Climate
By It should be blindingly obvious by now that no country is going to sacrifice anything meaningful, and especially economic growth, to reduce emissions enough to dent the impact of climate change. Not saying that such sacrifices would be easy or trivial. But the cost of not making those sacrifices is enormous, as the people of the Philippines can attest.
Then again, even talking about climate change can get you in trouble if you are in the Obama Administration. So maybe I shouldn’t single out Japan.
…..I’m sure some would be happy that domestic production of American oil has surpassed imports for the first time in 18 years. But given that this has nothing to do with a broader drop in oil use or restrictions on imports in order to fight climate change, we can pretty safely assume that this is yet another bad sign from a nation where working on climate change is not only not a top priority, it’s not a secondary or tertiary priority either.
But hey, gas prices are going down, so that’s cool. Time to trade in for that SUV.