Yep, hearing GatesNotes definitely bothered me as well, but I still think the video has a good message about individual responsibility: to think about the individual’s role in the context of big systems and big levers.
How feasible do you think it is to end an obsession with consumption? As much as I like to tell people that the best embodied carbon mitigation strategy is to not build at all, and as much as I agree that GDP is a bad metric, I’m not sure how we can convince a significant group of people to stop consuming. I agree it would be great to change everyone’s minds or force them to change their minds by pricing out the convenience (turning externalities into internalities), but I think it might just piss people off so whoever came up with the idea would get voted out or fired. And if we did it slow enough for people to be okay with it, it probably wouldn’t be quick enough to matter given our short timeline or someone else would sweep in and crank up the consumption again. Though I’m certainly no expert in social science or economics so I could be off base here.
Totally agree about investing in renewables. Fossil fuel subsidies are maddening. From 2017-2019, G20 governments provided an annual average of $584 billion for fossil fuel production and consumption. Point that money towards renewables.
Yep, the onus is on wealthy nations to support poorer nations in a technological leapfrog to skip high-carbon industrial processes in favor of a sustainable grid.
Another point to add for circular economy and long-lasting structures that I don’t see often enough - it’s not just about building a structure that will physically last 100-1000 years, it’s also about designing a structure that people will want to keep there for a long time. There’s a moral imperative to design beautiful, elegant, thriving buildings that are integrated in the culture and community so nobody would want to knock them down.