But doesn’t that show that life is not sustainable in that area? Your arguments make it seem like it would be a good idea to leave Kuwait, not that we shouldn’t tax carbon. Obviously we need a transition time, but there’s a lot of environmentally unsound practices-including living in deserts.
People were sustaining in Kuwait for more than 200 years before they had access to cheap international commercial food. My understanding is that Kuwait is only slightly less sustaining than Southern California which is also a desert and also contains Death Valley.
Another point of reference: Israel is 80% desert & is mostly (aside from grains imports) food independent. Food is expensive in Israel (2-3x German prices, anecdotally) but availability and diversity are good.
Modern agriculture makes local production possible almost everywhere, it's just not as cheap as importing.
I would say that basic availability is ok(except for the egg shortages during the COVID rush), but there are shortages in butter, and in fruits and vegetables around the High Holidays season - and they are already importing a lot of food for it.
Also, seasonal fruits appear only in their season(which can be as short as three weeks), and are expensive(look at the price of any berries).
Also higher prices is a (market) form of shortage-demand outstrips supply.
I think a lot of these issues are political (whether farmer lobbies or kosher keepers), but yes you're not getting 100% the same availability as if you could import everything but it's mostly fine. And this is in a small, very densely populated & arid country.
If Israel can get 90% of the way there with mostly minor annoyances like what you listed than most countries can probably get even higher (with the drawbacks of higher prices & the rare lack of availability of a non-crucial commodity).
Also keep in mind that the low cost of imports is partially because externalities like pollution are not being accounted for.
Local producing of almonds in greenhouses would be way more carbon-intensive than shipping them from California. This would mean growing only local crops
