Can the planet survive if all nations achive a modern life style?

Question

India and China are now gaining ground on the developed world, with expanding economies, and the technology that goes with that. Green Peace has protested the development of the new Tata auto in India, which sells for about 2,500$US, because the use of such will increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Does the US have an obligation to prevent other nations from gaining a modern life style, and should we use our military to force them back to a 18th century exsistance? Or should we dismantle our own economy to balance things out. In other words, for every new auto placed on Indian roads should we forceably remove one from ours?

Answer 1

Yes, if we develop nuclear power, and reprocess the waste, we can have synthetic fuels, not so cheap, but available.  We can develop fusion power, and colonize Mars.  Greenpeace, besides being fascist, are a bunch of pessimistic, evil creeps.

Answer 2

The US does NOT have an obligation to prevent other nations from gaining a modern life style. That is just the kind of high handed imperialism that make the rest of the world hate the U.S. Any attempt to keep the rest of the world down while we live high on the hog is immoral, and will rightly result in the rest of the world going to war to utterly destroy the U.S. The U.S. may be more powerful than any one other country, and even a number of less powerful countries combined, but the whole world working together could destroy the U.S. easily. Don't give them the excuse to do it.

Answer 3

The US doesn't have an obligation to prevent other nations from growing... those knuckleheads from Green Peace sure hate poor people thought

Answer 4

The planet will survive. The inhabitants might have a tough time of it though.

Answer 5

"Does the US have an obligation to prevent other nations from gaining a modern life style"

funniest thing i've read all day.

Answer 6

very radical view point sir

Answer 7

Yes, of course the planet would survive.  And no, the US would never go to war to discourage other sovereign nations from economic development.

Before you get too caught up in the importance of mankind, remember that everyone on earth could comfortably fit on the island of Iceland.  Giving everyone on earth a quarter acre house in the suburbs lifestyle would require the state of Texas and another smaller state.  That's all.

Yes, everone on earth, all 6 billion plus, can be provided clean drinking water, sewers, food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, education, preventative healthcare etc.

The technologies to do this are well known, and the cost would not be prohibitive.  (I'm not talking everyone having a car, or health insurance that treats people who engage in risky lifestyles.)

It doesn't happen because people like to kill each other, live in cities with an incredibly heavy environmental bootprint, gather in places like Bali via private airplane to discuss global warming, gather in places like South Africa via private airplane to discuss poverty, etc.

The problem is not total resources, it is the "haves" making sure the "have nots" are not a threat ... through starvation, malaria, disease, war, etc.  Look at Mugabe in Zimbabwe.  Zimbabwe went from a nation that exported food (i.e. everyone was fed), to one that imports food (i.e. people are starving).

Answer 8

No.  This is why we should force 1/3rd of the worlds population to live in caves.

Answer 9

The left pretends to be for the poor but clearly they are not in this case.  They want the poor to remain poor.  Clearly green peace has a problem with modern humanity in general.