> Came to kick them in the ass when covid rolled around, but it was also arguably responsible for one the best decades of economic growth in human history.
Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.
What does this even mean? The planet is not destroyed. US Carbon emissions actually went down over that decade. The environment generally is better in many ways than previous decades.
>US Carbon emissions actually went down over that decade.
The US per capita emissions are still only preceded by micronations and petrostates as far as I'm aware. In fact they're still double of those in the EU despite few countries like Poland relying heavily on fossil fuels. Chinese people have managed to surpass the europeans but even they emit about half as much as Americans and are slowing down.
>The environment generally is better in many ways than previous decades.
It feels a bit like replying to a fictitious argument about declining life expectancy by saying "but car & gun deaths are down!".
I care a bit less for more localized short term bound air quality but it's absolutely great that the ozone hole is shrinking and such. Humanity managed to get togheter and make changes that had great impact. I however feel like we managed to do this because the changes needed were comparatively small.
Now please do not under any circumstances use these victories as argumentation to push back against fixing different issues.
The decline in insect biomass in many places is horrifying and as far as I know still accelerating.
Our fossil fuel extraction is still growing. We'll see it decline when it starts getting harder to extract in a few years yes but I don't see that as reason to pat ourselves on the back.
It's not a problem that fixes itself relatively quickly necessarily in the same way that stopping the use of CFK's was.
Natural sequestration will remain very very slow. Taking it out of the carbon cycle in a good way is many times more difficult than releasing it.
We could have given ourselves so so much more leeway by tackling the easier parts of this dependence but didn't and we still often don't.
Apologies. I would have admittedly ignored Estonia for still being a small outlier but you're correct about Canada and Australia. Seems they overtook the US in 2015.
Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.