Cymric wrote:
@Oliver:
There's two factors: the West was stupid first, and is still being stupid for not mending its ways after learning of the impact half a billion people can have on the planet. (Although this is very slowly changing.)
The East is stupid for trying to become like us, in numbers which dwarf our own populations and for which the West cannot take any responsibility, effectively nailing the coffin quite shut. On the one hand nobody can genuinely hold it against them for trying to achieve a higher standard of living; on the other hand, their new-found lives will be mercilessly cut short by the planet itself, which will dole out Righteous Climatic Justice to all.
The West started it; the East finishes it. With the exception of a continents like South America or Africa, we all share blame in some way.
the west has changed enormously since these problems started to be realized. industry has spent billions (involuntarily yes) to clean up emissions and currently acid rain and co2 problems have been drasticly cut.
our cars are the cleanest in the world. the only country with emission standards high enough to export cars to north america without huge changes to cut co etc. is japan. almost all eu cars have to modded significantly.
when we found that flourocarbons were harmful to ozone layer we changed, to use inert gasses and natural gasses
many of these changes took only a few years to implement.
personally i think that human involvement is only part of the climate change equation. this is a dynamic world, we can see that in just the span of recorded human history
we need to be and are dynamic too
btw we werent "stupid" first, the industrial revolution started in europe and the first instances of pollution were recorded in london due to coal use at home and industry.
