Decarbonising transport

[loomer]

Would it be fair to characterize your position as being that, while urgent action is necessary, it isn't practical, so we should focus only on the (grossly) inadequate action that can be accomplished under present conditions over the next one to two years and not look towards what could be implemented over the next decade that would be adequate? Because that's the vibe you're putting down, and it shows its own problem up fairly clearly.

Look at this pandemic as a case study of how societies behave. Most countries outright opted for the mitigation measures instead of making any attempt at suppressing and eliminating the virus. Despite the fact that it pays off to impose an earlier lockdown, and you save more of your economy if you take earlier measures, most countries waited for the problem to balloon out of control before taking an even more painful and economically costly measure.

Only a few countries managed to avoid making this mistake, but that is mostly because they have a painful cultural memory of the previous outbreak, or they were lucky enough to see how bad things have gotten in other countries before the pandemic hits them. A lot of human response tends to wait till things got out of control before taking actions. We as a species are horrible at taking preventive measures.

The thing is, we're past preventative measures. We're past early mitigation. We've already hit the point where serious disruption is inevitable. So, you're right: We suck at taking preventative measures. We even suck at taking proper mitigation measures.

But that isn't a reason to let the conversation be pulled further and further back in scale until we get handed ideas like 'don't try and fix the transportation infrastructure quickly, it'll take decades' when we no longer have decades to spend. It's a reason to keep pushing the conversation towards swift, decisive action, because at this point, to use the pandemic analogy, we're no longer looking at a pandemic overseas. We're no longer looking at a few isolated clusters in a port city. We're looking at a mass outbreak across every country, just like the actual pandemic. The problem has already ballooned out of control, and every year we delay swift, meaningful action, the costs in lives, ecological devastation, and economic and political catastrophe will get worse and worse. Cries of 'well, we need to just focus on being practical' in the face of what's coming are the equivalent of saying we need to reopen the economy despite the outbreak and sacrifice our elders to the dark god Adam Smith to bring a rich harvest to the stock farmers.

It is precisely for this reason that 'well, we need to just focus on what we can do over the next couple of years with the current political willpower' is a suicidal approach. We are facing a civilization-threatening event, and whenever the conversation tries to turn away from facing that fact, it needs to be brought right back to staring into the jaws of the beast we created. To do anything else is to concede territory to those unwilling to face it, and they will always demand more concessions every time we do. Instead, we must unflinchingly confront underlying assumptions that inform us of what 'practical' looks like and then work to reform the factors that make them thus so that 'practical' and 'actually sufficient as mitigation' are at least close to one another.

(Bonus points for the analogy: We even have the cultural memory of apocalypse already in the memories of Indigenous peoples. There's a reason ecojurisprudes are flocking to hear what Indigenous elders have to say, and it ain't just some idealized 'harmony with nature' or generalized leftie sentiments. We're looking to learn how to survive the complete disintegration of our ways of life and how to guide people through it from people whose parents and grandparents passed those lessons down.)

[ray245]

The thing is, we're past preventative measures. We're past early mitigation. We've already hit the point where serious disruption is inevitable. So, you're right: We suck at taking preventative measures. We even suck at taking proper mitigation measures.

But that isn't a reason to let the conversation be pulled further and further back in scale until we get handed ideas like 'don't try and fix the transportation infrastructure quickly, it'll take decades' when we no longer have decades to spend. It's a reason to keep pushing the conversation towards swift, decisive action, because at this point, to use the pandemic analogy, we're no longer looking at a pandemic overseas. We're no longer looking at a few isolated clusters in a port city. We're looking at a mass outbreak across every country, just like the actual pandemic. The problem has already ballooned out of control, and every year we delay swift, meaningful action, the costs in lives, ecological devastation, and economic and political catastrophe will get worse and worse. Cries of 'well, we need to just focus on being practical' in the face of what's coming are the equivalent of saying we need to reopen the economy despite the outbreak and sacrifice our elders to the dark god Adam Smith to bring a rich harvest to the stock farmers.

It is precisely for this reason that 'well, we need to just focus on what we can do over the next couple of years with the current political willpower' is a suicidal approach. We are facing a civilization-threatening event, and whenever the conversation tries to turn away from facing that fact, it needs to be brought right back to staring into the jaws of the beast we created. To do anything else is to concede territory to those unwilling to face it, and they will always demand more concessions every time we do. Instead, we must unflinchingly confront underlying assumptions that inform us of what 'practical' looks like and then work to reform the factors that make them thus so that 'practical' and 'actually sufficient as mitigation' are at least close to one another.

(Bonus points for the analogy: We even have the cultural memory of apocalypse already in the memories of Indigenous peoples. There's a reason ecojurisprudes are flocking to hear what Indigenous elders have to say, and it ain't just some idealized 'harmony with nature' or generalized leftie sentiments. We're looking to learn how to survive the complete disintegration of our ways of life and how to guide people through it from people whose parents and grandparents passed those lessons down.)

And yet we still have protesters who are more upset with lockdowns taking away their ability to go out in public and have a drink despite the the pandemic happening right in their neighbourhood. We have people that continues to deny the scale of the problem, or just plain giving up on any plan to combat the pandemic despite an outbreak happening in their own house ( i.e. White House). All that is happening because people continues to hold their "interests" above all else. ( "People have to die to keep the economy going and etc")

[loomer]

The thing is, we're past preventative measures. We're past early mitigation. We've already hit the point where serious disruption is inevitable. So, you're right: We suck at taking preventative measures. We even suck at taking proper mitigation measures.

But that isn't a reason to let the conversation be pulled further and further back in scale until we get handed ideas like 'don't try and fix the transportation infrastructure quickly, it'll take decades' when we no longer have decades to spend. It's a reason to keep pushing the conversation towards swift, decisive action, because at this point, to use the pandemic analogy, we're no longer looking at a pandemic overseas. We're no longer looking at a few isolated clusters in a port city. We're looking at a mass outbreak across every country, just like the actual pandemic. The problem has already ballooned out of control, and every year we delay swift, meaningful action, the costs in lives, ecological devastation, and economic and political catastrophe will get worse and worse. Cries of 'well, we need to just focus on being practical' in the face of what's coming are the equivalent of saying we need to reopen the economy despite the outbreak and sacrifice our elders to the dark god Adam Smith to bring a rich harvest to the stock farmers.

It is precisely for this reason that 'well, we need to just focus on what we can do over the next couple of years with the current political willpower' is a suicidal approach. We are facing a civilization-threatening event, and whenever the conversation tries to turn away from facing that fact, it needs to be brought right back to staring into the jaws of the beast we created. To do anything else is to concede territory to those unwilling to face it, and they will always demand more concessions every time we do. Instead, we must unflinchingly confront underlying assumptions that inform us of what 'practical' looks like and then work to reform the factors that make them thus so that 'practical' and 'actually sufficient as mitigation' are at least close to one another.

(Bonus points for the analogy: We even have the cultural memory of apocalypse already in the memories of Indigenous peoples. There's a reason ecojurisprudes are flocking to hear what Indigenous elders have to say, and it ain't just some idealized 'harmony with nature' or generalized leftie sentiments. We're looking to learn how to survive the complete disintegration of our ways of life and how to guide people through it from people whose parents and grandparents passed those lessons down.)

And yet we still have protesters who are more upset with lockdowns taking away their ability to go out in public and have a drink despite the the pandemic happening right in their neighbourhood. We have people that continues to deny the scale of the problem, or just plain giving up on any plan to combat the pandemic despite an outbreak happening in their own house ( i.e. White House). All that is happening because people continues to hold their "interests" above all else. ( "People have to die to keep the economy going and etc")

Yes. And this is precisely why we can't give ground to them, because their idiocy will get everyone around them killed.

[Sky Captain]

Would it be fair to characterize your position as being that, while urgent action is necessary, it isn't practical, so we should focus only on the (grossly) inadequate action that can be accomplished under present conditions over the next one to two years and not look towards what could be implemented over the next decade that would be adequate? Because that's the vibe you're putting down, and it shows its own problem up fairly clearly.

I try to be realistic about what kind of solutions are likely to be accepted by majority of people. You propose a sort of global Manhattan Project on steroids style endeavor to drastically bring down use of fossil fuels. I try to be realistic about what is actually happening in real world. We see countries responsible for most emissions have trouble to come to agreements about much more gentle emission reduction plans. Now US with mad president at the helm are screwing everything up. European countries have some agreements, most have some kind of incentives at work to reduce emissions, at least that is a start. Globally I fail to see how your proposed Manhattan project style transition could be implemented. How countries will agree to it if they can't agree on much less severe emission reductions? How any political party proposing it will survive next election cycle? World do not have a global policeman that could actually enforce it. Well, one country sometimes kinda tries to be global policeman, but emission reductions are not on their agenda.

Look at this pandemic as a case study of how societies behave. Most countries outright opted for the mitigation measures instead of making any attempt at suppressing and eliminating the virus. Despite the fact that it pays off to impose an earlier lockdown, and you save more of your economy if you take earlier measures, most countries waited for the problem to balloon out of control before taking an even more painful and economically costly measure.

Only a few countries managed to avoid making this mistake, but that is mostly because they have a painful cultural memory of the previous outbreak, or they were lucky enough to see how bad things have gotten in other countries before the pandemic hits them. A lot of human response tends to wait till things got out of control before taking actions. We as a species are horrible at taking preventive measures.

On top of that pandemic is a very near term problem like if we fail to contain it early we will have it out of control few weeks later. Timescale here is weeks to few months while climate change is on a time scale of decades like if we do nothing preventive we will have real trouble at the other half of this century if climate models are somewhat correct. 50 - 80 year scale here.

[madd0ct0r]

I note that we are in the middle of a global Manhattan project to control the pandemic and similar coordination occurred in the 2008 recession. The idea behind movements like extinction rebellion is to create the same political urgency.

Sky Captain, you keep saying " realistic about what kind of solutions are likely to be accepted by majority of people."
Who? Which country? this based on any data or just your projection?

[loomer]

Would it be fair to characterize your position as being that, while urgent action is necessary, it isn't practical, so we should focus only on the (grossly) inadequate action that can be accomplished under present conditions over the next one to two years and not look towards what could be implemented over the next decade that would be adequate? Because that's the vibe you're putting down, and it shows its own problem up fairly clearly.

I try to be realistic about what kind of solutions are likely to be accepted by majority of people. You propose a sort of global Manhattan Project on steroids style endeavor to drastically bring down use of fossil fuels.

What I propose is what is actually necessary to limit the extent of climate disruption by keeping the rise to 2C.

I try to be realistic about what is actually happening in real world.

No - you don't. The remarkable thing here is that the 'realistic' position is the one that requires enormous, swift action. Why is this so?

Because it is the only approach that actually factors in true, genuine reality - the only approach that looks to the hard, scientific facts of climate change and disruption. What you are touting as the 'realistic... real world' is in fact only realistic about the social world. It has no bearing to the concrete reality we are enmeshed within.

In a nutshell: Your position is unrealistic, in the way that the carbon experiment of the last two centuries has been unrealistic. It is premised on a fundamentally flawed proposition, which is that somehow, the rest of the system is something we can handwave away to focus on what is simpler or more convenient for our own needs. The current crisis is the proof that this model of business is fundamentally flawed, because those systems will come back and bite us in the ass.

We see countries responsible for most emissions have trouble to come to agreements about much more gentle emission reduction plans. Now US with mad president at the helm are screwing everything up. European countries have some agreements, most have some kind of incentives at work to reduce emissions, at least that is a start. Globally I fail to see how your proposed Manhattan project style transition could be implemented. How countries will agree to it if they can't agree on much less severe emission reductions? How any political party proposing it will survive next election cycle? World do not have a global policeman that could actually enforce it. Well, one country sometimes kinda tries to be global policeman, but emission reductions are not on their agenda.

You are correct that there is difficulty getting people to act. But here's the problem: From this is, you're trying to derive an ought. Namely, 'it is hard to get people to agree to take the necessary action, therefore we ought not concern ourselves with it'. It doesn't follow that because it is difficult to, under the current situation, persuade people to act like good members of the ecological community that we ought not consider what that might look like or how it might be implemented. Particularly since having an actual plan for that implementation and what it looks like may just be crucial in actually helping push the public in the right direction.

It is a defeatist attitude that is not realistic, because it presupposes that the softly softly approach you want is actually viable in the face of mountains of evidence that it isn't. Here is the actual realist's view:
1. It is hard to get people to agree to radical and rapid change.
2. Radical and rapid change, from all the evidence, is critical for our continued prosperity. Anything less will be ineffective, and the consequences of inaction or insufficient action will ultimately enormously and irreversibly reduce the global standard of living and the integrity of the ecological systems we are a component of.
3. Therefore, while it is hard to get people to agree to radical and rapid change, we must continue to attempt to produce that agreement or to otherwise induce rapid and radical change if we wish to both survive and prosper into the future.

That is realism. What you propose, instead, is essentially a shrug and a 'I give up, I guess we just have to suffer, but we might as well do too little too late so we feel better about it' attitude.

Look at this pandemic as a case study of how societies behave. Most countries outright opted for the mitigation measures instead of making any attempt at suppressing and eliminating the virus. Despite the fact that it pays off to impose an earlier lockdown, and you save more of your economy if you take earlier measures, most countries waited for the problem to balloon out of control before taking an even more painful and economically costly measure.

Only a few countries managed to avoid making this mistake, but that is mostly because they have a painful cultural memory of the previous outbreak, or they were lucky enough to see how bad things have gotten in other countries before the pandemic hits them. A lot of human response tends to wait till things got out of control before taking actions. We as a species are horrible at taking preventive measures.

On top of that pandemic is a very near term problem like if we fail to contain it early we will have it out of control few weeks later. Timescale here is weeks to few months while climate change is on a time scale of decades like if we do nothing preventive we will have real trouble at the other half of this century if climate models are somewhat correct. 50 - 80 year scale here.

Except we already have real trouble, right now, right here. It is happening as we speak.

[ray245]

Except we already have real trouble, right now, right here. It is happening as we speak.

Here's the real problem. People don't see things in trouble unless their daily life is impacted in a negative way. For well-off people in developed world, they simply cannot see any trouble.

I think there are mostly two groups of people in the world. Those that can see a problem even if their personal daily isn't affected by it, and those that requires something to severely affect their personal life before they can acknowledge the problem.

[loomer]

Except we already have real trouble, right now, right here. It is happening as we speak.

Here's the real problem. People don't see things in trouble unless their daily life is impacted in a negative way. For well-off people in developed world, they simply cannot see any trouble.

I think there are mostly two groups of people in the world. Those that can see a problem even if their personal daily isn't affected by it, and those that requires something to severely affect their personal life before they can acknowledge the problem.

Yeah. But that's why those people able to see problems at a further remove have a duty to try and bring those problems into focus for others.

[ray245]

Yeah. But that's why those people able to see problems at a further remove have a duty to try and bring those problems into focus for others.

I just do not believe it can be effectively done. Not when they are in too comfortable of a position to change.

[loomer]

Yeah. But that's why those people able to see problems at a further remove have a duty to try and bring those problems into focus for others.

I just do not believe it can be effectively done. Not when they are in too comfortable of a position to change.

In which case, we're doomed. What do you propose we do instead?

[Sky Captain]

I note that we are in the middle of a global Manhattan project to control the pandemic and similar coordination occurred in the 2008 recession. The idea behind movements like extinction rebellion is to create the same political urgency.

Well, the pandemic is an urgent problem that is happening right now. People are good at addressing immediate problems and even then there are plenty of business sectors lobbying to open everything despite the fact it would create new outbreak. Apparently even now there are businesses that can't competently plan ahead on a few months time scale. Profits RIGHT NOW over everything.

Sky Captain, you keep saying " realistic about what kind of solutions are likely to be accepted by majority of people."
Who? Which country? this based on any data or just your projection?

Here is what Germany is doing Goal is 80 - 95% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. Most of the population is backing that plan although it is being criticized as too ambitious and unlikely to meet its goals especially since Germany want to phase out both fossil and nuclear energy generation.

No - you don't. The remarkable thing here is that the 'realistic' position is the one that requires enormous, swift action. Why is this so?

That is true, but at first there has to be a global public backing behind it, also an attitude of powerful entrenched corporations which profit enormously from the status quo has to be changed. Maybe when current generation of people aged 10 - 20 grows up and enters positions of power a change with stable long term backing will be possible. Maybe we need a record hot by large margin year with all arctic sea ice melting, temperature records blown everywhere, dozens of category 4 and 5 hurricanes in single a season to shake up status quo.

Yeah. But that's why those people able to see problems at a further remove have a duty to try and bring those problems into focus for others.

I just do not believe it can be effectively done. Not when they are in too comfortable of a position to change.

In which case, we're doomed. What do you propose we do instead?

I suspect some kind of geoengineering solution will have to be implemented if/when things get too bad. Mitigation because we failed on prevention.

[ray245]

In which case, we're doomed. What do you propose we do instead?

The global North is largely shielded from the worst impact of climate change, or at the very least is not going to be as badly affected as the global south. You basically have to assume more parts of the world is going to be rendered uninhabitable and population have to move.

[K. A. Pital]

In which case, we're doomed. What do you propose we do instead?

The global North is largely shielded from the worst impact of climate change, or at the very least is not going to be as badly affected as the global south. You basically have to assume more parts of the world is going to be rendered uninhabitable and population have to move.

You do realize the “global North” is almost at “bring back nazis” stage from the movement of a few dozen million people.

What do you think happens if billions or hundreds of millions start moving?

[ray245]

You do realize the “global North” is almost at “bring back nazis” stage from the movement of a few dozen million people.

What do you think happens if billions or hundreds of millions start moving?

I never said that is politically feasible.

[Sky Captain]

There is also an opportunity cost. How much emissions can be reduced by given investment in different sectors. Electricity generation is among the easiest, replacing a coal power plant that is approaching end of its lifetime with renewable energy power plants plus some storage and natural gas powered backup is relatively easy and profitable in certain locations without any subsidy.

Cars and trucks while doable are more difficult. Portability and high energy density of liquid fuels are really visible here, high end electric cars need about half ton of batteries to even come close to driving range of average gas powered car. Price is very high. I can buy a used gas car in decent condition for few thousand euro while there even isn't a well developed market for used electric cars and new ones start at around 30 - 40k . That difference can buy a lot of fuel and spare parts.

Long range planes and ships currently impossible to electrify, although large ships could run on nuclear power like hundreds of submarines do it at great cost. Batteries currently just lack required energy density. Some kind of synthetic hydrocarbon fuel may help here although currently nothing is even approaching mass production level. Oil is just too cheap.

[K. A. Pital]

We already understood that your logic boils down to “who cares about some poor dead people if I can have cheap cars”, cap.

Anything else than chauvinism and social-darwinism here worthy of consideration?

[Sky Captain]

What kind of solution do you propose that would work given existing and near future technological, social and economic realities? I brought up Germany because it is a major industrialised nation with mostly fossil fuel based energy sector currently trasitioning to be mostly fossil fuel free in the middle of this century. Critics claim their plan is unrealistic in given time tables. At least majority of citizens support it which I think is most important part because it ensures it will survive next election cycle.

[madd0ct0r]

What kind of solution do you propose that would work given existing and near future technological, social and economic realities? I brought up Germany because it is a major industrialised nation with mostly fossil fuel based energy sector currently trasitioning to be mostly fossil fuel free in the middle of this century. Critics claim their plan is unrealistic in given time tables. At least majority of citizens support it which I think is most important part because it ensures it will survive next election cycle.

Could you narrow down a bit?
Do you define a 'working solution' as one that eliminates 50%, 85% or 100% of co2 in which detailed sector in which country by which deadline?
Does existing and near future social realities include social changes on the scale we've seen in the last six months. If not, why not?
In terms of economic realities, does it include current deficit spending? Historic ones? Apollo program levels of mobilisation? Are we allowed to assume current cost curves for renewables continue indefinitely? Are we allowed to continue current levels of poverty and inequality? Would that count as 'working' to you?

In terms of critics, there are critics of global warming full stop. Do they count? How about Nigel lawsons dodgy propaganda foundation on climate change? What about critics of the status quo? Do they count?

In terms of majority support, do I take that to mean you think only policies that have a majority support should be enacted? Is this a pure majority popular vote or is it limited to those effected by the policy?

At the moment you come across as someone making vauge arguments, appealing to the school of 'its common sense that' and falling back on the idea that unless everyone agrees the sky is blue it's open to interpretation.

[loomer]

Honestly, why bother? Sky Captain and Ray don't seem to realize their model is actually just for us to buy a ticket to the climate collapse extravaganza, since the modest steps towards a carbon-neutral 2050 are insufficient and the hypothetical geoengineering tools needed to keep those of us in the Global North from the same fate as everyone else if we don't actively arrest the warming loop don't actually exist in a workable form yet. Most of the ones that do and that aren't near totally untested are already part of a 1.5-2C-halted warming model, for christ's sake!

[ray245]

Honestly, why bother? Sky Captain and Ray don't seem to realize their model is actually just for us to buy a ticket to the climate collapse extravaganza, since the modest steps towards a carbon-neutral 2050 are insufficient and the hypothetical geoengineering tools needed to keep those of us in the Global North from the same fate as everyone else if we don't actively arrest the warming loop don't actually exist in a workable form yet. Most of the ones that do and that aren't near totally untested are already part of a 1.5-2C-halted warming model, for christ's sake!

That's not what I said at all? I do not share the position of Sky Captain, and if you think I do, then I think you are severely misunderstanding my post. My argument is not about modest steps, but much rather trying to ease the financial damage of the transition to the most improvised parts of the world that relies heavily on tourism.

If you disagree with my position, then your position is to let the people whose livelihood relies on tourism to just die of starvation. What you are advocating is essentially economic shock-therapy.

[loomer]

Honestly, why bother? Sky Captain and Ray don't seem to realize their model is actually just for us to buy a ticket to the climate collapse extravaganza, since the modest steps towards a carbon-neutral 2050 are insufficient and the hypothetical geoengineering tools needed to keep those of us in the Global North from the same fate as everyone else if we don't actively arrest the warming loop don't actually exist in a workable form yet. Most of the ones that do and that aren't near totally untested are already part of a 1.5-2C-halted warming model, for christ's sake!

That's not what I said at all? I do not share the position of Sky Captain, and if you think I do, then I think you are severely misunderstanding my post. My argument is not about modest steps, but much rather trying to ease the financial damage of the transition to the most improvised parts of the world that relies heavily on tourism.

If you disagree with my position, then your position is to let the people whose livelihood relies on tourism to just die of starvation. What you are advocating is essentially economic shock-therapy.

Yeah, sorry. I had you mixed up with Sky Captain on the geoengineering point.

[madd0ct0r]

Honestly, why bother? Sky Captain and Ray don't seem to realize their model is actually just for us to buy a ticket to the climate collapse extravaganza, since the modest steps towards a carbon-neutral 2050 are insufficient and the hypothetical geoengineering tools needed to keep those of us in the Global North from the same fate as everyone else if we don't actively arrest the warming loop don't actually exist in a workable form yet. Most of the ones that do and that aren't near totally untested are already part of a 1.5-2C-halted warming model, for christ's sake!

That's not what I said at all? I do not share the position of Sky Captain, and if you think I do, then I think you are severely misunderstanding my post. My argument is not about modest steps, but much rather trying to ease the financial damage of the transition to the most improvised parts of the world that relies heavily on tourism.

If you disagree with my position, then your position is to let the people whose livelihood relies on tourism to just die of starvation. What you are advocating is essentially economic shock-therapy.

The short answer Ray, is just like coal miners in Australia, or coal miners in Wales two decades ago, or London saddlers 80 years ago, is that if the tourists stop coming they will need to find another industry.
That doesn't mean they should be abandoned to starve by their own government or the world and doesn't mean that the transiston will be as abrupt as under the pandemic.
I recall posting a list of countries with % economy in tourism a page or two back with no real comments on it.
Different locations and sectors of tourism will have different troubles. New Zealand is going to be hit hard, but was not an example you used as we all agree they are competent and have a diverse economy. Vietnam might be hit, but the vast bulk of their tourism are Chinese gamblers crossing the border.
Pilgrims to Mecca are not driven by ease of journey, and will take the routes they can.

Did you have a location in mind?

[ray245]

The short answer Ray, is just like coal miners in Australia, or coal miners in Wales two decades ago, or London saddlers 80 years ago, is that if the tourists stop coming they will need to find another industry.
That doesn't mean they should be abandoned to starve by their own government or the world and doesn't mean that the transiston will be as abrupt as under the pandemic.
I recall posting a list of countries with % economy in tourism a page or two back with no real comments on it.
Different locations and sectors of tourism will have different troubles. New Zealand is going to be hit hard, but was not an example you used as we all agree they are competent and have a diverse economy. Vietnam might be hit, but the vast bulk of their tourism are Chinese gamblers crossing the border.
Pilgrims to Mecca are not driven by ease of journey, and will take the routes they can.

Did you have a location in mind?

Yes, but as we've seen in the case of UK, just how badly the "transition" is done. And that's a developed country mismanaging their economic transition ( or deliberately destroying one sector due to vendetta).

Governments are perfectly willing to abandon people to starve if they are unable to generate wealth for the country. This is common even in many developed countries. Developing countries rarely have the same social nets that a developed and social-democratic countries have. Some countries are lucky that they have diversified their economy early enough that they have other sectors to fall back upon to ease the transition. That is not the case in many developing countries that have barely started their industrialisation process.

So in essence, you need to find a way for the developed world to use the money they would otherwise spend on tourism, and reinvest it into ways to ease the transition for the developing world. But many environmentalists rarely touch upon this issue at all. It's not merely about doing their bit in the developed world by making do with less, but also finding ways to shift the funds that the developed world have and to use it as a social safety net for the developing world to ease the transition on industries most reliant on tourism.

So it's a developing-world centric approach, rather than a developed world centric approach.

[madd0ct0r]

Can you pick a bloody country that proves your case?

I am getting very bored of vauge generalisations such as "many environmentalists rarely touch upon this issue at all. " when you aren't engaging when people try to discuss the issue.

[ray245]

Can you pick a bloody country that proves your case?

I am getting very bored of vauge generalisations such as "many environmentalists rarely touch upon this issue at all. " when you aren't engaging when people try to discuss the issue.

Cambodia? Fiji?