I don't understand this. Your claim is that it's literally impossible to complete industrialization with non-polluting technologies? Why? Is there something inherent to the energy that fossil fuels provide beyond their cost and ease of access?
> they know the virtue signaling premise (the world can still be saved, if only the developed countries fall on the sword) is a giant lie.
If it's cost alone, the answer is straightforward, especially as your premise already includes the developed world "falling on its sword": countries that polluted their way through industrialization heavily subsidize the clean version of that economic process in countries that have yet to do so.
This is obviously devilishly complicated from a geopolitical perspective, and I'm not necessarily recommending it. But the idea that the developed world has no levers to pull here is nonsense.
If it comes to it, if we overcome the greedy capitalist and nationalistic, imperialistic hangups, we could do it at cost in our best self interest to educate and industrialize the global south cleanly. Prevents war there, poverty, hunger and all sorts of refugee problems.
With their own hands, them owning the fruits of their labor.
My optimistic side agree with you but my inner cynic thinks that’s equivalent to saying “if we just get past our human hangups we could do it”. While being technically true, it’s hard to see a likely path given the current state of human affairs.
Twitter would also stop being a cesspool and start betting a forum of enlightened discourse if we could just put aside out psychological flaws but I’m not holding my breath for that, either.
> they know the virtue signaling premise (the world can still be saved, if only the developed countries fall on the sword) is a giant lie.
If it's cost alone, the answer is straightforward, especially as your premise already includes the developed world "falling on its sword": countries that polluted their way through industrialization heavily subsidize the clean version of that economic process in countries that have yet to do so.
This is obviously devilishly complicated from a geopolitical perspective, and I'm not necessarily recommending it. But the idea that the developed world has no levers to pull here is nonsense.