[BurningFrog]

My pragmatic take is that if we keep buying their stuff - and we will - they will soon become rich enough to clean up their environment, just like all rich countries do.

If you're familiar with the history of industrialism, all currently clean and rich countries went through a phase of horrible dirtiness as they rose out of awful poverty.

Fortunately, China seems to go through the same steps as the west 3-5 times faster than we did.

Sometimes, the only way out is through!

[lotsofpulp]

You think the environment will continue to be relatively hospitable to humans while we go "through" China, then India, then Africa/South America?

[BurningFrog]

China is already halfway through. India isn't too far behind. The rest of the world is comparatively small.

So, yeah, I think we have pretty big margins, TBH.

Just my personal hunch. I don't ask you to agree.

[tim333]

We're talking CO2 here. The US has not exactly stopped emitting as it got rich.

[JBReefer]

US emissions are radically down though thanks to efficiency and moving from coal to nat gas + renewables. We're down almost 20% from 2000.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-...