Nobody wins or looses the energy transition, either we do it and have a planet that isn’t completely fucked or we don’t.
And the fact that the west doesn’t see this as a collective endeavour that all humanity has to come together to accomplish shows that western civilization is a blight upon the world.
Idk what you mean by civilization. I live in the west I’ve been pushing for stuff like this for as long as I can remember, the Chinese government just takes this kind of stuff more seriously because they have experience with severe environmental degradation. I wouldn’t say you can pin this on one culture, people in the west have just had such good lives that they can’t imagine things going bad again, unlike in China where there is very recent memory of poverty. Things are changing and the place I’m in is actually doing very well at decarbonization.
I mean the whole world order the west built upon subjugation and extraction. Everything is seen as a zero sum game here, and there’s no concept of doing things collectively or finding positive sum solutions where everyone can benefit. That’s the fundamental difference from Chinese mindset, China doesn’t think that somebody has to lose for them to win. They don’t try to subjugate the rest of the world and remake it in their image. They just find ways to cooperate with other nations that are mutually beneficial. That’s how a rational society works.
I know. Still blanket statements like western civilization are exactly the kind of thing you are criticizing, there are plenty of people in the west who want to cooperate with other nations more. Politics isn’t run for the people in most places, but China has plenty of problems.
When I say western civilization, I’m referring to the social structures and the system as a whole rather than individuals. Of course there are plenty of people in the west who are starting to reject the system, but the west as a whole remains the same as it was institutionally. It’s extractive economic policy remains the same, and hence, as a whole it acts as a regressive force upon humanity.
And sure, China, like any human society has plenty of problems, but the difference is the overall trajectory and the social structure in China which makes it a progressive force.
We all have extractive economic policies just because of the way our societies and geography work. There are limits to growth which no civilised society has truly embraced yet. People are slowly starting to accept this argument, and I see China going in a more positive direction, but it’s still not enough, there is a lot of work to be done everywhere.
That’s not the main reason western economies are extractive. It’s the very nature of how financial capitalism works that makes them so. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/08/the-value-of-nothing-capital-versus-growth/
