That is one humdinger of a paragraph from an “environmentalist”.
Glass half-full: glass half-empty.
Well, I suspect that greening of the world’s energy supply will happen much faster than anyone currently estimates. For developing countries, this is a huge boon: they will simply skip over the ‘dirty’ industries that create CO2. Of course, that isn’t currently happening but it will because energy supply will become almost universally green.
Carbon capture technology is also rapidly developing as are other solutions. There are a huge range of options for capture & storage, current estimates are only 4% of the total… so we have a long way to go there. And that doesn’t include legacy emissions.
Yes, CO2 emissions haven’t peaked. Yet. But the combined effect of increased green power generation, maturation of carbon capture technologies and the huge efficiency gains in power generation & distribution *will* turn the tide. And they will create a large synergistic effect by feeding off each other.
Claiming that developing & 2nd world nations shouldn’t go shopping, buy consumer goods & improve their lots in life just so we can stop global warming, while we don’t give up our comfortable lifestyle, cut our own energy demands or otherwise pay for these new technologies through increased taxes & tarriffs is clearly hypocritical.
This suggests that you’ve made changes in your lifestyle to help mitigate these issues. I have: I walk to work, I take public transport most places or bike or walk, I avoid overly packaged food, … and I encourage others to avoid unnecessary waste. We recycle extensively here. I don’t fly more than once in a blue moon… so what have you done?