Comment by purpleblue | Hacker News Reader

Comment by purpleblue | Hacker News Reader

When I read articles like this, I can totally understand China and India's argument as to why they won't or don't prioritize fossil fuel consumption.

The West has spent centuries modernizing itself to the point where there is a vast gap between the West and the rest of the world. Now that the West has a huge advantage, they want to start imposing moral arguments on the 3rd world nations as to why they should abide by the West's new set of moral codes, which handcuff the progress that 3rd world countries can make.

This feels like another example of where I bet it would be cheaper to do it in other ways (besides using Russian ammonia) but they decided to try the "green" way. It also feels a lot like how Monsanto tricked Indian farmers into using their seeds which required Roundup and then became indentured servants for the rest of their lives because of the financial handcuffs put on them.

So I can completely sympathize why many poorer countries can see all these environmental moral edicts as being ways to keep them oppressed and tricked into not making progress independently from the West.

> The West has spent centuries modernizing itself to the point where there is a vast gap between the West and the rest of the world.

The West has spent centuries inventing and iterating on technology which is now available to the rest of the world, and has experienced how environmental hazards are created, which we want to avoid repeating.

The West also handcuffs itself with environmental morality (see infrastructure development in China vs the US). We have experience with pollution and want to avoid countries and continents of 1b+ people making the Earth uninhabitable.

>It also feels a lot like how Monsanto tricked Indian farmers into using their seeds which required Roundup and then became indentured servants for the rest of their lives because of the financial handcuffs put on them.

I think it's actually the exact opposite of this. The farm now has a fertilizer factory that produces fertilizer for free. They are no longer reliant on buying ammonia from big companies.

All it takes to change that opinion is to spend a few winter days out in the smog-choked capital of India. That had quickly built an appreciation in me for even the current state of pollution controls in the West, where the air getting that bad is considered 'historic' (eg the Canadian wildfire smoke that passed through NY back in June).

You seem to confuse "physics" with "moral arguments". They are profoundly different.

You can buy non patented seeds if you want to. there is a reason modern farmers buy form Monsanto (and competitors): hybrid corn yields a lot more crops - but the seeds don't breed true so you need special seed corn fields which need to be carefully managed.

There is a reason farmers use roundup as well: the other option to kill weeds is run a hoe through the field - which uses a lot more expensive fuel (read CO2!)

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