“Half”? Half is such an inadequate target that you might as well not bother.
We as a species need to reduce our carbon output by over 90%. And the poorest half of the world only contributes 10% of greenhouse gasses — even if they all stopped consuming entirely, it would barely make a dent. So the bulk of the cutting has to come from developed countries.
The US military is almost entirely exempt for pollution regulation and reporting. We can’t know for sure, but it’s almost certain that it is one of the largest single polluters in the world.
And of course, you never get what you ask for. If you ask for 50% cuts in emissions, you’ll get 20%, and then it will continue to grow again the next year — worthless.
The US military has blown $6 trillion dollars in the last twenty years in a series of wars and interventions, and lost every time. Meanwhile America’s 1950s infrastructure (bridges, tunnels, roads, power, water…) is crumbling.
The US military needs to be reduced to 10% of its current size, and that 10% needs to emit 90% less carbon output per dollar spent, resulting in a net 99% reduction in greenhouse gas output.
War crimes trials for some of the more egregious psychopaths would be nice too — why, yes, Henry Kissinger, we are all looking at you! — and a future promise to actually obey international law as well as America’s own laws.
If there was ever a time when we needed Authoritarian Global Action it is today.
What is it about authoritarians that are so attractive?
Objectively, they almost always wreak havoc on their countries. Mussolini did not make the trains run on time, Hitler’s Reich did not last a thousand years, and Trump is certainly not making America great again.
No, we need an educated and empowered people. We need to force the governments of the world to tell the truth about the Ecocide and the magnitude of the response that it’s going to take just to preserve a world worth living in, let alone preserving our standard of living today (which is just not going to happen).
I think it’s no coincidence that the countries with the most aggressive responses to the climate emergency are also countries with the most highly-educated populations.
Of course, how to educate people, and specifically Americans still vexes me, as about a third of them seem psychotically delusional, and most of the rest while not actually demented are deeply in denial, to the point they believe that they can fix everything by simply consuming different slightly more expensive products with a green symbol on the label.
