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All of these environmentalists loudly proclaim that China and the US are the profligate polluters in the neighborhood. I have looked up the numbers, and per cap

All of these environmentalists loudly proclaim that China and the US are the profligate polluters in the neighborhood. I have looked up the numbers, and per capita, Australians release five times more carbon into the atmosphere than we do. It's not at all clear who "we" refers to in that sentence, but from my cursory glance at the data, it appears that the statement applies to neither the US or China. Please clarify and provide links to relevant data. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...

bilbo0s 17y ago
OK, just in case you are Australian, I will use Australian numbers for both carbon emissions and growth rates in carbon emissions per capita. This is because, I agree with the idea, in general, that climate data is so widely variant from source to source as to be extremely suspect. And given recent events, ie-'climategate', I think we should all be careful about using numbers generated by nation A, to illustrate an environmental point with respect to nation B. Having mentioned all of that, the numbers from CSIRO in Australia can be found in the following report: http://csiro.au/news/GlobalCarbonProject-PNAS.html http://csiro.au/news/GlobalCarbonProject-PNAS.html Lead by Dr Mike Raupach EDIT: Not really sure if the above was too technical. Just realized you quoted wikipedia. Anyway, what follows are some news stories on Australian carbon emissions. A little less techy. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2745751.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2745751.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/02/2079513.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/02/2079513.htm http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e57087d4-3862-11de-9211-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fe57087d4-3862-11de-9211-00144feabdc0.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Daustralian%2Bcarbon%2Bemissions%26form%3DOSDSRC http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e57087d4-3862-11de-9211-00144feabdc0... Note that even though the Financial Times is a conservative paper, it concedes that Australia has decided to 'delay' setting any carbon emissions limits. I put in links to ABC, to balance FT with a somewhat more liberal perspective. END EDIT: In my opinion, the report, puts Australia in a very good light, and even they concede that Australia emits at 4.5 TIMES the global rate. A lot of other little nuggets are in the full report if you care to read it. If not, the link above contains a good summary. I can share more research with you, if you are working in this field, and would like the information. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to state that I currently do a great deal of research analyzing companies, technologies, and markets for VC investment. One of the fields that a large number of clients are interested in is 'green tech'. The research I have been doing the past couple of years, particularly on markets, has really opened my eyes. In answer to your other question, I am an American. Extremely so I admit. So by 'we' I meant the US. I will endeavor to speak more precisely in the future.
bilbo0s 17y ago
Incidentally, given incidents like 'climategate' I think we should also be a little hesitant about quoting sources like wikipedia.
- bilbo0s 17y ago
  EDIT: It occurs to me that perhaps I should be more explicit in what I am saying. The source data used for the wikipedia article is not data on carbon emissions per capita, rather it is data on carbon emissions per capita . . . PER USD1 GDP. That is, per capita per $1 GDP. The authors of the wikipedia article either mistook the data to be data on per capita emissions, or really didn't understand the difference. At any rate, that is the reason for the confusion I think. By the way, here is the source data that the wikipedia article uses: http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx
  - thaumaturgy 17y ago
    (As mentioned at other points elsethread.) The actual data are not presented as "per capita per $1 USD GDP"; this is a (wholly unintentional, I'm sure) misreading of a sentence describing the data in the charts. Actually examining the source data shows that there is a set of data measured in metric tons per $1 USD, and another, separate set, of data measured in metric tons per capita.
    - bilbo0s 17y ago
      Also a repeat of my reply: So if we assume that your interpretation of the data is correct, Australia is just as big an emitter as the US, and they emit roughly 4 TIMES as much as China does. If my interpretation was correct, they emit 5 TIMES the US and 11 TIMES China. My point being that the material point stands in either case. That is, even if we were to all agree to your interpretation, China is still not the problem. Why then, is all of the attention on China and the US? Clearly there are other emitters just as profligate. In fact, in the case of China, most of the other nations are far larger emitters per capita. I maintain that the negative attention given to China and the US is due to the fact that being anti US and anti China is the height of political fashion. Clearly, the people denigrating China don't take Australia to task for what we have both established as demonstrably far more egregious behavior.

bilbo0s 17y ago

OK, just in case you are Australian, I will use Australian numbers for both carbon emissions and growth rates in carbon emissions per capita. This is because, I agree with the idea, in general, that climate data is so widely variant from source to source as to be extremely suspect. And given recent events, ie-'climategate', I think we should all be careful about using numbers generated by nation A, to illustrate an environmental point with respect to nation B. Having mentioned all of that, the numbers from CSIRO in Australia can be found in the following report: http://csiro.au/news/GlobalCarbonProject-PNAS.html http://csiro.au/news/GlobalCarbonProject-PNAS.html Lead by Dr Mike Raupach EDIT: Not really sure if the above was too technical. Just realized you quoted wikipedia. Anyway, what follows are some news stories on Australian carbon emissions. A little less techy. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2745751.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2745751.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/02/2079513.htm http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/02/2079513.htm http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e57087d4-3862-11de-9211-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fe57087d4-3862-11de-9211-00144feabdc0.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Daustralian%2Bcarbon%2Bemissions%26form%3DOSDSRC http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e57087d4-3862-11de-9211-00144feabdc0... Note that even though the Financial Times is a conservative paper, it concedes that Australia has decided to 'delay' setting any carbon emissions limits. I put in links to ABC, to balance FT with a somewhat more liberal perspective. END EDIT: In my opinion, the report, puts Australia in a very good light, and even they concede that Australia emits at 4.5 TIMES the global rate. A lot of other little nuggets are in the full report if you care to read it. If not, the link above contains a good summary. I can share more research with you, if you are working in this field, and would like the information. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to state that I currently do a great deal of research analyzing companies, technologies, and markets for VC investment. One of the fields that a large number of clients are interested in is 'green tech'. The research I have been doing the past couple of years, particularly on markets, has really opened my eyes. In answer to your other question, I am an American. Extremely so I admit. So by 'we' I meant the US. I will endeavor to speak more precisely in the future.

bilbo0s 17y ago

Incidentally, given incidents like 'climategate' I think we should also be a little hesitant about quoting sources like wikipedia.

bilbo0s 17y ago
EDIT: It occurs to me that perhaps I should be more explicit in what I am saying. The source data used for the wikipedia article is not data on carbon emissions per capita, rather it is data on carbon emissions per capita . . . PER USD1 GDP. That is, per capita per $1 GDP. The authors of the wikipedia article either mistook the data to be data on per capita emissions, or really didn't understand the difference. At any rate, that is the reason for the confusion I think. By the way, here is the source data that the wikipedia article uses: http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  (As mentioned at other points elsethread.) The actual data are not presented as "per capita per $1 USD GDP"; this is a (wholly unintentional, I'm sure) misreading of a sentence describing the data in the charts. Actually examining the source data shows that there is a set of data measured in metric tons per $1 USD, and another, separate set, of data measured in metric tons per capita.
  - bilbo0s 17y ago
    Also a repeat of my reply: So if we assume that your interpretation of the data is correct, Australia is just as big an emitter as the US, and they emit roughly 4 TIMES as much as China does. If my interpretation was correct, they emit 5 TIMES the US and 11 TIMES China. My point being that the material point stands in either case. That is, even if we were to all agree to your interpretation, China is still not the problem. Why then, is all of the attention on China and the US? Clearly there are other emitters just as profligate. In fact, in the case of China, most of the other nations are far larger emitters per capita. I maintain that the negative attention given to China and the US is due to the fact that being anti US and anti China is the height of political fashion. Clearly, the people denigrating China don't take Australia to task for what we have both established as demonstrably far more egregious behavior.