You're confusing pollution with climate change. America has cleaned up their water and air to a very large extent. California leads the way. If the Paris Accord didn't let China off the hook from doing mothing until 2030, maybe it would have been a reasonable deal. Meanwhile China contributes 30% of the world's CO2 up from 27% in 2011 while America produces 14% down from 17%.
regarding pollution, Germany cheated with diesel automobiles for the last ten years causing pollution 40 times greater than the regulation limit. We just sent one of the VW engineers to prison for 40 months. Another one might get 7 years in jail. We'd like to get our hands on the executives and powers that be that let this happen. But they're hiding in Europe protected by Chancellor Merkel.
No, I am not confusing them. They are part and parcel of the same problem, inextricably mingles threads, the one exacerbating the other.
We cannot control every result of our actions but that doesn't mean that we can't control our actions. If we can't, then we are simply out of control and something needs serious correction.
I don't think anyone, anywhere, especially somebody like me who was conned into buying the first diesel car in his life at a time he was probably buying the last car in his life, has any love for the car manufacturers. Especially when the diesel choice was at least a grand more expensive than the petrol version. But hey, whatever they do, at whatever cost to the rest of us, they are providing employment, helping the economy grow, right? What's your beef: making Germany great again, no less - just as you
imagine your renewed old rust-belt, your new tundra-melting oil/gas pipes etc. are going to do for the US of A, and at the same bloody cost. If that ain't hypocricy mated to blindness, I don't know what the hell is. But I can't claim you surprise me any more. Which ain't to say you won't surprise yourself. The day you accidentally step on your tints is the day you will really, really be surprised at what you see.
And here's the chunk of irony for you: you guys will suffer as much as the rest of us. And you'll still be thinking: how did that happen? It must have been somebody else - yeah, that's what it was - India and China! Let's nuke 'em and clean it up once and for all! Break out the flags, print the slogan boards, polish the coffins!
Numbers, numbers; percentages split into lesser percentages; that's not what it is about: what it is about is takling action, unilaterally if it has to be, and do one's national bit to conserve this poor old planet in a condition which supports human life. Forget the Moon, Mars etc. Never gonna live there. Spend the money here, at home, just as your domestic voices constantly preach. So do it, save this world from which you'll never escape. Most of us are already trying our best, spending the bread to find safer ways.
