I think on a long enough timeline it could be said Gorbachev killed more people than WW2. Because what he really did was he dismantled the nation best equipped to handle climate change, and to help others handle climate change. :doomjak:
While the Soviets had some terrible environmental policies (their role in whaling, for instance.) on the whole they were better than the USA, and they were concerned about climate change in the mid 70s, and established the first predictive models about it.
I was thinking about something similar this morning actually. Maybe the USA would've felt more coerced to take action on COVID with the USSR instead of China. Similar to the Smallpox situation
If nothing else, we would've had another truly major distributor of vaccines to the third world rather than just China and to a lesser extent Russia
Also being able to actually plan the economy instead of just letting the market decide everything allows you to re-prioritize away from endlessly profiting off of fossil fuels and towards alternative sources of energy at a system-wide level.
I think on a long enough timeline it could be said Gorbachev killed more people than WW2. Because what he really did was he dismantled the nation best equipped to handle climate change, and to help others handle climate change. :doomjak:
While the Soviets had some terrible environmental policies (their role in whaling, for instance.) on the whole they were better than the USA, and they were concerned about climate change in the mid 70s, and established the first predictive models about it.
I was thinking about something similar this morning actually. Maybe the USA would've felt more coerced to take action on COVID with the USSR instead of China. Similar to the Smallpox situation
If nothing else, we would've had another truly major distributor of vaccines to the third world rather than just China and to a lesser extent Russia
Also being able to actually plan the economy instead of just letting the market decide everything allows you to re-prioritize away from endlessly profiting off of fossil fuels and towards alternative sources of energy at a system-wide level.
We live in the stupidest timeline… but we don’t get to pick what we’re born into, we only get to pick what we fight for.