Best summary. I'll reuse it.

You keep refering to freedom & taxes.
But if it's the freedom for my neighbors to have guns? Low taxes to have no public transport and schools and hospitals?
I see myself as part of a society that agrees on freedom restricting rules for the greater happyness. Not mentioning more sustainable lifestyles.

I would prefer to live in Europe any day.
So all those regulations maybe, just maybe, they make happier people?

You wrote pb at scale is impossible. I'm saying 16% is at scale. And it's growing super fast. Spain is not adding any nuclear or hydro. And is not planning to. It'll be at 50%+ in 10~20 years.

Uh..
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1045666/share-of-the-photovoltaic-solar-generation-in-the-total-generation-spain/#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20the%20generation%20of,total%20electricity%20generation%20in%20Spain.

| Same as with how some people still think a full solar/wind grid is realistic at scale (not talking about countries with the ability to do enough hydro).
While I fail to see what hydro with your argument, spain doesn't have a large hydro, sitting at ~10%.
They're already at 14% of Gwh by solar, and growing fast.

Physics are different in Spain?

Permitting!= Building
Building!= Firing

Energy-related carbon emissions added less than 1% in 2022 to a new high of more than 36.8 billion tons. The increase was less than expected, as renewables helped limit the impact of a global rise in coal and oil consumption. Comparatively, global emissions from energy gained by 6% in 2021.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/08/energy-chinas-renewables-progress-comes-alongside-a-coal-power-boom.html

Source?

Type less read more
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-track-hit-new-clean-dirty-power-records-2022-maguire-2022-11-23/

But parent's right.
You may have the tech, without the votes countering the lobbies it's not happening.

Funny, my kids haven't touched Roblox ever since they got to jump in Gorilla Tag...

It's going to be fun when other countries start adding theirs, after all, US didn't ask anyone, right? Mesh wire night sky, woo hooo!

What situation exactly in Europe?
Like long lifespan, high education, ultra low homicides, pretty good CO2 redux?

maybe because of the 'young kid turns into bad ass by hanging out with elite' classic structure that Gibson has brilliantly spared himself from in all his others...
I'm a huge fan of Gibson, re-read the sprawl three times, always sucks me in in a few lines.

yes, and to repeat the message, you also add
- land mass used to grow soy beans to make those livestock grow fast, (amazon...)
- methan gases,
- phosphate (specially for pork),
- CO2 in transportation of everything above,
- shame in killing fellow mammals (come on, we only diverged ~50M years ago, they're cousins)

Probably that. And Putin's support of Assad with his and his father's 100.000s+ political kills. Or Ukraine meddling...but not too worry, real-politik is coming back.