Hitler turned around Germany's economy in the 30's. Stalin liberated Eastern Europe from the genocidal Nazis. Nelson Mandela plotted terrorist attacks as a young activist.
Good people (and organisations) do bad things, and bad people do good things. It doesn't change the fact that the British East India Company was rotten to the core, and the Opium Wars were absolutely abhorrent abuses of China's sovereignty and human rights.
Sorry, I must comment on that, because this point is sometimes publicly repeated by politicians. It was mostly an expected recovery after the crash in 1929, combined with job programs that were planned before the Nazis, a secretly state-sponsored war economy, and various dubious methods (to say the least). see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany#Recove... for a summary.
Truth be told, I don't know much about Nazi History at all. I just used Hitler as he's often held up as the paragon of evil, but even he helped some people.
Easy to call something “strange” when the narrative is completely twisted by editorializing the original source.
> the company decided to engage in a war to open Chinese ports. This was the origin of the infamous Opium War whose final outcome in 1842 was the opening of five Chinese “treaty ports”, cession of Hong Kong
I'm sorry, what?
[edit] Libya was selling oil independently and offering loans with much better terms to other African countries.
I see climate activists bash developing countries with large population for carbon emissions, yet when you account for per capita carbon output - turns out that carbon/capita of rich countries far exceeds that of developing/poor countries
Teslas are now the most sold car brand in Norway thanks to that and their cheap hydro power.
For small countries (Norway, New-Zealand), the feeling may be that their contribution is just a drop in the ocean.
For countries with victim complexes (China, Russia, the Middle East), they may feel that the West has exploited them for too long, and now it is their turn.
For countries that are still objectively poor/-ish (India, much of Africa), they may feel they don't have the luxery of acting long term.
And progressives (in the USA, Germany and much of the EU) may focus more on symbolic efforts ("renewable" power) while failing to start large scale activities that can realistically reduce emissions to levels that would be sustainable as world averages (either through having enough Nuclear power, or to make sure that there is enough energy storage capacity available that renewables can be depended upon).
Meanwhile, nationalists (in all countries) may see it more as a zero-sum game, where the goal is to "win" over other countries, and they definitely do not want to sacrifice too much without an ensurance that "the other side" contributes at least as much. Furthermore, perceived (partly based on reality, partly based on conspiracy theories) hypocrisy from environmentalist leftists is used to downplay, doubt or even deny the reality of the threat.
As long as everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else, while the world's carbon emissions continue to grow, we will not be able contain CO2 levels. Most likely, we _will_ suffer the consequences, and experience some global warming over the coming decades. Also, as usual, poor countries will suffer the most.
That being said, 2 degrees of warming is much better than 6. Also, blaming everyone else will just serve to add hostility between groups on top of the warming, in ways that can lead to hostilities that may be even more dangerous than the warming itself.
So for those that genuinely want to work towards a sustainable environment, I think we need to: - Look at what we can do ourselves, personally, within our political party and within our country, in that order, instead of just pointing fingers at the "Other" to take the attention away from our own contributions. Finger pointing just serves to make us feel good, but is not likely to change the minds of the "Other". - Promote a world view that is based on real mainstream science, rather than fringe scare-mongery, politically correct dogmas etc. Exaggerating predictions will just provide fuel to the deniers (ie the world will end by 2030), and even if some scare-mongering may mobilize some politically active youths, I believe the net effect will be to increase polarization which in turn causes inability to act. - In particular, fight dogmas that prevent initiatives that can realistically help, such dogmas surrounding nuclear power. Institutions that spread such dogmas need to be confronted, especially when they are on "our side" (since there is little we can do to affect the "other side") - Generally, stop fueling all sorts polarization. As individuals and organizations we may benefit from turning to the extremes of "our side" as it may make us seem extra virtous, while demonizing the "Other". But we need ot be mindful of the fact that participating in this, is to inflict harm on society and implicitly on the plant. Polarization, both within and between countries, serve to undermine objectivity, as ideas start to be seen in terms of ideology rather than science. - Instead, by trying to avoid partisanship and focus on the objectively most reliable science as well as policies that can be accepted by a wide, bi-partisan majority, we may help restore some trust in institutions in the general public.
The best way is demand reduction, which won't happen overnight. Technology exchange and helping developing countries to build renewable energy and nuclear power plants seems to be, outside of geoengineering, the only viable way forward.
Norway's policy is to not leave anything in the ground. Even when you think maybe economic pressures will limit it, instead Norway subsidizes search for new fields. From the profit estimates of e.g. Johan Sverdrup, you can directly see that Norway thinks the world will NOT limit its oil consumption very much (and it will probably lobby against attempts to do so e.g. through coordinated carbon taxes). Our investments speak louder than words: we're betting on climate disaster.
It's going to be hard to convince other countries to leave anything in the ground, if you can't even convince Norway.
Does anyone have sources for this?
https://www.arctictoday.com/norway-will-keep-exploring-for-o...
https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/norway/330163/norway-a...
There ya go; 30 seconds on DDG, 3x varied sources (mops brow from the sweat of using the internet to search for something)
The merchants of the EIC stayed away from using opium themselves because being an opium addict is plainly pretty bad for you. Being a fossil fuel addict, though, can be very pleasant - ski trips to the Alps every month, fast cars, fresh produce flown in out of season etc. The costs will be carried mostly by other people.
