I think if we don't make an effort to clean the air now that eventually things are going to get so bad cities will have to install industrial air purifiers throughout public spaces and that the governments will charge citizens a tax for maintaining them. It's the route we're heading toward if we don't focus on clean energy production and reducing carbon emissions from both factories and consumer vehicles. I know here in Canada a carbon tax was put in place, but that doesn't stop manufacturers from polluting. It's more of a money-grab for the government. There needs to be an actual limit on how much CO2 a factory is allowed to put out with no way to get around that limit.
Wow, thats almost entirely wrong.
Industrial air purifiers are already a thing - and they do too little in regards to their cost, so they basically dont work. But wherever they were set up in public squares, people championed them as a real milestone of technological achievement, so they reacted to them - very well.
Also - tell me how air pollution will be a pressing urge (in the west), in an age, where oil is starting to become a limited good, air filters are already a thing in all industrial applications, and most of the industry has moved to China and surrounding countries, where they have a _real_ issue with air pollution.
Carbon taxes get put in place, so there is a price on pollution - which has to be set by "the entire world", or it doesnt work. Thats what the climate summits are for, if you dont just see them as events for activists doing rain dances in front of congress buildings.
What I start to really wonder about is - how do you get people in the west to think like you do? Where does the notion come from, that air pollution will get worse at all?
Even if we stick to non regenerative energy (which we will) in some form or another - even switching to natural gas instead of coal, solves the entire problem.
Taxes also arent the "issue" that will happen, when we dont solve this by civic action. Civic action in general does nothing, Apart from making everyone mad - so policy gets put into place. So taxes would actually be a solution - while "activist voluntarily do something, for something, something climate" - is not.
Your feelings of urgency, inevitability, accumulation, trend projection, solution proposal, ... everything is entirely wrong. Yet you feel strongly about it happening.
You also are for democracy I suppose?
This one is much easier to confront than "global warming" - because its local. We in the west dont have much of that problem. China does. In China no one cares, because they are too busy becoming billionaires in a - currently - 6% annual growth economy, that doesnt care about air pollution IN THE LEAST.
(They are working on mitigating the issue in the future, and are actually on the forefront of developing technology to do it - but they wont employ it, if it harms their developmental trajectory one bit. Because then their government and prosperity is history faster than they can even thing about the long term...)
In some cities, we have an issue with air pollution coming from traffic _on some days of the year_, that basically would be entirely solved, if only half of the people would use their cars to drive to work every day. Which requires the implementation of public traffic infrastructure, which is expansive, but doable. Or it would be solved by Uber (more economical driving). Or by electric vehicles - which to produce takes 30% less workers than in the past - a major german car manufacturer just announced. And has a far, far worse "value add" by complex engineering, so buy your cars from china, as soon as you can - because they will be just as good.
Which is why people ask themselves for years now, why on earth the german car industry has told policy makers, that the future would be electric, and they should pivot towards that with legislation as well. Its them destroying their industrial base, handing over marketshare to other countries, and wanting their own govenrnments to support that. Because of their recommendation. And something, something climate. What? While at the same time, we are supposed to pay more for natural gas from america, than for example russia, which is closer, because of political reasons, so we still dont shut down cole based power plants as quickly. What?
But thats just politics - so that will be made to work, eventually - while I have no idea - what to do with all the crazed climate activists on the streets, that have no ideas or proposals of what to do themselves. But aspirations and dreams... That wont be economically viable to even 15% of what they expect them to be.
And then marketing is supposed to pick up the difference and sell those ideas around the world, or what?
Do me a favor. At your next raindance meet ups, start to think about what you are actually doing.