, actually addresses this whole thorny issue in the book "This Changes Everything". She's VERY pragmatic about it all and finds strange bed-fellows on the right, who probably think of her as some sort of loon - but she's right. Until, the economic linkage between economic success - carbon emissions - fossil fuels is broken and a new paradigm established anything to do with combating global warming is really fiddling at the fringes!
Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
