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Also repeating my reply upthread: This is a case of an "Oxford comma". The data would be more correctly described as "...emissions, total, per capita, and per

Also repeating my reply upthread: This is a case of an "Oxford comma". The data would be more correctly described as "...emissions, total, per capita, and per $1 GDP". Including or not including the comma is a style choice; journalists tend not to include it, and often don't realize that it can change the meaning of a sentence. If you examine the data sets themselves, rather than only the one sentence, I think you'll see.

bilbo0s 17y ago
repeat of my reply upthread: 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.
- nkurz 17y ago
  I'd suggest that the attention is on China and the US primarily because they are respectively the number 1 and 2 total emitters of CO2, making up about 40% of the global total. But it's hard to prove why people believe what they do, so I offer this only as opinion. I'd agree that political fashion likely plays a strong role, but your reluctance to retract your misinterpretation regarding the units of the data makes my unwilling to discuss this with you further. Claiming the the point stands in either case, whether or not this is true, forces me to flip the bozo bit.
  - thaumaturgy 17y ago
    Yeah. I'm just one data point, and a pretty unimportant one at that, but to be honest the climate "discussions" have pretty much killed HN for me. Which is good, actually; I'm getting more done, and HN isn't having to suffer my negative influence. ;-)
- sailormoon 17y ago
  Bilbo0s, I am not trying to criticise but your interpretation doesn't pass the sanity test. You are doing something wrong if you are getting the result that Australia produces 5 times the CO2 as the USA. That is just prima facie ridiculous. The total should be maybe 10% of the USA's　production, max, and that's already 50% worse per capita. We're bad, but we're not THAT bad ...

bilbo0s 17y ago

repeat of my reply upthread: 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.

nkurz 17y ago
I'd suggest that the attention is on China and the US primarily because they are respectively the number 1 and 2 total emitters of CO2, making up about 40% of the global total. But it's hard to prove why people believe what they do, so I offer this only as opinion. I'd agree that political fashion likely plays a strong role, but your reluctance to retract your misinterpretation regarding the units of the data makes my unwilling to discuss this with you further. Claiming the the point stands in either case, whether or not this is true, forces me to flip the bozo bit.
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  Yeah. I'm just one data point, and a pretty unimportant one at that, but to be honest the climate "discussions" have pretty much killed HN for me. Which is good, actually; I'm getting more done, and HN isn't having to suffer my negative influence. ;-)
sailormoon 17y ago
Bilbo0s, I am not trying to criticise but your interpretation doesn't pass the sanity test. You are doing something wrong if you are getting the result that Australia produces 5 times the CO2 as the USA. That is just prima facie ridiculous. The total should be maybe 10% of the USA's　production, max, and that's already 50% worse per capita. We're bad, but we're not THAT bad ...