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How well do you think it will work to try to pressure China into cutting their emissions before you've made at least some effort to clean up your own? Effort do

by gmac 5y ago

How well do you think it will work to try to pressure China into cutting their emissions before you've made at least some effort to clean up your own? Effort done here is not worthless at all.

guest159835 5y ago
Sure, let's ignore China. China’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Exceeded the Developed World: https://rhg.com/research/chinas-emissions-surpass-developed-countries/ https://rhg.com/research/chinas-emissions-surpass-developed-...
- gmac 5y ago
  I'm not ignoring China. I'm saying: if you're asking China to change its behaviour, I doubt you'll get very far unless you begin by showing willing to change your behaviour too. Let's take some other anti-social behaviour as an analogy. Imagine person A is in their car, idling their engine, outside an elementary school at pick-up time[1]. Now imagine person B comes up and asks them to stop. How well do you think that works if person B gets out of a car which is also idling its engine when they come and make the request? Your argument seems to be that person B's car is smaller. I don't think that helps much, but it's also not in any meaningful way true. China's emissions are large only because China is large. Per-capita emissions are what matter here (otherwise it would solve the problem of China being a large emitter if China were to split itself into a dozen smaller countries — which is clearly nonsensical). China's per-capita emissions are less than half those of the US[2], and some of them are emitted in producing goods for export to the US. [1] I live opposite an elementary school, and this is sadly not unusual. [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC
- NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
  I guess it is complex issue, especially as most of the goods we import from Chine so in the sense we have outsourced our CO2 to China, it would be excellent if they could switch 100% renewable, and recently I read news that they are close with Thorium reactors... so, I guess they working on it but as everywhere else progress is not as fast as we need it to be...
avereveard 5y ago
I've been recycling, downsizing and cutting waste the last thirty years, all the while industry just moved around to sidestep legislation, in a two punch combo of increasing the local cost of living and destroying the local economy, so fuck that, effort done here had been worthless globally and damaging locally.
- gmac 5y ago
  The "you" in my comment is intended at country level. It basically means: your elected representatives. It's true that individual actions to help the climate may not help a lot, immediately and in practical terms, if there's no bigger policy movement. Then again, seeing that people are willing to take costly individual actions is a strong signal to elected representatives that their electors care about this stuff. So it still may not be worthless.

by gmac 5y ago

How well do you think it will work to try to pressure China into cutting their emissions before you've made at least some effort to clean up your own? Effort done here is not worthless at all.

guest159835 5y ago

Sure, let's ignore China. China’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Exceeded the Developed World: https://rhg.com/research/chinas-emissions-surpass-developed-countries/ https://rhg.com/research/chinas-emissions-surpass-developed-...

gmac 5y ago
I'm not ignoring China. I'm saying: if you're asking China to change its behaviour, I doubt you'll get very far unless you begin by showing willing to change your behaviour too. Let's take some other anti-social behaviour as an analogy. Imagine person A is in their car, idling their engine, outside an elementary school at pick-up time[1]. Now imagine person B comes up and asks them to stop. How well do you think that works if person B gets out of a car which is also idling its engine when they come and make the request? Your argument seems to be that person B's car is smaller. I don't think that helps much, but it's also not in any meaningful way true. China's emissions are large only because China is large. Per-capita emissions are what matter here (otherwise it would solve the problem of China being a large emitter if China were to split itself into a dozen smaller countries — which is clearly nonsensical). China's per-capita emissions are less than half those of the US[2], and some of them are emitted in producing goods for export to the US. [1] I live opposite an elementary school, and this is sadly not unusual. [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC
NiceWayToDoIT 5y ago
I guess it is complex issue, especially as most of the goods we import from Chine so in the sense we have outsourced our CO2 to China, it would be excellent if they could switch 100% renewable, and recently I read news that they are close with Thorium reactors... so, I guess they working on it but as everywhere else progress is not as fast as we need it to be...

avereveard 5y ago

I've been recycling, downsizing and cutting waste the last thirty years, all the while industry just moved around to sidestep legislation, in a two punch combo of increasing the local cost of living and destroying the local economy, so fuck that, effort done here had been worthless globally and damaging locally.

gmac 5y ago
The "you" in my comment is intended at country level. It basically means: your elected representatives. It's true that individual actions to help the climate may not help a lot, immediately and in practical terms, if there's no bigger policy movement. Then again, seeing that people are willing to take costly individual actions is a strong signal to elected representatives that their electors care about this stuff. So it still may not be worthless.