President Biden has proposed major new rules and regulations to drastically reduce climate emissions in the US. Unsurprisingly, Republicans oppose this legislation. Senator Turtle (R-KY) complains that China produced more emissions than the US, and so this legislation would harm America while doing nothing to really solve the problem of global warming. This confuses me: I thought Republicans denied that global warming was a thing. I guess it's only a thing when caused by China.
The critics who point out that meaningful action on climate change will be difficult if not impossible unless big polluters like China get on board are not wrong: This is a worldwide problem that calls for worldwide action. But claiming that the US shouldn't do anything unless China and India and other big polluters do is inane. We can only control what we do. We can urge other countries to follow suit, but only by taking action ourselves can we have any moral authority to make these demands.
More to the point, saying the US shouldn't do anything to mitigate climate change unless China agrees to the same type of actions, is analogous to a person saying that he knows that smoking and lack of exercise and poor eating habits are going to kill him, but since his neighbor also has bad habits, he refuses to change his behavior.
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