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In my experience with some conservatives, it seems that they believe global warming is happening but they are skeptical of how effective left-leaning politician

by sceew 10y ago

In my experience with some conservatives, it seems that they believe global warming is happening but they are skeptical of how effective left-leaning politicians can be in combating climate change. Therefore it is not worth conceding political turf on other issues if they will see little change in the rate of global warming. Interesting once you start to take into account other countries contributions to global warming. The United States is relatively low among developed economies when it comes to emissions per GDP : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_GDP_to_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_... . I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming. Of course this will be met by criticism from HN, but I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth.

mrpopo 10y ago
> I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming. The reality today is that no efforts are made whatsoever by any political movement on the planet to combat global warming, in the entire planet (except perhaps the CPC of China, against all odds). American Republicans do not even have the hint of honesty of admitting the issue at stake. They denied it 10 years ago, now they want to turn their audience into believing that it may not be human-caused. > I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth. The discussion was over dozens of years ago, there is no debate. Human activity (intensive farming, petroleum and coal burning, cement production, ...) is causing climate change, period. And the changes are already past the point of being reversible. The data is plentiful and everywhere for the world to see.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  >>The reality today is that no efforts are made whatsoever by any political movement on the planet to combat global warming I don't think that is true, in the UK there have been efforts, for instance our coal use is the lowest for 150 years[1]. It isn't anywhere near enough to solve the problem but it isn't nothing either. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/31/rapid-decline-of-coal-use-leads-to-drop-in-uk-emissions https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/31/rapid-de...
  - mrpopo 10y ago
    True, thanks for the correction. The point that I wanted to make was that all the efforts underway around the world at their current magnitude are not gonna make a dent in the greenhouse gases generation curve.
- mistermann 10y ago
  > The discussion was over dozens of years ago, there is no debate. You might find this attitude counter-productive in achieving your goals, especially in a democracy.
  - acqq 10y ago
    The "debate" means "a formal discussion on a particular matter in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward and which usually ends with a vote." If 95% of the scientists of the whole world agree the global warming exists and is human caused, that "formal discussion" is really over since 1990. Since then there was no debate if. You can read the results of that discussion in the IPCC reports, the last summary here: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_... If you mean that the politicians would like to "debate" between themselves "what to do about it," they sure do. But they shouldn't be allowed to doubt all scientists of the world. It's criminally irresponsible, considering the potential dangers. It's also extremely simple in basic principles: without naturally occurring greenhouse gases, Earth's average temperature would be near 0°F (or -18°C) instead of the much warmer 59°F (15°C). More greenhouse gases, the higher the temperature on the surface. The same way you cover yourself with the blanket, under the blanket it's warmer, not because you produce more heat but because more warmth stays under the blanket. It's that simple, as simple as wearing the coat not to freeze in the winter, and unbelievable that somebody can be manipulated to doubt it. P.S. Surveys of scientists' views on climate change (to answer the question to this post): https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-conse... But they are of course less important than the IPCC which is official, worldwide and in the agreement since 1990.
    - mistermann 10y ago
      > If 95% of the scientists of the whole world agree the global warming exists and is human caused. I often read this number, do you know where it came from, and what 95% of scientists agree on specifically?
- acqq 10y ago
  > there is no debate If the media were unbiased and wanted to show the viewers the actual state, there would be always 20 scientists in the studio, 19 scientists speaking that the global warming is real and only one speaking that he believes it's not. Then every viewer would understand. "One person per side" is the core of the problem. That's how people get the impression it's 50-50: on the question "most scientists think global warming is happening" unsurprisingly only 49% of the public answered yes. They always see on the TV, at best, one guy speaking against another guy. The impression then: 50-50. It's not.
- deleted 10y ago
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- pbreit 10y ago
  > there is no debate Even for things that are substantially better understood no one would ever say "there is no debate".
  - knowaveragejoe 10y ago
    The debate is not whether it is occurring at all or contributed to by mankind, but which of our activities have what effect, and what to do about it. When folks like the above say "there is no debate", it should be quantified with that.
    - pbreit 10y ago
      Should be but never is.
      - wfo 10y ago
        It doesn't need to be, anyone with the most basic understanding of the issues or anyone who cares enough to do the most basic cursory examination of the facts knows exactly what's being referred to. There simply is no worthwhile discussion to have about whether or not human activity has been a cause of climate change. 'Debating' it is akin to debating the existence of gravity or a causal link between smoking and cancer or whether or not quicksort is better than bubblesort. That is, it would be similar if there were a very wealthy and powerful 'bubblesort' lobby that funds and props up any argument that favors it, no matter how ridiculous or how much bad faith is required to make it.
        pbreit 10y ago
        Well, in fact researchers recently found that second-hand smoke probably isn't harmful. And that's exactly the point, things that some people think are settled are far from settled. And that kind of attitude invites suspicion. Why are you so concerned by skeptics?
        wfo 10y ago
Corristowolf 10y ago
> In my experience with some conservatives, it seems that they believe global warming is happening but they are skeptical of how effective left-leaning politicians can be in combating climate change. This is a major point. It's not that conservatives (in general) don't think it's happening, but believe that the solutions provided won't yield results to how expensive or "sacrificing" they are. Especially when you have big lobbies involved and especially when you consider China and how they have no real plan on cutting emissions.
- mrpopo 10y ago
  China is the world's biggest investor in solar technology and hopes to grow its solar power to 20GW by 2020. [1] China forced all taxi drivers in Beijing to use electric cars, a desperate and very controversial move. [2] China is highly subsidizing its high-speed rail companies, bleeding billions of dollars per year, to cut other transportation methods. [3] I am not saying to follow their example (some of their actions are probably not the best investments, environmentally speaking), but saying they do not have a real plan is quite untrue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China [2] http://mashable.com/2017/02/27/china-electric-taxis/#r749sZhcKqq5 http://mashable.com/2017/02/27/china-electric-taxis/#r749sZh... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China
  - netzone 10y ago
    China is a good example of when a dictatorship(ish) can do good (more than a democracy regarding the same issue) when focused on the right thing
  - noobiemcfoob 10y ago
    And China's example proves nothing here. Am I supposed to be surprised that an authoritarian government somehow finagled the political capital to invest in industries guaranteed to be highly disruptive to its most major economic competitor? Cuz I'm not.
    - 10y ago
coldpie 10y ago
The messaging coming from Republican politicians is either that climate change is not happening, or that it is a natural cycle and nothing to do with humans. Both of these hypothesis are objectively false. Setting that aside, emissions per GDP is an interesting and useful statistic, but it doesn't paint a complete picture. If you were to entirely eliminate the top three highest emissions per GDP countries from your list, you will have done nothing to combat climate change. If you sort that list by total emissions, the US ranks #2 a short distance behind China. China is actually fifth from the very bottom of that list. It's a complex situation and will have an impact on the global economy no matter what. We can decide to do something now and take short-term losses to prevent massive devastation in the long term from doing nothing. > I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming. Hmm. What would impress you? I honestly think climate change is the most important issue in the world right now, and I would love to know what we can do to get you on our side.
- pbreit 10y ago
  How about: that the contribution by humans is unclear, that we may be able to resolve issues that do arise and/or that adaptation is a viable solution?
  - coldpie 10y ago
    The contribution by humans is unequivocal. If you would like to understand how we know that, take a couple hours and read the IPCC report Summary for Policymakers. It is a fascinating and relatively easy read. It also includes projections based on several different models and estimates the impact on society from those projections. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_...
    - CWuestefeld 10y ago
      Whether or not it's caused by humans isn't relevant. If it's a problem, regardless of the cause, we ought to be thinking about what we can do to avoid it or to adapt. So I don't understand why so much of the left chooses to frame the issue in such a way that makes it contingent on that cause.
soVeryTired 10y ago
Emissions per GDP is a bit of a weird metric, don't you think? It disguises major variations within individual nations' economies. It's hardly surprising that a developed-world, service economy would produce fewer emissions per GDP than a developing economy that is geared toward mining and manufacturing. It's also worth noting that the likely benefactors of those developing-world emissions are the people in developed countries. So even regional estimates of emissions, let alone emissions per GDP, probably miss the point.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  Yes, I don't know but would imagine somewhere like China has huge variations between rich and poor areas.
- CWuestefeld 10y ago
  Emissions per GDP is a bit of a weird metric It seems that way. But considering that so much of the emissions are produced in the course of producing goods, it makes sense to tie the emissions to the production. In the extreme case, where a single nation produces all goods consumed by the world, we'd expect the large portion of global emissions to come from that one nation, and the emissions of the rest of the world to be very significantly lower. Obviously this isn't perfect. Other activities than production produce emissions - notably transportation. But I believe that those dollars are captured in the GDP total. I think we then get down to "which people are profligate consumers", and I'm not sure how to factor that in.
  - soVeryTired 10y ago
    But GDP is not the same thing as production of goods. Here's wikipedia's breakdown of US GDP by industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#GDP_by_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#G... These industries are emphatically not equal contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. So it makes little sense to aggregate them and measure the emissions to GDP ratio.
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ocschwar 10y ago
As a conservative, I can tell you that left-leaning politicians will not be effective at combatting climate change so long as they are up against a right wing obstruction machine. (For the record, I am stuck between supporting crooks and hacks who claim to be conservative, and supporting liberals, and so I'm backing liberals for the duration.)
- coldpie 10y ago
  Thank you. I hope in the near future we have a party that can reflect your views without rejecting reality. The only way to bring Republicans back into reality is to stop rewarding them for insanity.
- euyyn 10y ago
  So the choice is between politicians that will face obstruction, making them less effective, and politicians that won't even bother trying?
  - ocschwar 10y ago
    Politicians that will actively engage in that obstruction. Pretty gross.
zaphod12 10y ago
I am also very unimpressed by anyone party's effort to combat it, but as this map exemplifies, we aren't even at that stage f the conversation yet with many folks. We NEED to be talking about how to combat it, but instead we're spending all of our time arguing about whether it exists. Which is insane! We're frogs sitting in a pot of water that's about to boil and arguing about whether it's getting hotter, instead of talking about how to jump out. I'd love to be having policy conversations about solutions instead of doing that.
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago
  Most proposed "solutions" to this problem directly attack multiple people's livelihoods. They can, should and must defend against these things tooth and nail. Expecting otherwise is naive. Real solutions look like building out a renewable infrastructure. A thing that is happening everyday already, spearheaded by humanely conscious individuals and companies (Google, Apple, etc). There is literally nothing for the government to do in this situation but get out of the way and facilitate such endeavours. Instead, we talk about carbon taxes >.>
  - euyyn 10y ago
    I remember a presidential candidate proposing a solution that was boosting the building of renewable infrastructure and technology, so exactly what you propose. I think calling that a "humanely conscious" government, as you say, would have been appropriate too.
    - noobiemcfoob 10y ago
      I'd rather that president lower my taxes and leave the infrastructure business to companies that actually understand how it connects to everything else.
      - sdflkd 10y ago
        I can't tell if this is satire?
yodsanklai 10y ago
> In my experience with some conservatives, it seems that they believe global warming is happening but they are skeptical of how effective left-leaning politicians can be in combating climate change. Interesting, I was under the impression that most conservatives were climate change deniers (or at least mild deniers as in it may be real but not a big deal). That being said, a conservative friend of mine argues that what we need to solve environmental issues (and GW in particular) is more growth, more production and consumption. In his opinion, a side effect of this will be more investment in research and eventually new solutions to the environmental problems (as it has happened many times in history, for instance, think of horses being a nuisance in NYC). I would call that a serious leap of faith, but at least there's some logic in the reasoning!!
- VLM 10y ago
  A better example than horses would be the decline in solar prices over the last half century. No amount of asceticism, or holier than thou preaching, or apocalyptic ranting, or suicide, or willful destruction of the economy could produce that graph of capitalist cost decline in solar energy. Enormous effort on the brains of STEM people, sweat from the craftsmen building and staffing the factories, bean counters financing incredible expenditures... that's how that cheaper than coal solar panel got made. Doesn't matter if one or one billion flailed themselves or felt really guilty, the rise of solar energy is a triumph of the right and capitalism not the left. Thaaats how coal dies as an energy source. We didn't leave the stone age because of social status signalling holiness spirals declaring the in-group hates stone and stone workers. Or by making everyone feel guilty about the earth only having a finite calculable amount of usable stone. Or by patting ourselves on our backs for a job well done by lowering the third derivative of stone use to a slightly lower yet still large positive number.
  - vilmosi 10y ago
    Isn't solar energy getting massive amounts of investments and subsidies from the government, across the world?
ar0 10y ago
I think you are reading this table wrong. The table does not list "emissions per GDP" but "GDP per emissions", which is actually the inverse. So to get the "emissions per GDP", you have to read the table backwards, which means the United States is (among Australia, Israel, Canada) emitting more CO2 than most other developed countries, in particular Western European ones. For example, Germany produces roughly 60% more economic output (3,612 USD / ton of emissions) per CO2 emitted than the United States (2,291 USD / ton) and the United Kingdom (4,284 USD / ton) almost twice as much. In any case, maybe a better figure would be "emissions per capita", which paints a similar picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous... [Update: Of course, all of these figures are not that helpful because they ignore how much CO2 emissions one "outsources" by buying products manufactured elsewhere. If you are primarily a service-driven economy, you will have much lower CO2 emissions in your country, but you will most likely still buy a lot of stuff from China etc. which will produce CO2 emissions there. That's e.g. why Switzerland is not as green as it would seem from this table.]
mikeash 10y ago
My experience is that "conservatives" will pick whatever argument they can get away with when it comes to climate change. Depending on the context the same person might argue: 1. Climate change is a hoax. 2. Climate change is real, but natural. 3. Climate change is real, caused by humans, but beneficial. 4. Climate change is real, caused by humans, harmful, but attempts to fight it don't help. 5. Climate change is real, caused by humans, harmful, can be fought successfully, but the cost isn't worth it. I too would like to see more productive discussion, but it's hard when every discussion on the subject is flooded with people arguing in opposition to the facts.
- euyyn 10y ago
  It boils down to not wanting to spend their money, and arguing whatever it takes for that not to happen. In Spanish you'd say "les duele el bolsillo".
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago
  Replace "conservatives" with "people" and delete everything after "with" If you're discussing a topic with someone who relies on illogical crutches and isn't interested in discussing the topic... why are you even talking?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    "why are you even talking?" Some combination of: they're related to me, they vote, they barge into conversations and start arguing against the facts.
    - noobiemcfoob 10y ago
      But what you're complaining about isn't an issue with conservatives; it's an issue with asshats. And if your goal is to convince an asshat of something, you don't talk to the asshat. You talk to (and convince) the person the asshat respects. If someone barges into an discussion like that and you attempt to confront them with reason and argumentation, you're gonna have a bad time only further poisoning your perspective of the "other side".
ajross 10y ago
No offense, but what kind of crazy metric is that? "Wealthy people get to pollute more?" "It's OK to ignore emissions until everyone is as wealthy as we are?" I mean, I could spend hours and hours churning out moral hazards based on that analysis. It would never fly with other subjects: "handgun injuries per taxable income" shows that only the poor get shot, so it's not really as much a problem as you think. My vague guess is that you're trying to use "GDP" as some kind of proxy for "industrial output", and saying that while the US emits a ton of CO2, that's OK because we actually need to do that to produce all the wonderful thigns we do. Except that's not what GDP means at all, and industrial production stopped being a dominant fraction of that number like a century ago. Having lots of web developers and Starbucks franchises in our economy doesn't give us a license to pollute. (Edit: literally minutes after I posted this, there's a WaPo story up saying that the Trump administration is floating the possibility of a carbon tax of some sort. So maybe there's some hope for conservatives after all.)
mannykannot 10y ago
> I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming. If you are at all interested in why things are as they are, you might start with the time-honored practice of following the money.
wdr1 10y ago
> Of course this will be met by criticism from HN, but I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth. +1 I noticed that even in the Yale study, the options on solutions were limited to those with broad left of center options. Other options, include some that have been pushed by people right of center to address climate change, were not listed. E.g., nuclear power.
TheCoelacanth 10y ago
Then start insisting that right-leaning politicians take action on climate change. Left-leaning politicians don't have a natural monopoly on combating climate.

by sceew 10y ago

mrpopo 10y ago

> I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming. The reality today is that no efforts are made whatsoever by any political movement on the planet to combat global warming, in the entire planet (except perhaps the CPC of China, against all odds). American Republicans do not even have the hint of honesty of admitting the issue at stake. They denied it 10 years ago, now they want to turn their audience into believing that it may not be human-caused. > I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth. The discussion was over dozens of years ago, there is no debate. Human activity (intensive farming, petroleum and coal burning, cement production, ...) is causing climate change, period. And the changes are already past the point of being reversible. The data is plentiful and everywhere for the world to see.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
>>The reality today is that no efforts are made whatsoever by any political movement on the planet to combat global warming I don't think that is true, in the UK there have been efforts, for instance our coal use is the lowest for 150 years[1]. It isn't anywhere near enough to solve the problem but it isn't nothing either. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/31/rapid-decline-of-coal-use-leads-to-drop-in-uk-emissions https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/31/rapid-de...
- mrpopo 10y ago
  True, thanks for the correction. The point that I wanted to make was that all the efforts underway around the world at their current magnitude are not gonna make a dent in the greenhouse gases generation curve.
mistermann 10y ago
> The discussion was over dozens of years ago, there is no debate. You might find this attitude counter-productive in achieving your goals, especially in a democracy.
- acqq 10y ago
  The "debate" means "a formal discussion on a particular matter in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward and which usually ends with a vote." If 95% of the scientists of the whole world agree the global warming exists and is human caused, that "formal discussion" is really over since 1990. Since then there was no debate if. You can read the results of that discussion in the IPCC reports, the last summary here: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_... If you mean that the politicians would like to "debate" between themselves "what to do about it," they sure do. But they shouldn't be allowed to doubt all scientists of the world. It's criminally irresponsible, considering the potential dangers. It's also extremely simple in basic principles: without naturally occurring greenhouse gases, Earth's average temperature would be near 0°F (or -18°C) instead of the much warmer 59°F (15°C). More greenhouse gases, the higher the temperature on the surface. The same way you cover yourself with the blanket, under the blanket it's warmer, not because you produce more heat but because more warmth stays under the blanket. It's that simple, as simple as wearing the coat not to freeze in the winter, and unbelievable that somebody can be manipulated to doubt it. P.S. Surveys of scientists' views on climate change (to answer the question to this post): https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-conse... But they are of course less important than the IPCC which is official, worldwide and in the agreement since 1990.
  - mistermann 10y ago
    > If 95% of the scientists of the whole world agree the global warming exists and is human caused. I often read this number, do you know where it came from, and what 95% of scientists agree on specifically?
acqq 10y ago
> there is no debate If the media were unbiased and wanted to show the viewers the actual state, there would be always 20 scientists in the studio, 19 scientists speaking that the global warming is real and only one speaking that he believes it's not. Then every viewer would understand. "One person per side" is the core of the problem. That's how people get the impression it's 50-50: on the question "most scientists think global warming is happening" unsurprisingly only 49% of the public answered yes. They always see on the TV, at best, one guy speaking against another guy. The impression then: 50-50. It's not.
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pbreit 10y ago
> there is no debate Even for things that are substantially better understood no one would ever say "there is no debate".
- knowaveragejoe 10y ago
  The debate is not whether it is occurring at all or contributed to by mankind, but which of our activities have what effect, and what to do about it. When folks like the above say "there is no debate", it should be quantified with that.
  - pbreit 10y ago
    Should be but never is.
    - wfo 10y ago
      It doesn't need to be, anyone with the most basic understanding of the issues or anyone who cares enough to do the most basic cursory examination of the facts knows exactly what's being referred to. There simply is no worthwhile discussion to have about whether or not human activity has been a cause of climate change. 'Debating' it is akin to debating the existence of gravity or a causal link between smoking and cancer or whether or not quicksort is better than bubblesort. That is, it would be similar if there were a very wealthy and powerful 'bubblesort' lobby that funds and props up any argument that favors it, no matter how ridiculous or how much bad faith is required to make it.
      - pbreit 10y ago
        Well, in fact researchers recently found that second-hand smoke probably isn't harmful. And that's exactly the point, things that some people think are settled are far from settled. And that kind of attitude invites suspicion. Why are you so concerned by skeptics?
        wfo 10y ago

Corristowolf 10y ago

> In my experience with some conservatives, it seems that they believe global warming is happening but they are skeptical of how effective left-leaning politicians can be in combating climate change. This is a major point. It's not that conservatives (in general) don't think it's happening, but believe that the solutions provided won't yield results to how expensive or "sacrificing" they are. Especially when you have big lobbies involved and especially when you consider China and how they have no real plan on cutting emissions.

mrpopo 10y ago
China is the world's biggest investor in solar technology and hopes to grow its solar power to 20GW by 2020. [1] China forced all taxi drivers in Beijing to use electric cars, a desperate and very controversial move. [2] China is highly subsidizing its high-speed rail companies, bleeding billions of dollars per year, to cut other transportation methods. [3] I am not saying to follow their example (some of their actions are probably not the best investments, environmentally speaking), but saying they do not have a real plan is quite untrue. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China [2] http://mashable.com/2017/02/27/china-electric-taxis/#r749sZhcKqq5 http://mashable.com/2017/02/27/china-electric-taxis/#r749sZh... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China
- netzone 10y ago
  China is a good example of when a dictatorship(ish) can do good (more than a democracy regarding the same issue) when focused on the right thing
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago
  And China's example proves nothing here. Am I supposed to be surprised that an authoritarian government somehow finagled the political capital to invest in industries guaranteed to be highly disruptive to its most major economic competitor? Cuz I'm not.
  - 10y ago

coldpie 10y ago

The messaging coming from Republican politicians is either that climate change is not happening, or that it is a natural cycle and nothing to do with humans. Both of these hypothesis are objectively false. Setting that aside, emissions per GDP is an interesting and useful statistic, but it doesn't paint a complete picture. If you were to entirely eliminate the top three highest emissions per GDP countries from your list, you will have done nothing to combat climate change. If you sort that list by total emissions, the US ranks #2 a short distance behind China. China is actually fifth from the very bottom of that list. It's a complex situation and will have an impact on the global economy no matter what. We can decide to do something now and take short-term losses to prevent massive devastation in the long term from doing nothing. > I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming. Hmm. What would impress you? I honestly think climate change is the most important issue in the world right now, and I would love to know what we can do to get you on our side.

pbreit 10y ago
How about: that the contribution by humans is unclear, that we may be able to resolve issues that do arise and/or that adaptation is a viable solution?
- coldpie 10y ago
  The contribution by humans is unequivocal. If you would like to understand how we know that, take a couple hours and read the IPCC report Summary for Policymakers. It is a fascinating and relatively easy read. It also includes projections based on several different models and estimates the impact on society from those projections. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_...
  - CWuestefeld 10y ago
    Whether or not it's caused by humans isn't relevant. If it's a problem, regardless of the cause, we ought to be thinking about what we can do to avoid it or to adapt. So I don't understand why so much of the left chooses to frame the issue in such a way that makes it contingent on that cause.

soVeryTired 10y ago

Emissions per GDP is a bit of a weird metric, don't you think? It disguises major variations within individual nations' economies. It's hardly surprising that a developed-world, service economy would produce fewer emissions per GDP than a developing economy that is geared toward mining and manufacturing. It's also worth noting that the likely benefactors of those developing-world emissions are the people in developed countries. So even regional estimates of emissions, let alone emissions per GDP, probably miss the point.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
Yes, I don't know but would imagine somewhere like China has huge variations between rich and poor areas.
CWuestefeld 10y ago
Emissions per GDP is a bit of a weird metric It seems that way. But considering that so much of the emissions are produced in the course of producing goods, it makes sense to tie the emissions to the production. In the extreme case, where a single nation produces all goods consumed by the world, we'd expect the large portion of global emissions to come from that one nation, and the emissions of the rest of the world to be very significantly lower. Obviously this isn't perfect. Other activities than production produce emissions - notably transportation. But I believe that those dollars are captured in the GDP total. I think we then get down to "which people are profligate consumers", and I'm not sure how to factor that in.
- soVeryTired 10y ago
  But GDP is not the same thing as production of goods. Here's wikipedia's breakdown of US GDP by industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#GDP_by_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#G... These industries are emphatically not equal contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. So it makes little sense to aggregate them and measure the emissions to GDP ratio.

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ocschwar 10y ago

As a conservative, I can tell you that left-leaning politicians will not be effective at combatting climate change so long as they are up against a right wing obstruction machine. (For the record, I am stuck between supporting crooks and hacks who claim to be conservative, and supporting liberals, and so I'm backing liberals for the duration.)

coldpie 10y ago
Thank you. I hope in the near future we have a party that can reflect your views without rejecting reality. The only way to bring Republicans back into reality is to stop rewarding them for insanity.
euyyn 10y ago
So the choice is between politicians that will face obstruction, making them less effective, and politicians that won't even bother trying?
- ocschwar 10y ago
  Politicians that will actively engage in that obstruction. Pretty gross.

zaphod12 10y ago

I am also very unimpressed by anyone party's effort to combat it, but as this map exemplifies, we aren't even at that stage f the conversation yet with many folks. We NEED to be talking about how to combat it, but instead we're spending all of our time arguing about whether it exists. Which is insane! We're frogs sitting in a pot of water that's about to boil and arguing about whether it's getting hotter, instead of talking about how to jump out. I'd love to be having policy conversations about solutions instead of doing that.

noobiemcfoob 10y ago
Most proposed "solutions" to this problem directly attack multiple people's livelihoods. They can, should and must defend against these things tooth and nail. Expecting otherwise is naive. Real solutions look like building out a renewable infrastructure. A thing that is happening everyday already, spearheaded by humanely conscious individuals and companies (Google, Apple, etc). There is literally nothing for the government to do in this situation but get out of the way and facilitate such endeavours. Instead, we talk about carbon taxes >.>
- euyyn 10y ago
  I remember a presidential candidate proposing a solution that was boosting the building of renewable infrastructure and technology, so exactly what you propose. I think calling that a "humanely conscious" government, as you say, would have been appropriate too.
  - noobiemcfoob 10y ago
    I'd rather that president lower my taxes and leave the infrastructure business to companies that actually understand how it connects to everything else.
    - sdflkd 10y ago
      I can't tell if this is satire?

yodsanklai 10y ago

> In my experience with some conservatives, it seems that they believe global warming is happening but they are skeptical of how effective left-leaning politicians can be in combating climate change. Interesting, I was under the impression that most conservatives were climate change deniers (or at least mild deniers as in it may be real but not a big deal). That being said, a conservative friend of mine argues that what we need to solve environmental issues (and GW in particular) is more growth, more production and consumption. In his opinion, a side effect of this will be more investment in research and eventually new solutions to the environmental problems (as it has happened many times in history, for instance, think of horses being a nuisance in NYC). I would call that a serious leap of faith, but at least there's some logic in the reasoning!!

VLM 10y ago
A better example than horses would be the decline in solar prices over the last half century. No amount of asceticism, or holier than thou preaching, or apocalyptic ranting, or suicide, or willful destruction of the economy could produce that graph of capitalist cost decline in solar energy. Enormous effort on the brains of STEM people, sweat from the craftsmen building and staffing the factories, bean counters financing incredible expenditures... that's how that cheaper than coal solar panel got made. Doesn't matter if one or one billion flailed themselves or felt really guilty, the rise of solar energy is a triumph of the right and capitalism not the left. Thaaats how coal dies as an energy source. We didn't leave the stone age because of social status signalling holiness spirals declaring the in-group hates stone and stone workers. Or by making everyone feel guilty about the earth only having a finite calculable amount of usable stone. Or by patting ourselves on our backs for a job well done by lowering the third derivative of stone use to a slightly lower yet still large positive number.
- vilmosi 10y ago
  Isn't solar energy getting massive amounts of investments and subsidies from the government, across the world?

ar0 10y ago

I think you are reading this table wrong. The table does not list "emissions per GDP" but "GDP per emissions", which is actually the inverse. So to get the "emissions per GDP", you have to read the table backwards, which means the United States is (among Australia, Israel, Canada) emitting more CO2 than most other developed countries, in particular Western European ones. For example, Germany produces roughly 60% more economic output (3,612 USD / ton of emissions) per CO2 emitted than the United States (2,291 USD / ton) and the United Kingdom (4,284 USD / ton) almost twice as much. In any case, maybe a better figure would be "emissions per capita", which paints a similar picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous... [Update: Of course, all of these figures are not that helpful because they ignore how much CO2 emissions one "outsources" by buying products manufactured elsewhere. If you are primarily a service-driven economy, you will have much lower CO2 emissions in your country, but you will most likely still buy a lot of stuff from China etc. which will produce CO2 emissions there. That's e.g. why Switzerland is not as green as it would seem from this table.]

mikeash 10y ago

My experience is that "conservatives" will pick whatever argument they can get away with when it comes to climate change. Depending on the context the same person might argue: 1. Climate change is a hoax. 2. Climate change is real, but natural. 3. Climate change is real, caused by humans, but beneficial. 4. Climate change is real, caused by humans, harmful, but attempts to fight it don't help. 5. Climate change is real, caused by humans, harmful, can be fought successfully, but the cost isn't worth it. I too would like to see more productive discussion, but it's hard when every discussion on the subject is flooded with people arguing in opposition to the facts.

euyyn 10y ago
It boils down to not wanting to spend their money, and arguing whatever it takes for that not to happen. In Spanish you'd say "les duele el bolsillo".
noobiemcfoob 10y ago
Replace "conservatives" with "people" and delete everything after "with" If you're discussing a topic with someone who relies on illogical crutches and isn't interested in discussing the topic... why are you even talking?
- mikeash 10y ago
  "why are you even talking?" Some combination of: they're related to me, they vote, they barge into conversations and start arguing against the facts.
  - noobiemcfoob 10y ago
    But what you're complaining about isn't an issue with conservatives; it's an issue with asshats. And if your goal is to convince an asshat of something, you don't talk to the asshat. You talk to (and convince) the person the asshat respects. If someone barges into an discussion like that and you attempt to confront them with reason and argumentation, you're gonna have a bad time only further poisoning your perspective of the "other side".

ajross 10y ago

No offense, but what kind of crazy metric is that? "Wealthy people get to pollute more?" "It's OK to ignore emissions until everyone is as wealthy as we are?" I mean, I could spend hours and hours churning out moral hazards based on that analysis. It would never fly with other subjects: "handgun injuries per taxable income" shows that only the poor get shot, so it's not really as much a problem as you think. My vague guess is that you're trying to use "GDP" as some kind of proxy for "industrial output", and saying that while the US emits a ton of CO2, that's OK because we actually need to do that to produce all the wonderful thigns we do. Except that's not what GDP means at all, and industrial production stopped being a dominant fraction of that number like a century ago. Having lots of web developers and Starbucks franchises in our economy doesn't give us a license to pollute. (Edit: literally minutes after I posted this, there's a WaPo story up saying that the Trump administration is floating the possibility of a carbon tax of some sort. So maybe there's some hope for conservatives after all.)

mannykannot 10y ago

> I am really not impressed by any sides efforts to combat global warming. If you are at all interested in why things are as they are, you might start with the time-honored practice of following the money.

wdr1 10y ago

> Of course this will be met by criticism from HN, but I would love to see more discussion beyond conservatives are anti-science radicals who want to kill the earth. +1 I noticed that even in the Yale study, the options on solutions were limited to those with broad left of center options. Other options, include some that have been pushed by people right of center to address climate change, were not listed. E.g., nuclear power.

TheCoelacanth 10y ago

Then start insisting that right-leaning politicians take action on climate change. Left-leaning politicians don't have a natural monopoly on combating climate.