Nature's reforms
Thank you Wasant Techawongtham for an enjoyably provocative read in "The girl who could just save the world", (Opinion, Oct 5). However, Wasant, we can agree Ms Thunberg's message is important while still disagreeing with some of her claims, and certainly with some of the suggested solutions.
There is no doubt that the climate is changing. Even without our contributions, it would likely have happened anyway. But Ms Thunberg is right that solid scientific evidence says that we humans are a major cause of the current levels of climate change, which is likely to accelerate irrespective of what we do now.
To dispute this, you have to have better evidence than the consensus of experts in the area. The sincerely rabid deniers like Trump do not fit that description of informed dissenter. It does not, however, follow that we should opt for less economic growth. The poor of China and India have as much right to the lifestyle of Ms Thunberg as she enjoys in flitting around the world spreading her message of doom and gloom. We cannot in good conscience tell the poor of the Third World to suffer their meagre sufficiency, such an ugly ideological excuse for gross inequality, so that those of us from the First World can carry on comfortably at the top of the pile.
Better solutions might be to charge enough in taxes to offset harms from the production of cars, automobile trips, BTS trips, plastic bags, planes, flights to environmental conferences and the like. But again, we who have the luxury of arguing about Ms Thunberg's message inherited our relative affluence on the back of the past environmental misdeeds pushed onto others in polluted rivers, ravaged forests, and poisoned air, all conveniently externalised economic costs that neither our ancestors nor us paid a just price for. Now coming back to haunt us, these are the costs of our comfortable lifestyles as we sit, using my personal example, in a condo on Silom Road, typing on a computer while sipping the morning coffee, with the air conditioning humming silently to keep everything pleasantly cool. It is not fair to expect the less-well-off today to pay a higher price than we and our hardworking ancestors did. This suggests that the rich world has a moral obligation to pay very substantial tax arrears (not charitable donations, but owed debts) to help bring the rest of the world up to the same high standard of living.
And we should also prepare for the coming global reforms enforced by nature. Nature will not be susceptible to any coup by ignorant army generals who think they can thereby steal power, property and prestige for themselves merely by overthrowing the existing rule of law and system of government.