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I live in a small country (~5.5M people) that is near the top of the list for CO2 emissions per capita. The usual argument around here for not spending any effo

by jusssi 6y ago

I live in a small country (~5.5M people) that is near the top of the list for CO2 emissions per capita. The usual argument around here for not spending any effort in reducing CO2 emissions is that it won't matter: as a nation, we're so small compared to China and the US that we'll make no difference. Therefore, we should sit on our hands and tell the rest of the world to fix the situation while we watch. By your logic (edit: unnecessarily harsh. "by the logic you present here"), everyone else but the absolute largest single CO2 emitting entity shouldn't do anything (because there's someone who's even worse), and that largest one can point back to the others blaming them for not doing anything either.

musingsole 6y ago
Isn't it an optimization problem though? Focusing on anything but your bottleneck (or largest carbon producer) has minuscule effects. If the largest carbon producer did do enough work to become tied with the 2nd largest producer, there's now an argument for why the 2 largest must do something while the rest watch. Granted, yeah, it'd be better for everyone to do what they can and let's all kumbaya, but it doesn't look like the incentives will ever line up for that.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  Optimization isn't about focusing on the largest resource consumer, but on the most reducible. (Note that this makes your statement basically tautological) And given that China's main problem is its population (which is basically impossible to reduce much more right now and they're still dealing with negative side-effects from their effective but not-very-nice One Child policy), not it's emissions per person, China doesn't have as much to reduce. Whereas if the US lived at China's level of emissions per capita, then the world's total greenhouse emissions would drop by over 10%.
tsimionescu 6y ago
The problem with this individualistic agenda is two-fold: some people who understand how dire the problem is believe that individual action is the way to go, and don't pay enough attention to the politics of climate change because 'everyone should just offset their own carbon footprint like I do, and then we wouldn't need big government to come in and take our rights'. Then, there are other people who think 'these damn hippies want me to become a vegan and stop using a car, this is obviously not tenable as a way to save the world, let's look at carbon sequestration so we can continue living like today'. I'm not claiming that these are the only two ways people react, but I do believe they are two common ways. I also believe many companies and political parties encourage those two ways of thinking, because they allow them to maintain the current status quo.
Qwertious 6y ago
Norway, Finland, Denmark, or Slovakia? I'm guessing either Norway or Finland.

by jusssi 6y ago

musingsole 6y ago

Isn't it an optimization problem though? Focusing on anything but your bottleneck (or largest carbon producer) has minuscule effects. If the largest carbon producer did do enough work to become tied with the 2nd largest producer, there's now an argument for why the 2 largest must do something while the rest watch. Granted, yeah, it'd be better for everyone to do what they can and let's all kumbaya, but it doesn't look like the incentives will ever line up for that.

Qwertious 6y ago
Optimization isn't about focusing on the largest resource consumer, but on the most reducible. (Note that this makes your statement basically tautological) And given that China's main problem is its population (which is basically impossible to reduce much more right now and they're still dealing with negative side-effects from their effective but not-very-nice One Child policy), not it's emissions per person, China doesn't have as much to reduce. Whereas if the US lived at China's level of emissions per capita, then the world's total greenhouse emissions would drop by over 10%.

tsimionescu 6y ago

The problem with this individualistic agenda is two-fold: some people who understand how dire the problem is believe that individual action is the way to go, and don't pay enough attention to the politics of climate change because 'everyone should just offset their own carbon footprint like I do, and then we wouldn't need big government to come in and take our rights'. Then, there are other people who think 'these damn hippies want me to become a vegan and stop using a car, this is obviously not tenable as a way to save the world, let's look at carbon sequestration so we can continue living like today'. I'm not claiming that these are the only two ways people react, but I do believe they are two common ways. I also believe many companies and political parties encourage those two ways of thinking, because they allow them to maintain the current status quo.

Qwertious 6y ago

Norway, Finland, Denmark, or Slovakia? I'm guessing either Norway or Finland.