First of all, Global change is with us. My mom had three other children after I was born and the family dynamics kept changing. There has never been a time when global climate has been stable . Throughout history civilizations have been faced with climate change, political change, societal change. Now, we are being asked to pay underdeveloped nations so they don’t have to change to respond to the climate change. I find this situation unethical and specious. We are being mugged because we are successful.
Who is responsible for these nations being underdeveloped? It reminds me of highschool, where some students study and work hard to pass their classes, and others complained that the course was too hard and they were unprepared and the teacher should consider their environment and how hard it is for them to be able to study, and grade on a curve. Is it our fault that other people can see the bus coming, but don’t get out of the road? They want to preserve their way of life, fine, but don’t expect me to pay for their privilege. I would like to go back to living the way I did when I was 10 also. Unfortunately, my parents are dead, and I have to work to buy food for myself. Things change and if you do not successfully change to address the new circumstances, you fall under the bus.
I watched a report about the glaciers melting in Bolivia. ok, so the area is warming. Ok, so the water that had been captured in the glacier over centuries is now gone. Had they expected it to have been a sustainable reservoir forever? if so, then they must have expected annual rain and snowfall to equal the amount of water that melted off the glacier each year. If not, then why are they surprised that the glacier melted? The obvious solution is to provide a man-made reservoir to capture and parcel out the precipitation on a reasonable basis. This has been an understood solution to such a problem for tens of thousands of years. Why is it suddenly my responsibility to pay for it? Their lack of foresight and industrialization makes it my problem? Why?