Yeah and my point is that these studies look at energy consumption they don’t take into account things like burning yard waste or plastic garbage into their co2 consumption which is often done daily to keep mosquitoes away and from laziness. Nor does it look at air pollution nor waterways pollution. So it’s a useless metric that doesn’t even have accurate data or tell the real story.
What will we do when these societies who give no fucks about the environment (compared to the west) get wealthier?
I don't think proposing cutting CO2 emissions is "white guilt" -- I probably missed something, I'm not sure how race entered it. (and I don't mean that snarky! I probably missed it :) )
I'm also unsure if "White guilt" is a good descriptor for the West enforcing emission cuts by force on not-West: that sounds like aggression as opposed to an expression of guilt.
The fun/exciting part: a total mind-bender on this is not-West countries are installing renewables at scale without incentives or "[any color] guilt", solar is cheaper than any other supply you can think of.
Then we can start talking about "solar isn't enough because unreliable", true.
Then maybe we start talking about how it's racist to prevent people from having unreliable electricity, true, but rest-assured, the idea of enforcing cuts on other nations isn't on the table.
To avoid the tarpit of moralizing, I try to stay focused on saying "they're installing solar panels and it's cool if they gotta do coal/tires/etc. while we 10x batteries again like we did last decade" --- this also has the benefit of matching the uncoordinated reality as it stands
What will we do when these societies who give no fucks about the environment (compared to the west) get wealthier?
White guilt is not going to save anyone