That has been the rhetoric since the 1960s. That is the rhetoric that is obviously not working.
I call this the "abstinence based" approach to solving environmental problems. Guilt and shame and preach people into denying their "sinful nature." It works about as well as telling teenagers not to have sex.
We have made a near idol out of technology because the benefits of modern technology and all its associated energy consumption are massive. Due to the diminishing marginal utility of wealth, these benefits are the most massive for the poor. The major driving force of consumption and pollution growth is not the relatively small number of super-rich buying more jets, but the rise of billions of people from hand-to-mouth poverty into something beginning to resemble at least a first world lower-middle class lifestyle.
Sitting in a rich Western country and telling them they're sinners for wanting these things is not going to work. It's going to get you ignored. It's getting you ignored.
The way to save the planet is to stop the feel-good moralism and start treating this problem as what it is: a technical problem that can be solved by scientists and engineers. Replace fossil fuels with solar, wind, and nuclear power and give out free condoms to teenagers.
If you pay attention to the large scale developed economies on that list, you'll notice a large difference between the CO2 emissions of, say, France or Switzerland vs. the United States or China. All of these nations are full of mobile phones and computers and high speed transit systems, but all are not equal in terms of their environmental impact. Clearly some are doing what they are doing in ways that cause less environmental harm than others.
It is possible to maintain and even continue to develop our "sinful" lifestyle while reducing its footprint.
Not only is this possible, but it's the only option. There are still billions of people living in poverty, and those people are going to ignore your rhetoric. It's their desire not for opulence but for basic health and dignity that is going to push the planet past 600-800ppm CO2 in this century... unless we find ways to satisfy that desire without trashing out atmosphere.
We will solve these problems by innovating, or we will sit around and pray and moralize all the way to hell.
I'm pretty sure this rhetoric is a big part of the conservative reaction to climate change, you're not going to listen to some holier than thou hippy tell you that you have to change your life based on some pseudo-spiritual bullshit.
This is the liberal approach. Environmentalists of the shame, guilt, and moralizing school are reactionaries. They want to deprive people of what they want in the name of high ideals and return to an idyllic time of purity in the past (that never existed).
The liberal approach to CO2 emission is solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, and EVs. The liberal approach to STDs and teenage pregnancy is for the man to put a rubber thing on his wang.
The American right ignores this problem entirely, so they haven't even made it that far. On sexual externalities they are consistently conservative or reactionary.
I call this the "abstinence based" approach to solving environmental problems. Guilt and shame and preach people into denying their "sinful nature." It works about as well as telling teenagers not to have sex.
We have made a near idol out of technology because the benefits of modern technology and all its associated energy consumption are massive. Due to the diminishing marginal utility of wealth, these benefits are the most massive for the poor. The major driving force of consumption and pollution growth is not the relatively small number of super-rich buying more jets, but the rise of billions of people from hand-to-mouth poverty into something beginning to resemble at least a first world lower-middle class lifestyle.
Sitting in a rich Western country and telling them they're sinners for wanting these things is not going to work. It's going to get you ignored. It's getting you ignored.
The way to save the planet is to stop the feel-good moralism and start treating this problem as what it is: a technical problem that can be solved by scientists and engineers. Replace fossil fuels with solar, wind, and nuclear power and give out free condoms to teenagers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_...
If you pay attention to the large scale developed economies on that list, you'll notice a large difference between the CO2 emissions of, say, France or Switzerland vs. the United States or China. All of these nations are full of mobile phones and computers and high speed transit systems, but all are not equal in terms of their environmental impact. Clearly some are doing what they are doing in ways that cause less environmental harm than others.
It is possible to maintain and even continue to develop our "sinful" lifestyle while reducing its footprint.
Not only is this possible, but it's the only option. There are still billions of people living in poverty, and those people are going to ignore your rhetoric. It's their desire not for opulence but for basic health and dignity that is going to push the planet past 600-800ppm CO2 in this century... unless we find ways to satisfy that desire without trashing out atmosphere.
We will solve these problems by innovating, or we will sit around and pray and moralize all the way to hell.