Dear Jean-Marc,
I think your world view stems very much form the fact that you a) live in France b) have most of your life exposure in western Europe, c) have never lived in either the UK or the US, and probably not Africa either. The world is very different there.
You say that people would want to join the system that you are talking about. Well, the UK just walked out of the EU. It doesn’t work that way.
1. Far from China being the world’s worst spewer of pollution, it is America. China has 1.3 billion people. America has 320 million. When you start looking at the mass of CO2 expended per capita, it is America that is more responsible. When you taken into account that America is probably China’s biggest market, then, again, America is reponsi8ble for the pollution in China. Take, for example, that China manufactures 700 million pairs of blue denim jeans each year. 350 million of those go to America. If you take time to google how much pollution the manufacture of blue jeans causes, you might not wear blue jeans again.
2. Edward Bernays was Freud’s nephew. He discovered that if you repeated the same thing over and over again to people, they eventually believed it. It’s a form of brainwashing. He advised Hitler on how to reach the masses. Short phrases repeated constantly. Rote learning. “Deutschland uber alles.” “Make America great again.” “Yes, we can.” They work. Worse, America is the world’s most brainwashed nation in the world. Americans are exposed to between 4000 and 10,000 advertisements each day. They cannot stop buying. They cannot think for themselves. They consume and consume and consume. You need to live there in order to understand what is going on. America is not interested in cutting down on fossil fuels. There is a reason that the States did not want to join the climate change agreement.
3. There is very little public transport in America. In fact, it’s very difficult to get anywhere without a car. Most people in the States are very poor – as they are now in the UK. There are no welfare services in the States, and your average citizen is very ignorant. How do you think Donald Trump got voted into power? Why do you think that there is still a very strong possibility that Donald Trump wins another run in 2024? Why do you think he still hasn’t been arrested? What is happening in America is terrible, and if you find my idea to be fantasy, well, I’m afraid I very much find your idea to be a fantasy.
4. Might I ask what you mean by capitalism? Capitalism is about 250 years old. Business is as old as mankind. Mankind as always traded. Even under socialism, there is business. In the feudal world of the 1500s, there was business/trade. So what do you mean by trade? Have you read Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital in the 21st century?” In America, workers do not have any rights. They are not given any paid leave/vacation during the year, unless they are senior workers on salaries rather than wages. They do not have free or cheap medical access. Only the upper middle classes do. The biggest source of bankruptcy in the States is a result of medical bills. People die in America because they cannot see a doctor. This system is the result of a laissez-faire capitalism – unregulated capitalism, where everything is privatized. The UK took more or less the same path, and if you’ve been reading the British press, they have sewerage in their water and on their beaches. They are struggling with energy costs, and trains are expensive. It’s all owned by private companies. This is what business does. Business is not benevolent. If it can get away with murder, it does.
5. Worker unions are not treated with respect in the English speaking world. They have struggled for decades to even exist. This is very different to Europe. You cannot apply the economic system you live under to the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, many people are feral, and they do not have a high level of education. You are also seeing the world through the eyes of someone who is highly intelligent. For most of my life, I did, too. It didn’t penetrate just how stupid most people were. When the penny finally dropped, I realized that we are probably going to go extinct, and that there really is nothing one can do about it.
6. Yes, of course, people can make a set of economic choices, given a set of rules. But how, then, do you explain all the people who won’t get vaccinations, and who won’t wear masks, in the face of a deadly pandemic? How do you explain the fact that there is a mass shooting every single day in America, but they won’t give up their guns, and America still won’t legislate against the ownership of guns. How do you get men to stop raping babies (South Africa). It certainly isn’t legal. My point is that you are talking about your own country which has a very different culture to the rest of the world. People have a certain level of education, and a certain level of civilisation. Before one can be amenable to following the rules, one has to be in a place where one has been reared in an environment that makes rule-following the norm.
7. There are degrees of travel. Right now, the amount of pollution spewed out into the air by planes and the degree of sewerage and other stuff spewed into our oceans are not only changing the climate but are killing the seas. Travel is fine when you only have 461 million people on earth in total. It is quite another matter when there are close to 8 billion people in the world, and they all want to travel. Also, when you travel by horse, it has a very different affect on the environment than when you use cars, planes and ships. You have to compare apples with apples, and have you have to look at the harm each situations causes. Incidentally, there were 15 million people in France in the 16th century. Again, you have to compare apples with apples.
8. You’re looking at human nature and saying mankind have always travelled. You are saying mankind loves to have things. Mankind wants to do this and that. This is what gives us pleasure. Well, yes. And when there are half a billion people on the entire planet, we can do that. When there are 8 billion people doing those things, it harms the planet. We have far too many people on the planet to sustain modern lifestyles without causing harms. I understand what you say that if we all use less fossil fuel, we can manage. Yes, that is true. But again, it is a number’s game, and in order to have enough fuel just to do essential travel like to and from work, shopping, keeping on the heat during winter, cooking, and other stuff, it is already more fuel than is safe for the world. The bottom line is that climate change cannot be turned around without extreme hardship.
9. You’re also looking at business at the way it is run in France and Europe. In South Africa, they breed lions and other wild life so that rich Americans and Europeans can come and shoot them. Some of these animals are on the verge of extinction. There are many different kinds of business. Just because someone wants to make money is not sufficient reason to go into business. People manufacture viscose (rayon) because it’s a nice, soft fabric (my favourite, in fact). However, the manufacturing process is so toxic that it was outlawed in America. So, instead, it is manufactured in China and exported to America. I suspect you are very naïve about business. I’ve suffered too much at the hands of business, and so have too many other people not to hold it in contempt. I understand that the farmer who has a roadside stall and who is selling produce from his farm is not harming anyone. In fact, I also understand it is good. On the other hand, the shaman in South Africa who murders several young men so that he can sell the testicles of the young men to other men who are lacking in ‘vigour’ is not such a good thing.
10. I understand the carbon emission system. It is not sustainable. Human greed will always win out. It has absolutely and utterly not lowered carbon emissions in any way. Carbon emissions have gone up. The rich will always be able to pay for their crimes. You are assuming that mankind is benevolent and responsible. Mankind is driven by self-interest. If they can get away with something, they will. Again, the only way to stop a great deal of the carbon emission is to shut down about 50% of business, to ban profit, and to focus on making essential products only. Why do people need to manufacture yellow rubber ducks, plastic trinkets for Christmas crackers? Are we really going to have a lower quality of life because we shut down what is complete and utter trash? And why is it important to you that business makes a profit? Surely, if a CEO is earning $10,000 per month, he should be able to manage? Where do you draw the line?
11. Fossil fuel has become very expensive in the UK right now. Have you read what is going on right now? They are not thinking of using less. They are not thinking of being very cold in winter. They are not thinking of eating cold, raw food. They are, in fact, outraged, and very, very angry. When people are accustomed to things, they become very angry when they are taken away from them. That is why the concept of a company not being able to make a profit doesn’t sit well with you and others. That is why you cannot contemplate another economic system where there are not such large gaps between the rich and the poor. 😊
Also, you need to know that I put out ideas so that people can read them and begin to think about them. Nothing that I say will ever really be put into practice, but by giving people different ways of thinking about things, I move the world a little further from where they are...
And that is enough for this morning. It is 3 am, and I have to be up at 5 am as I am flying to London this morning.
