...people generally react in a very basic way to the threat of dire consequences and horrific scenarios. They simply repress and doubt what they hear - a common strategy when faced with alarming prognostications....
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The Environment
Once a country achieves a certain standard of living, inhabitants become less focused on doing whatever it takes to survive and start caring more about the world around them. Poorer countries tend to chop down forests, richer countries to plant them.
Larger businesses promote economies of scale, higher wages (known as the big firm wage premium), and de-materialization of production, logistics and transportation (meaning fewer emission per unit produced). Of course, there needs to be a mix of large, moderate and small businesses, and monopolistic power should be avoided.
The problem with this “small is beautiful” mentality is that small landholders tend to operate on very small margins and are the least likely to afford sustainable practices like letting a portion of their land fallow every year and to allow some bordering forests to remain intact. In poorer countries, when times are hard, the trees are chopped down to sell the wood....
....smaller trucks with less storage space often emit more CO2 per unit transported than those big-ass long-hauls, because the latter transport so much more stuff per haul.
The other side consists of scoundrels and idiots. Problem is, focusing on the personal qualities of those with whom we disagree gets in the way of determining whether their case has any merit. Sometimes we can learn a thing or two from people we dislike.