It just needs to reach legal drinking age.
www.restoftheworldreport.com
Rest of the World Report | Sept 3, 2026 — Morning Edition
For the first time, a UN agency has declared the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target unreachable.
Who would have guessed.Rest of the World Report | Sept 3, 2026 — Morning Edition
For the first time, a UN agency has declared the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target unreachable.
To be fair, in the industrialized Western world we've painted ourselves into a corner. Over the course of several centuries, we've systematically dismantled the infrastructure of the pre-industrial life we used to lead. Tech and modern medicine have ballooned our population to huge numbers of people packed in dense urban centers that are entirely dependent on the energy density and portability of petroleum products. In some ways, our rural areas are even more dependent on oil because public transport isn't feasible for low-density areas. Fewer and fewer people have the skills to live a sustainable, agrarian lifestyle, even assuming there was enough arable land for everyone to go back to farm life.Who would have guessed.
With sorting paper and plastic out of the garbage, one can't get anywhere close.
We still use lots of oil and gas, fly, ship goods all over the world, drive, throw stuff away before its lifespan is over.
We all want others to do things, but we ourselves... nah, not so much.
For all that I'm an atheist, I do recognize the key role religion has played in focusing human attention spans on a longer timeline. The evocation of gods seems to provide the motivation to dedicate labor to causes that will outlast you. Temples, pyramids, cathedrals -- I can't think of many secular works that have inspired equal amounts of inspiration and perspiration.
True. I'm agnostic but recognize religions have sometimes been leveraged to pull people to do the right things. I think the loss of communities has also been a big loss for many.
I'm rather more cynical, I fear. Recycling is needed because it reduces the amount of trash that ends up in landfill sites or exported to third-world countries where, in return for a modest payment, it becomes their problem, not ours. This is necessary because many countries have ceased to dispose of rubbish by burning it, which means they have to find means of disposal. At one point, too, it was a politically useful move because by providing funds for recycling, governments could create jobs (admittedly pretty horrible low-paid ones) for people to sort and process the recycled waste.Who would have guessed.
With sorting paper and plastic out of the garbage, one can't get anywhere close.
We still use lots of oil and gas, fly, ship goods all over the world, drive, throw stuff away before its lifespan is over.
We all want others to do things, but we ourselves... nah, not so much.
You forgot the Holy Churches of the Almighty Greenback.
LOL, I'm of course just talking about what nonsense is fed to the masses. The REAL power players of course just want the stock market to keep going up at ALL COSTS.
Mentioning recycling when talking about climate mitigation always makes me sigh. Recycling is a Good Thing for many reasons, but its role in reducing emissions is miniscule compared to never producing those objects in the first place.
I start every summer with the resolve to use fans and just deal with the heat. And then it gets hot, really hot, and I fold like a deck of cards so I can get some sleep and function during the day. I vow to group all my outside chores into a single trip in the car, then run to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription before they re-shelve it or buy a few items that I have a hankering for. My new dog groomer is literally 3 blocks away and the first time I walked that distance to drop off my dog, then had to walk back... it took me days to recover. I refuse to drive 3 blocks, that's insane, so I just gave up on grooming.
Oh, I get it! It never was feasible to make enough impact by telling individuals to go on an energy/consumption diet. We needed big, powerful, government policies that just never materialized. It's even a bit of an interesting game theory problem that we failed to solve.
We dehumidify more than cool the bulk of the house in central Alabama even this time of year. It gets toasty but there is ample polar votex air conditioning in the bedroom. Yes ma'am we will sleep comfortably because that is everything.
What do you mean by "3 blocks"?
