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> plus even if we change, other countries won't. Because the US has no political power, amirite? On completely separate note, as an Australian, I'd like to th
by vacri 11y ago
> plus even if we change, other countries won't.
Because the US has no political power, amirite?
On completely separate note, as an Australian, I'd like to thank the US for pushing it's list of verboten drugs onto us, for pressuring us to take part in it's wars of convenience, for pushing it's IP laws down our throat via treaty obligations, and for bending us over the desk with our "free trade" agreements.
- javert 11y agoObviously the other main culprit (for putting carbon into the air) is China, and it's not worth it for the US to try to exercise power over them. As to the list of stuff you're complaining about, you can only blame Australia (i.e., your fellow citizens and your politicians). Australia absolutely could just not do that stuff. The US is not going to invade Australia. The reason Australia goes along with it is because it wants to. And it wants to because it's a whole lot like the US. All the former British colonies have a lot in common. We probably should have all just stayed in one big empire. After all, the US Founders bungled up our system permanently by claiming that rights come from God, which is only a way to supposedly invalidate rights.
- lentil_soup 11y agoWhat are you on about, China is way behind the US in emissions per per capita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- talmand 11y agoAnd yet that same chart shows China has twice as much in total emissions as compared to the US. Pick your preference I guess. Plus I don't remember hearing quite as many reports of extremely polluted cities outside of China as I hear about in China.
- belenos46 11y agoAnd three million kilotons ahead on emissions total, which are what matter. Also, how and where was this data collected? We know that we can't trust companies to report this accurately. Was it collected by the state? Since it's not privacy-related, I sort of trust the US to report accurately, whereas I don't trust the PRC to do so.
- zurn 11y agoAlso those emissions are relatively easy to fix since it's mostly cheap and nasty coal plants. They're already sick of coal plants due to local pollution, and switching electricity generation tech is much easier than say changing 100 year old car based city structures. And they are well positioned to do renewables & nuclear.
- zurn 11y agoI don't think it's especially useful to think about emissions by country for the purpouses of thinking who can effect change. Any more than a small town resident should feel discouraged about voting in national elections. People need to be doing their part in all the reference groups they belong to, be it their field of expertise, their local government, international communities they belong to etc. "Act locally, think globally".
- happyscrappy 11y agoAs long as citizens of Australia blame America and not their own politicians the status quo is safe, and pols can sell out without fear of repercussions.
- prodmerc 11y agoSeems to me that Australian politicians took all those "suggestions" and made them even worse for your own population. Don't blame other countries, your own government are the ones fucking you - I can tell that from experience and recent history in my own country...
- vacri 11y agoYou're describing a false dichotomy. where only one party can be responsible for screwing people over. Who said I gave no blame to our own politicians? In any case, people seem to have missed my point, which is that the US has plenty of political power to get other countries to play ball. Do people really believe that something called a 'superpower' has negligible influence?