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When you look at who's polluting and who's emissions are on an upward trajectory, there's one obvious country that's actively working against the environment. C
by 908B64B197 5y ago
When you look at who's polluting and who's emissions are on an upward trajectory, there's one obvious country that's actively working against the environment. China's emissions aren't slowing down. Coal is incredibly cheap when there's no carbon tax or emission standards. One of the many reasons it's cheaper to manufacture in China and why North Americans and Europeans can't compete [0].
Comparing the US[1] and China[2], the US has:
- Decreasing per capita emissions in the US starting in 1973 (-27%)
- A decrease in the countries emission starting in 2007 (-13%)
Meanwhile for the same period China has had
- a 7x increase per capita since 1973 (+532%)
- 48% increase for its global emissions since 2007
So it is possible to drastically reduce our carbon footprint thanks to innovation and smarter power generation.
Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation, and potentially apply immigration quotas to citizens of these countries.
> In France they implemented a modest fuel tax and they got the Yellow Vest Protests
The thing with fuel taxes is that, well, it doesn't help anyone. The poor single mother living and working in an area without great transit option will still have to rely on her car. Is the new tax going to help her afford an electric one or will it just contributes to some underperforming bureaucrat's pension fund?
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emissions-on-a-per-capita-basis-report-finds.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emis...
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states
[2] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china
- gizmondo 5y agoWhy would you compare derivatives and not absolute values when designating who is "actively working against the environment"? Objectively US is polluting way more per capita.
- 908B64B197 5y agoDerivatives shows trajectories.
- gizmondo 5y agoObviously, so what? If you have a shop-lifter who stole 100$ worth of goods last year and 200$ this year and a fraudster who stole 100000$ last year and measly 50000$ this year, you wouldn't say that the first one is a hardened criminal and the second is an upstanding citizen, would you? Get on your high horse when US is polluting at least less than others, otherwise it makes no sense.
- 908B64B197 5y agoExcept the orders of magnitudes you are suggesting are nowhere near the current situation regarding CO2 emissions. We're talking about 16T per capita in the US vs almost 7T in China. So it's more like Stealing 200$ vs 100$.
- rixed 5y agoOnly because the CO2 emitted by producing then exporting the goods that are eventually consumed elsewhere are accounted on China rather than on wherever they are consumed, right? Or has Chinese lifestyle become more wasteful than US'?
- rocknor 5y agoYet more anti-China western propaganda. You can criticize China for many issues, but this isn't one of them. You have to look at facts. You can't just look at absolute emissions per capita, you need to look at consumption-based emissions: https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$line$data$filter$dimensions$country$country$/$in@=usa&=chn&=che&=can&=fra&=gbr&=deu&=aus&=ind;;;;;;&encoding$y$data$concept=consumption_emissions_tonnes_per_person&space@=country&=time;;&scale$type=linear&domain:null&zoomed:null;;&frame$value=2017;;;;;&chart-type=linechart&url=v1 https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$line$data$fi... https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/eys0iw/per_capita_co2_emissions_based_on_consumption_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/eys0iw/per... I don't see any such "trajectory" that you mention.