…otherwise known as the US economy: half of all global exhaust emissions come from the US, and 18 per cent of the US’s total electricity consumption goes on air-conditioning, which adds up to four times as much electricity per capita as India uses for all purposes.
The latter story makes an interesting, if terrifying, case about enormous population movements into the so-called Sun Belt, where it would be impossible to live the life lived now – working hard, for long hours, and indeed consuming with equal intensity, without the box churning away in the corner. Siesta, four-hour workdays – that might make it possible, but hard to imagine mañana taking root.
So here is this enormous, quite possibly globe-killing, weapon, the US economy. Does the rest of the world have the power, the influence, the gumption, to do something about it? I fear not.
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