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The environment doesn’t care what anyone is “entitled” to and the West knows this and is a case study about how hard it is to reduce. I find it bizarre that any

The environment doesn’t care what anyone is “entitled” to and the West knows this and is a case study about how hard it is to reduce. I find it bizarre that anyone suggests it’s sensible for China to get there and only then start to reduce, because they are “entitled to”. Of course, the West is already on that downward trend and China is soaring upwards with no signs of even plateauing. Within 10 years China will be technologically independent of the West and the West will have even less influence over its environmental policy than we do now.

tzs 7y ago
> I find it bizarre that anyone suggests it’s sensible for China to get there and only then start to reduce, because they are “entitled to” No one has suggested that. You, however, have suggested that there is no point in the US lowering its emissions because China emits more total than does the US. The atmosphere does not care about arbitrary political boundaries. There's a total amount of greenhouse gases we can put in it consistent with keeping global warming under any given target. A ton of CO2 from a person in China is the same as a ton of CO2 from a person in the US as far as the atmosphere is concerned. So if a random person in China being responsible for putting about 8 tons in per year is unacceptable, then by what logic is a random person in the US putting in over 16 tons a year fine? By every physical measure, that US person is doing at least twice the harm to the atmosphere. The US needs to be the leader on this, not making excuses not to reduce its own emissions.
- edflsafoiewq 7y ago
  Which is exactly why there is no difference between sixteen tons from eight people and sixteen tons from sixteen people. The emissions per capita alone is totally meaningless. The reason that per country emissions are important is that countries are convenient political and demographic units.

tzs 7y ago

> I find it bizarre that anyone suggests it’s sensible for China to get there and only then start to reduce, because they are “entitled to” No one has suggested that. You, however, have suggested that there is no point in the US lowering its emissions because China emits more total than does the US. The atmosphere does not care about arbitrary political boundaries. There's a total amount of greenhouse gases we can put in it consistent with keeping global warming under any given target. A ton of CO2 from a person in China is the same as a ton of CO2 from a person in the US as far as the atmosphere is concerned. So if a random person in China being responsible for putting about 8 tons in per year is unacceptable, then by what logic is a random person in the US putting in over 16 tons a year fine? By every physical measure, that US person is doing at least twice the harm to the atmosphere. The US needs to be the leader on this, not making excuses not to reduce its own emissions.

edflsafoiewq 7y ago
Which is exactly why there is no difference between sixteen tons from eight people and sixteen tons from sixteen people. The emissions per capita alone is totally meaningless. The reason that per country emissions are important is that countries are convenient political and demographic units.