6 ms·
Because we’re all idiots and waited too long, we need to cut emissions by 15% annually, not 2%. 2% does not even offset the increase in US emissions in 2018. 2%
by rwem 7y ago
Because we’re all idiots and waited too long, we need to cut emissions by 15% annually, not 2%. 2% does not even offset the increase in US emissions in 2018. 2% is a disaster.
- stazz1 7y agochaos continues into chaos we must water the seeds of order
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y agoWe don’t need to do anything. We’re responsible for only 15% of worldwide emissions, but nearly all of the new green energy tech and research. If anything I expect us to increase in CO2 while we retrofit buildings with better technology, build clean power generation and grid tech, and continue in our research. There are nations that need to drastically cut CO2 but it’s not the United States.
- frenchyatwork 7y ago> We’re responsible for only 15% of worldwide emissions, but nearly all of the new green energy tech and research. That's like trying to sell someone a $10 carrot by saying it's 50% off, or an over-weight person thinking it's okay that they're eating a bag of chips because they went to the gym.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ta999999171 7y agoIt's more like an overweight person looking around at the 70% of morbidly obese people in the population, and saying "Meh, few chips won't hurt". They're wrong...but not nearly as wrong as everyone else.
- oblio 7y agoThe world population is 7.8 billion people. The US population is ~330 million people. So the US has ~4% of the world population. The US pollution being "only" about 15% of the world pollution wouldn't be something I'd pat myself on the back, if I'd be American ;-)
- eerrt 7y agoFair, but the US also produces 15% of the world's GDP [1] [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/270267/united-states-share-of-global-gross-domestic-product-gdp/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/270267/united-states-sha...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- isoskeles 7y agoI get this point and am mostly in agreement with the intent. However, the US is also more of a service economy, which would lead me to believe we should tend to have lower emissions/productivity compared to other countries that mostly produce goods instead. So I am curious if there's a way to associate emissions to different categories of productivity and see if we're more wasteful, on average, when it comes to specific parts of our GDP (e.g. using personal automobiles). I'm not saying this in the self-hating way that I think is trendy for people in the US, but I am curious in the way that, if we want to improve, we could focus on specific parts of the economy that are more wasteful than others. (Driving would be an obvious one, hence the example.)
- phaemon 7y agoIn 2018, 69% of the US GDP was Personal Consumption. The contribution from Net Exports was -5%. Yes, minus 5. All you're really saying here is, "it's alright that our CO2 emissions are so high because we're also such greedy materialistic bastards". That's not a great argument.
- frenchyatwork 7y ago
- YinglingLight 7y agoMore like, an over-weight person thinking it's ok to eat an amount of chips equal to 15% of the calories they just burned at the gym.
- nicoburns 7y agoonly 15%? Given that you have less than 5% if the worlds population, you might want to rethink that being a small number.
- eerrt 7y agoThe best comparison here would be CO2 per capita vs GDP per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita-vs-gdp-per-capita-international- https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita-v...
- xtian 7y agoWe are #1 in cumulative emissions.
- harryh 7y agoThis is incorrect. China is ~double the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- titzer 7y agoHere is data on total emissions over time. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions#cumulative-co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... edit: being nicer
- harryh 7y agoAh, OK. This is all time total. I was referring to current annual emissions. Definitely two different things. At projected rates when will China "catch up" in terms of all time total?
- nicoburns 7y agoThis shows the US having per-capita emissions of roughly twice the EU and China (2017). I imagine it will be a good while until China catches up by that metric... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- titzer 7y agoJust back of the envelope calculation, according to my link the US emitted 400B tons total and China is emitting ~10.8B annually now, so that'd be 37 years with no growth. So yes, the US is in a really deep hole here.
- 7y ago
- ancientworldnow 7y agoNot insignificant portions of the rest of the world's co2 is devoted to supporting the US's consumption. Whether through shipments, production of goods, or disposal of waste we offshore a huge amount of our carbon emissions.
- rwem 7y agoThis is the second time in one day that some bozo on HN has assumed that “we” means “Americans”. A peculiar American habit.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- WorldMaker 7y agoIf it helps, that's not how the English pronoun `we` generally works in writing: it doesn't include "you the reader" by default, it simply implies some group to which the writer belongs. If the writer were trying to imply every reader of HN they might more specifically try to use language more resembling `all of us` or `HN`.
- titzer 7y ago> We don’t need to do anything. The incredible irresponsibility here really earns the downvotes. As other commenters pointed out, the US still #1 in cumulative emissions, so the warming we see today and for the next ~10 years is mostly due to the US. Second, the US is absolutely terrible when it comes to per-capita emissions. This is not an example for the world to follow. There is zero moral high ground in telling developing nations to cut emissions and yet gluttonously continuing BAU. If they follow the same carbon intensity curve, the planet is absolutely f*ed. The US and western countries have an obligation to demonstrate how to run a complex developed economy with low, or eventually, no emissions.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y agoIt's going to require significant CO2 investment (upfront payment for long term material benefit) if we want to reduce CO2 output materially. The thesis is for us to get there, we need to increase CO2 output, not reduce it. Let's think about how much CO2 investment would be required to fulfill these projects in the "Green New Deal": * Coast to coast high-speed rail. * Retrofitting all major buildings in the USA with better technologies. * Decommissioning dirty power plants. * Building nation-wide wind and other green power generating infrastructure. And we should put our foot on the gas for new green energy research. Inventing better and more efficient technologies has the benefit of reducing global CO2 output.
- titzer 7y ago> if we want to reduce CO2 output materially and continue with our current standard of living. ftfy. The truth is that we could reduce emissions by living less affluent lifestyles, like, say, the 1950s. Smaller houses, fewer per capita miles driven, little or no intercontinental or transcontinental flights, less meat. But we won't. We cannot step off the hedonistic treadmill, even for a second, or the economy will collapse. And we can think of nothing worse than the economy collapsing. So we create a false dilemma, an impossible constraint system. So we will fail.
- imtringued 7y ago
- Slartie 7y ago> We’re responsible for only 15% of worldwide emissions, but nearly all of the new green energy tech and research. Is "we" the US? laughs This sentence becomes more true if you replace "we" with "China". Because China actually contributed significantly to green energy tech by making solar panels dead cheap to produce. Or replace it with "Germany". In that case the number is way off (it's more like 2% of worldwide emissions) but the tech contribution holds up if you look for example at wind power plant tech development and having provided monetary incentives for decades already to deploy solar power at large scale (which in turn allowed China to drive down solar production cost by creating the necessary demand for products). Where is this significant contribution of the US to green energy tech? Because I mostly see significant contributions to keeping the fossil fuel economy alive (large scale research and deployment of fracking tech, cheap gas prices, inefficient car designs and A/C installations anywhere).
- UncleMeat 7y agoThe US is using, per capita, way way way more carbon than other nations. If we used the same per capita rate as India it would be a 90% reduction. That would be unbelievable. There would be parades in the streets.
- briandear 7y agoIt also produces more per capita as well.
- briandear 7y ago> There would be parades in the streets. Right now, in India, there is sewage in the streets and profound and extreme poverty. Aspiring to Indian emissions is necessarily aspiring to an Indian quality of life.
- UncleMeat 7y agoThen we will have that quality of life anyway, when we are at +5C and we have global crop failures.
- imtringued 7y ago>There are nations that need to drastically cut CO2 but it’s not the United States. You can't be serious. There is no plural. There is only one country that emits more than the USA and it has four times as many people, 14% of its emissions are caused by manufacturing products that are consumed in other countries and it has invested more in green technology than any other country on earth.
- scroot 7y agoYup. This article is reporting bad news, not good news.
- lopmotr 7y agoHow will people's lives in the future be worse with a 2% annual reduction than 15%? Why do you call it a disaster instead of "worse"?
- paulddraper 7y ago> Because we’re all idiots and waited too long U.S. CO2 emissions have been steadily falling for over a decade. [1] Twice that long on a per-capita basis. Considering that broad consensus about global warming was only formed in 1980s, that's not a terrible track record. A far bigger problem than stupidity or procrastination is the industrialization of 3 billion people. There's no great solution to that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th...
- rwem 7y agoThey’re not steadily falling. As noted in the article, they were up in 2018.
- paulddraper 7y agoHm, appears the graph in Wikipedia is out of date.
- rwem 7y agoThe graph is electric generation only. Electricity accounts for less than 1/3rd of US greenhouse gas emissions.
- mcantelon 7y ago>we need to cut emissions by 15% annually Such a Great Leap Forward isn't going to happen and even if it did it wouldn't reduce the rest of the world's emissions. Geoengineering is likely the only way to cool the earth globally.