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Originally Posted by Pirates Armada
the industrial revolution is on the downswing, it hit it's peak already in most cases.
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That may be true in the industrialized West, but I fear that it's in its infancy in much of the world.
India and China for instance have between them more than 1 in 3 of the worlds population, mainly living in conditions that we in the West would consider poverty. "Poor" people in our countries have a refridgerator, tv, radio, car, dvd player, computer games, eat fat-laden cheap food and grow large on it - etc. etc.
We would like the 3rd world to protect its wilderness areas, but we don't have a very good track record to show them. 1000 years ago Britain was almost covered in forest, you could probabloy cross from coast to coast in places without touching the ground.
Now we have only a small remnant by comparison. Where did it go? We cut down the oaks to build ships to win an empire, much of the rest was in the way of fields to grow crops more effectivley to give a better standard of living. A lot of it was burned to make fuel to smelt iron for the first industrial revolution. In short we used our natural resources to improve our lifestyle - increases in CO2 started pretty much when the industrial revolution started.
Now a lot the world is probably wondering why they shouldn't do the same - and I don't know what the answer is. I know what I would like the answer to be, but when we live in a world of our own making based on competition and the rule of the strongest, I fear that karma is about to bite us on the butt.