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Comment by rcMgD2BwE72F | Hacker News Reader

Research who pollute/consume to most. One average American has the impact of many Africans, so some may have many children if they continue not to ruin the planet. And please compare the impact of top 10% richest US households vs the bottom 50%.

Quality > quantity.

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Look at the lives of people who live in the large cities of Africa surviving on $3 a day. They consume less because they can't afford to do otherwise. They live in poverty. Their reduced per capita consumption does not stem from, as is subtly implied by these arguments, some simpler way of life that we could try to get back to if only we strived for simplicity. They just can't afford to replace their (for example) broken, hacked, and welded 30 year old bicycle rim that serves them poorly. When the opportunity arises to afford a new rim, they do it. They consume by the same processes we do.

An average American consumes more resources than the average African, but when measured against the science/economic output they create, the average American is still multiples of times more efficient.

Its also much easier to transition Western societies to renewable energy and EVs, which wipes out a lot of carbon emissions for example.

Additionally, much of Africa (20%) is reliant on food aid from the West, so its not fair to assign all of the resource use to the people who are feeding them.

> Additionally, much of Africa (20%) is reliant on food aid from the West, so its not fair to assign all of the resource use to the people who are feeding them.

Its going then to come as a shock to your world-view to learn that the UK, a nuclear power, with a permanent seat at the UN, and a card-carrying member of the West, had to receive food aid as recently as December 2020 from the UNICEF to feed their children [1].

So go turn your aircon off.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-55348047

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