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Comment by GorbachevyChase | Hacker News Reader

The rest of the world is not on board. Western Europe, United States, and Australia take “breathing considered harmful“ seriously. No other country does, and nobody else is deliberately suppressing their growth. There are plenty of countries taking western money to pretend that they do.

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Generally these things follow a Kuznets Curve where you get rich from polluting and then are eventually rich enough to care about poisoning your children.

China's bad air around the time of their Olympics is pointed to as being a turning point that could have toppled the government if not dealt with.

Slightly uniquely they seem to have discovered a way to become even richer by cleaning up their pollution, the timing for EV and renewables working out well, and presumably many other nations will try to follow that pattern going forward.

Even just buying these things from China will make both sides of the trade richer compared with dirtier alternatives.

Believe it or not, most of the people on earth don't worship growth. No one cares about growth just as no one cares about climate change, people want improvement on their lives and a future that can be good. Some policies like paper straws downgrade it and other policies like clean air upgrade it.

When you start thinking in more abstract terms, growth v.s. climate change associated risks is a false dichotomy.

Of course people at first all they care is to get out of a bad situation like poverty but once they are out of poverty they start caring for other things like the future of their children. Apart of fossil energy producing countries like USA/Russia/Australia, people don't pretend that pollution is no biggie.

Despite this, since 1980, US, EU and Australia have been the biggest polluters since 1980 when climate change was first known to be man made. (Read my other comment)

I’m pretty sure that’s not remotely true. Look at the state of the Ganges River or the visibility in any major Chinese Metropolitan area. Many countries just ignore these patently obvious ecological disasters. The notion that climate was in a pleasant homeostasis until European people arrived is absurd on its face and contrary to geological record.

You are being scammed. Billionaires just want an excuse to assert control over all human activity. Climate Doom is an eschatological religion for atheists. Conserve forests, control industrial waste, substitute toxic products, of course. But your breath is an existential threat to all life on Earth? It’s ridiculous and it has completely derailed productive environmental efforts with carbon-trade scams and a regulatory priesthood demanding sacrifice. Meanwhile serious people can barely get a hearing on aquifer depletion, topsoil loss, overfishing, food quality, or source water protection.

Exhalation accounts for maybe 10% of co2 activities. But our carbon comes from what we eat which is in a loop with photosynthesis. It does not accumulate in the same way emissions do.

Meanwhile we add 10x of that every in a system that does not have a drain for it.

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