> Yet with this consideration, we'd need to see how much of the population
> boom is "our" responsibility, etc and the accounting goes on and on and I
> think this becomes a very tricky argument. When is something good considered
> a credit and when is something bad considered a demerit?
Trying to work out how large "reparations" for past emissions should
be is quite hard. I think it poisons the debate to ask the US or
Europe for reparations of past climate sins.
I think we should look at the here and now, and the greater
possibilities and wealth that Europe and the US have at their
disposal, and how they can put that to good use to develop
technologies the developing countries need, eg ones dealing with
tropical diseases or tropical agriculture, where private industry
doesn't see profit opportunities and individual developing countries
do not have sufficient capacity.
I also realise that high world population growth places a burden on
resources. Still, that's not all of the story. There are also network
effects, the more people there are, the easier it is to specialise,
the more minds are there to develop technology. Not that that it is an
argument for unbridled population growth. But, I think it's nice to
also emphasise the benefits of co-operation over the need to get rid
of competitors for resources.
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