What is a pension? /s
But also, no. No one should be forced to endure this world just to keep pensions going.
I wouldn’t be so sure about humanity surviving. It all depends on how many tipping points we hit and how bad warming actually gets. There’s no way we stop at 3°. Existence for any humans will be incredibly fraught.
It gets even better when you realize the US hasn’t actually formally declared war since WWII. We don’t do “war” anymore. But we still kill a helluva lot of people. Mostly civilians.
This is a very Polyannaish take and places way too much faith in a “free market” and government oversight. There is no free market when we are regularly allowing companies to get massive and become practical monopolies. When was the last time a company faced serious repercussions for getting too big?
There is certainly some more competition among smaller, local businesses. And the price of land/real estate can be an issue for them. But I would also ask to see how much the business owner is making in relation to their employees.
All that being said, I would like to see landownership completely overhauled, if not abolished.
But the fun thing is that all solar currently has a carbon cost associated with it. So as we’re trying to work our way out of this we’re also continuing to increase the carbon load. It’s a vicious cycle.