My question relates to the fact that to have a revolving loan fund, one must first have something to loan: capital. This is, of course, in shortest supply in the developing countries that are at a point of choosing high- or low-carbon paths to prosperity. It is in even shorter supply in the places in China that you mention suffering the health, environmental, and social impacts of the most rapid industrialization in human history while reaping few of the benefits. For those with capital and the ability to raise more, the kind of community involvement you suggest – and which I would see as a key way to influence perceptions about how it is possible to achieve prosperity and what that consists of, becuase people must see a way to profit from it themselves – would be percieved as anathema to their power and influence. China could retool its factories to supply wind turbines to the world, but the factory effluent might still flow right into the rivers where workers get their drinking water, and the increasing demand for cars wouldn’t slacken. On the question of China, I will admit that I’m stumped.

However, modern technologies give so much more options…….

This has resulted in consumerism ….need for earning more… lack of quality in life ….more stress….poor environment and poor health …. need for more entertainment gadgets…. lack of heart to heart talks….. more family issues!!

This is the story repeated all over the world. However, for developing countries, they easily fall for attractiveness of better living and novelties for gadgets. This is due to tremendous pressure from business and political forces who need to sell in other countries these technologies / products for their own survival and growth!

There has to be efforts to USE MINIMUM RESOURCES in our day to day life, which only can slow down this cycle of consumerism and new products, thus resulting into better environment…. and ultimately balanced quality of life!

This reminds me of a movement which emphasizes creation of a forum to buy / sell only used articles of all kinds / gadgets for all our needs – as far as possible, rather than buying new ones! That is an excellent idea – we got to make a beginning to that as well!

Let the message go to all thinking people. Let not DEVELOPMENT lead to DEATH / DAMAGE to mankind!

Glad to see you beat me to it – and an excellent post at that!

I think that the transition we are seeing China go through is a clear signal that where we go (as industrialized countries) they will follow (so-called developing countries). The car has become a symbol of wealth and the upper class, unfortunately. But until major countries like the US make the transition away from a car-dependent society, we can’t expect others to.

In the meantime, China is taking more progressive steps than many countries around the world, despite their increase in emissions. They have implemented vehicle emission standards comparable to that of the European Union. Beijing has committed to hosting net zero carbon Olympic games. More than that, China has ratified the Kyoto Protocol – an act of responsibility and leadership that the federal governments of US and Australia have yet to take.

You’re absolutely right that sustainable development is the way forward in light of climate change. Let’s also remember that industrialized countries have a responsibility to employ sustainable development mechanisms in our own back yard, not just in “developing” countries.

If we look at many of the different problems we face, from poverty to global warming to wars, a lot of them are due to inadequate decisions that could’ve been prevented by simply adding different representation into decision-making or getting the incentives right to begin with.

In order to solve global warming and the larger environmental crisis, people will need to implement solutions themselves. But how to get there is the hard part? Will our current government solve our problems by itself? Probably not. We need to put incentives for good behaviors/products/services and punishments for those that make society much worse.

In my opinion, the way to do that is to look at the entire system that our society is and see where problems originate — decision-making and valuation. In the case of our atmosphere, it has no value right now. A few things are regulated, but you can dump CO2 like mad and you pay nothing. In the case of forests in Brazil, you can take them over as long as you own the property, even if it affects society as a whole. In the case of governance, a few people who know nothing about the plight of small farmers all around the world will make decisions for large ag companies.

So, we need to reform governance and incentives. We need to 1) make government more representative of productive, environmental, social sectors of society, and 2) put incentives in place so that we fully value everything that’s valuable to us.

In order to do these things, we need to have lots of us understand it, because we have to, in essence, make these changes or demand them. We can begin to think now, however, so that we can change it later. Governance and economics work best with continuous improvement (especially as times change).

If there were carbon neutral technologies with these kinds of prices the utilities would rapidly transition. Not that the transition cannot be done or is TOO expensive, just that we do not yet have the REALLY cheap solutions sitting on the shelf.

You are absolutely correct that a new sustainable development paradigm is much needed and that tackling climate change and building the Climate Neutral America (and world) we desperately need is not a moment of sacrifice, but one of tremendous opportunity.

There are tremendous benefits to be gained from solving the climate crisis and transforming the way we make and use energy (and the way we develop our economy) ranging from the economic to the environmental, from societal, to public health, and from security and international relations.

It’s time to brush off the scare tactics of status-quo-loving vested interests who tell us that solving the climate crisis will involve terrible sacrifice and economic devastation. We know better than that! We know that solving the climate crisis involves seizing the tremendous opportunity the crisis represents to build a richer, healthier, safer, stronger, sustainable America and world!