just as it existed for centuries, millenia, without penicillin and without quinine. This isn’t an argument; a history of subsistence doesn’t mean we can’t think of ways to make it all better.
it says worldwide, but we all know who this is aimed at. Global North countries with excess consumption are distinctly to blame. Why then, the emphasis on coordinated global action? Broad demands, like moving away from GDP and doing nice sustainable things instead are not productive. But when these kinds of alliances insist on ignoring the overwhelming burden of the US and friends on the climate crisis, instead asking for aid in moving developing countries and their minuscule footprint away from fossil fuels, its the only way to go about it. We need to understand that, as the developing world, this is not “our” fault. It is -their- fault. That’s why this will fizzle out like all the agreements before it. If these thousands of scientists want to make a change, they need to throw their weight behind specific policy proposals in specific guilty countries and get political, using their numbers as focused power and not as vague alarmism calling for impossible policy.
I support this, but I’m not sure about its moral groundwork. I’ve never tried foie gras, and after reading about it I’m increasingly sure I never will. The fact that I find little pleasure in food delicacies and am thus not affected in the slightest by this ban makes it hard to sympathize with those who resist it; It’s just wasteful to me, after all. But someone could just as easily say that about my leather jackets and my fast fashion, or my snazzy tech purchases or all those luxuries I thoroughly enjoy. It feels unfair to decide this by a vote of people who are likely not affected, who don’t reap its value. But how, then, do we choose what’s right and what’s not?
