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Taking it seriously and addressing involves making a global list of biggest polluters and adopting policies that will make them unprofitable, making less CO2-in

Taking it seriously and addressing involves making a global list of biggest polluters and adopting policies that will make them unprofitable, making less CO2-intense alternatives more competitive. The biggest polluter isn't the US. Most of it comes from China because they don't give a damn, and a lot if it can be addressed by making physical goods last longer and be more repairable. Except, every repair initiative gets quietly swept under the rug. And we're not even considering banning imports and producing things domestically. Instead, we keep coming up with policies that make consumers busy, degrade their life quality, and have marginal effect on the actual amount of CO2 produced. Oh, that, and call everyone who disagrees magatards.

defrost 3y ago
The biggest polluter isn't the US. It's been outsourced to China because they make what the west demands. A lot if it can be addressed by having western countries order more costly physical goods that last longer and are more repairable. Per Capita the US remains a leading consumer nation and one that sets an example, that example being to outsource problems and waste.
- matrix_overload 3y ago
  >A lot if it can be addressed by having western countries order more costly physical goods that last longer and are more repairable. I would love, LOVE to see that. Together with more local production, repair industry with middle-class jobs, and overall education of people on how to take good care of what they own. Except, how many green activists have you seen actually suggesting it? The solutions proposed so far: * Have fewer kids * Eat less meat * Suffer with no A/C * Rent an apartment instead of owning a house * Don't drive outside, sit at home * Don't use plastic bags and straws All of these lower life quality of regular people, are not even in the top 10 of biggest polluters, and often angled towards more wealth transfer to the corporations (like less kids => lower salary expectations). I think, it's a reasonable, rational and well-informed choice to not agree with, and not support these policies.
  - wyre 3y ago
    Add biking or taking public transit instead of driving and not flying in planes as well. Having fewer kids, eating less meat, using human powered or public transport instead of cars or planes are the biggest things individuals can do to lower their personal emissions. Also everything you listed are things nearly everyone can do. Creating local production and improving our repair industry are pipe dreams that go against the current capitalist mindset. It’s a tired argument that these things lower our quality of life: we are all going to die to global warming because we wont stop abusing fossil fuels to selfishly maintain our quality of life.
    - matrix_overload 3y ago
      That's just not fair. "Sorry, honey, I need more drinking money, so the biggest thing you can do to optimize the family budget, is wear second-hand clothes and eat at soup kitchen". Screw that, I'm not sacrificing my lifestyle for their profits. >It’s a tired argument that these things lower our quality of life: we are all going to die to global warming because we wont stop abusing fossil fuels to selfishly maintain our quality of life. Nope, you are being used. If the rich seriously thought that we are all going to die in our lifetimes, they would not be having kids and buying waterfront properties. Nope, they don't think so. They created the whole sense of panic and urgency, so you would not be asking them why you can't afford kids, house and a healthy assortment of gourmet meats, but would instead go after people like me who do not buy into the BS. You need to be skeptical, look what people actually do (rather than say), and who owns the people that say things that influence you.
      - wyre 3y ago
        Nothing is fair. Stop being selfish. The absurdly wealthy showcase sociopathic tendencies and will choose things in their self interest at the expense of the rest of us. Doing something because the opulent does will only create a tragedy of the commons that will only accelerate the death knell of global warming and climate catastrophe. I have no control over the actions of oligarchs (besides voting) but I have control over mine.
    - 3y ago
- noduerme 3y ago
  The US still hasn't come to grips with the fact that half of the countries in Latin America are practically failed states as a result of our country's drug addiction. Good luck getting Americans to blame themselves for the environmental damage caused by their consumer-goods dealers. Out of sight, out of mind. As usual, the only solution in grasp is really demand-side. What is really frustrating is the fact that tariffs on foreign goods (produced under inhumane conditions and without environmental regulations) are still widely rejected by the new (non-labor, middle class, supposedly ecologically conscious) Left, while the revanchist Right and the old Union Left are both okay with them. Why can't our trade policy both benefit American labor and serve an environmental purpose?
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    It isn’t just our drug addiction problem (which is increasingly being sourced from China these days), but we also provide them with lots of guns.
    - noduerme 3y ago
      drugs & guns are both fine, if people are able to control themselves. In a society where self control and common purpose are valued, the ability to tolerate all views is a strength. Trouble is that the underlying set of ethics has been obliterated, so you're left with rights that don't pertain to the people who have inherited them.
- klabb3 3y ago
  Yeah but even that doesn’t explain the extent of US uniquely high emissions. The US has close to 2x per-capita CO2 emissions than China even without adjusting for export. The only ones beating North America are small petro-states like Saudi and Bahrain.
  - defrost 3y ago
    I'm well aware "my comment" falls short of the full story. It's best read as a minor edit of a portion of the comment above mine.
- dirtyid 3y ago
  TBH bigger issue is bulk of new emissions is going to come from ~7B (85% of global pop) poor people from global south who all want to develop and own their own refrigerators, air conditioners etc. Value engineering cheap consumer goods so they can have it ASAP is more important. Frankly budget models without basic features in countries with low labour costs actually get fixed/repaired because it's economically viable. But really physical goods pretty small slice of pie considering construction/building operations, transportation and heavy industries.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png
tzs 3y ago
> The biggest polluter isn't the US. Most of it comes from China because they don't give a damn, and a lot if it can be addressed by making physical goods last longer and be more repairable. If you are going to compare countries you have to do it per capita because the environment does not care about arbitrary political boundaries. If you allocate allowed emissions per country instead of per capita, with each country getting a 1/N share of the Earth's total allowed CO2 emissions where N is the number of countries, then a country that is feeling constrained by that could split into two countries. Everyone's new share is 1/(N+1) but the former residents of the pre-split country now get to individually emit almost twice as much without putting their new country over its quota. Of course other countries will figure out that trick too. In the limit it reduces to a world of 8 billion countries each with 1 person, and then is indistinguishable from per capita allocation.
- princeb 3y ago
  it could be more advantageous for china to, say, negotiate emissions and environmental agreements through multiple political groupings - like NE china, south china, and west china for example, and treat them as separate countries in a union.
- matrix_overload 3y ago
  Then we would also need to look at the heating costs, food quality, mobility and life expectancy. If we force everyone to go run with a bare arse in a jungle and die from a snake bite at age 40 on average, we'll get the number low, but I don't think it's the future you would want. A more reasonable approach would be grouping by use case (production, shipping, construction, agriculture, commuting, etc) and addressing the highest contributors. But again, it's a billion-dollar industry vs. Average Joe with a plastic straw.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    > go run with a bare arse in a jungle and die from a snake bite at age 40 on average That's the future selfish and short-sighted attitudes like yours will lead us to.
- 3y ago
endisneigh 3y ago
> The biggest polluter isn't the US. Most of it comes from China because they don't give a damn, and a lot if it can be addressed by making physical goods last longer and be more repairable. The fact people say these sort of things with a straight face without any context is why we will never get anywhere
- matrix_overload 3y ago
  I would argue the we won't get anywhere because the real biggest sources of pollution have billion-dollar businesses behind them, that employ armies of lawyers, lobbyists and PR people. And they have been successfully redirecting the public attention into performative, but effectively useless forms that do not pose a threat to their bottom line.
  - thejazzman 3y ago
    People have all the power. It's too bad they don't realize it and repeat the other phrase. There's a reason they don't want us to assemble. Ugh now I'm on a list.
    - yetihehe 3y ago
      Problem is, most people do not assemble by themselves. They need some leaders to assemble. That leaders will have better life by not trying to assemble mobs in order to fight people who provide some luxuries in life (like refridgerators etc). This could be of course solved if our current "elites" were not decadent and would listen to people. But because most people got enough luxury to be content, they didn't care about who they vote for and gruadually we've voted in selfish sociopaths to positions of power, which eroded trust in those at power, now no one trusts that anyone voted in will change anything. The result according to historians is strong authoritarian leader (the hero who will change everything), but those are rarely working for public good and people with weak education due to declining societal standards will not know how to choose properly.
matthewdgreen 3y ago
Wind and solar deployments are increasing exponentially. Except this was delayed for years because the previous administration blocked new wind installations (undone, for the moment) and put tariffs on solar panels. I don't know if we're going to survive what's coming. I do know that all it would take is a few more years of this kind of terrible leadership to end any chance at all.
dirtyid 3y ago
>a lot if it Physical goods pretty small slice of pie considering construction/building operations, transportation and heavy industries. Reality is 7B people in poor countries emissions will massively explode as they develop. Having a few billion slightly more durable refrigerators is relatively minor consideration to the billions tons of concrete that's going to be poured for new infra. There aren't any international body nor transnational coersive policies that's going to make poor shift away from budget CO2 intense methods/goods. Growing developing countries aren't going to wait to buy more expensive durable goods if it improves their QoL, they'll get that budget AC for relief as soon as they can afford it. Which leaves subsidies/funding, but no one (especially the west) going to fund developing world infra on scale that matters when infra at home sucks. Consumer goods producers aren't going to abandon emerging markets, and TBH it's more important for poor people to increase consumption and improve QoL sooner than not. Civilization better off when it's +5 warm but everyone has AC, than when it's +2 warm but only some have AC. Unless +5 warm spirals us into extinction, at which it's survival of fittest/geographic luckiest.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
China isn’t the biggest polluter per capita, that’s probably some small middle Eastern country that really doesn’t give a damn. Americans consume a lot, which is where their carbon footprint comes from. Chinese still don’t consume as much, and so don’t pollute as much, as Americans. Is that really fair? The Chinese don’t think so, and despite how much I dislike the CPC, I see no reason to disagree.
RicDan 3y ago
Ah yes, the good old "why should I change he is much worse!" I guess it was a good run fellow humans, or to say it in online gaming terms: "bg skill issue"
AlchemistCamp 3y ago
Yes. China is a bigger polluter than America, India, the EU and Japan combined. It’s also rapidly increasing whereas the second largest polluter, the US, is now down to 1979 levels of total pollution and 1912 levels on a per capita basis: https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/1686136305519050752 https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/1686136305519050752 Any kind of global warming plan that doesn’t include China is useless.
- myshpa 3y ago
  No. That's too simplified, and just looking at the current annual emissions. https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Annual-CO2-emissions-Treemap-1.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Annual-CO2-emissi... But look at global emissions to know who has contributed the most. https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-treemap.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-tr... Global CO2 without traded goods: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/10/CO2-emissions-by-income-and-region-768x774.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/10/CO2-emissions-by-... Those graphs you've posted are from https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions I recommend spending some time there yourself. Notice, that China's emissions started in 1980's when we've started offshoring our production there. Look at per capita graphs. Make your own picture. https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png (from https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-inequality-in-2030-per-capita-consumption-emissions-and-the-15c-goal-621305/ https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-inequalit...) While I don't think that China's without problems, they take global warming much more seriously than US or Europe does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_use_figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_... (for example)
  - AlchemistCamp 3y ago
    > Notice, that China's emissions started in 1980's when we've started offshoring our production there. Look at per capita graphs. See the third image from the economist I linked to in the comment you're responding to. It's a common misunderstanding that the pollution reduction in the US is largely due to offshoring polluting activity, but it's not true. If it were, the gap between production vs consumption-based CO2 would be large. > But look at global emissions to know who has contributed the most. > https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-tr https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-tr... Keep in mind that humans have never created as CO2 emissions at as fast of a rate as in the past year and that no country has ever produced as much as the PRC has in the past year. Sharing graphs from 6 years ago, as you did, grossly distorts the situation we face in 2023. Furthermore the graph starts before the US or the PRC even existed! While I can understand how it may satisfy curiosity to examine pollution that happened hundreds of years ago in various parts of the earth, it's utterly irrelevant to solving climate issues facing humanity in the present day.

defrost 3y ago

The biggest polluter isn't the US. It's been outsourced to China because they make what the west demands. A lot if it can be addressed by having western countries order more costly physical goods that last longer and are more repairable. Per Capita the US remains a leading consumer nation and one that sets an example, that example being to outsource problems and waste.

matrix_overload 3y ago
>A lot if it can be addressed by having western countries order more costly physical goods that last longer and are more repairable. I would love, LOVE to see that. Together with more local production, repair industry with middle-class jobs, and overall education of people on how to take good care of what they own. Except, how many green activists have you seen actually suggesting it? The solutions proposed so far: * Have fewer kids * Eat less meat * Suffer with no A/C * Rent an apartment instead of owning a house * Don't drive outside, sit at home * Don't use plastic bags and straws All of these lower life quality of regular people, are not even in the top 10 of biggest polluters, and often angled towards more wealth transfer to the corporations (like less kids => lower salary expectations). I think, it's a reasonable, rational and well-informed choice to not agree with, and not support these policies.
- wyre 3y ago
  Add biking or taking public transit instead of driving and not flying in planes as well. Having fewer kids, eating less meat, using human powered or public transport instead of cars or planes are the biggest things individuals can do to lower their personal emissions. Also everything you listed are things nearly everyone can do. Creating local production and improving our repair industry are pipe dreams that go against the current capitalist mindset. It’s a tired argument that these things lower our quality of life: we are all going to die to global warming because we wont stop abusing fossil fuels to selfishly maintain our quality of life.
  - matrix_overload 3y ago
    That's just not fair. "Sorry, honey, I need more drinking money, so the biggest thing you can do to optimize the family budget, is wear second-hand clothes and eat at soup kitchen". Screw that, I'm not sacrificing my lifestyle for their profits. >It’s a tired argument that these things lower our quality of life: we are all going to die to global warming because we wont stop abusing fossil fuels to selfishly maintain our quality of life. Nope, you are being used. If the rich seriously thought that we are all going to die in our lifetimes, they would not be having kids and buying waterfront properties. Nope, they don't think so. They created the whole sense of panic and urgency, so you would not be asking them why you can't afford kids, house and a healthy assortment of gourmet meats, but would instead go after people like me who do not buy into the BS. You need to be skeptical, look what people actually do (rather than say), and who owns the people that say things that influence you.
    - wyre 3y ago
      Nothing is fair. Stop being selfish. The absurdly wealthy showcase sociopathic tendencies and will choose things in their self interest at the expense of the rest of us. Doing something because the opulent does will only create a tragedy of the commons that will only accelerate the death knell of global warming and climate catastrophe. I have no control over the actions of oligarchs (besides voting) but I have control over mine.
  - 3y ago
noduerme 3y ago
The US still hasn't come to grips with the fact that half of the countries in Latin America are practically failed states as a result of our country's drug addiction. Good luck getting Americans to blame themselves for the environmental damage caused by their consumer-goods dealers. Out of sight, out of mind. As usual, the only solution in grasp is really demand-side. What is really frustrating is the fact that tariffs on foreign goods (produced under inhumane conditions and without environmental regulations) are still widely rejected by the new (non-labor, middle class, supposedly ecologically conscious) Left, while the revanchist Right and the old Union Left are both okay with them. Why can't our trade policy both benefit American labor and serve an environmental purpose?
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  It isn’t just our drug addiction problem (which is increasingly being sourced from China these days), but we also provide them with lots of guns.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    drugs & guns are both fine, if people are able to control themselves. In a society where self control and common purpose are valued, the ability to tolerate all views is a strength. Trouble is that the underlying set of ethics has been obliterated, so you're left with rights that don't pertain to the people who have inherited them.
klabb3 3y ago
Yeah but even that doesn’t explain the extent of US uniquely high emissions. The US has close to 2x per-capita CO2 emissions than China even without adjusting for export. The only ones beating North America are small petro-states like Saudi and Bahrain.
- defrost 3y ago
  I'm well aware "my comment" falls short of the full story. It's best read as a minor edit of a portion of the comment above mine.
dirtyid 3y ago
TBH bigger issue is bulk of new emissions is going to come from ~7B (85% of global pop) poor people from global south who all want to develop and own their own refrigerators, air conditioners etc. Value engineering cheap consumer goods so they can have it ASAP is more important. Frankly budget models without basic features in countries with low labour costs actually get fixed/repaired because it's economically viable. But really physical goods pretty small slice of pie considering construction/building operations, transportation and heavy industries.
- myshpa 3y ago
  https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png

tzs 3y ago

> The biggest polluter isn't the US. Most of it comes from China because they don't give a damn, and a lot if it can be addressed by making physical goods last longer and be more repairable. If you are going to compare countries you have to do it per capita because the environment does not care about arbitrary political boundaries. If you allocate allowed emissions per country instead of per capita, with each country getting a 1/N share of the Earth's total allowed CO2 emissions where N is the number of countries, then a country that is feeling constrained by that could split into two countries. Everyone's new share is 1/(N+1) but the former residents of the pre-split country now get to individually emit almost twice as much without putting their new country over its quota. Of course other countries will figure out that trick too. In the limit it reduces to a world of 8 billion countries each with 1 person, and then is indistinguishable from per capita allocation.

princeb 3y ago
it could be more advantageous for china to, say, negotiate emissions and environmental agreements through multiple political groupings - like NE china, south china, and west china for example, and treat them as separate countries in a union.
matrix_overload 3y ago
Then we would also need to look at the heating costs, food quality, mobility and life expectancy. If we force everyone to go run with a bare arse in a jungle and die from a snake bite at age 40 on average, we'll get the number low, but I don't think it's the future you would want. A more reasonable approach would be grouping by use case (production, shipping, construction, agriculture, commuting, etc) and addressing the highest contributors. But again, it's a billion-dollar industry vs. Average Joe with a plastic straw.
- myshpa 3y ago
  > go run with a bare arse in a jungle and die from a snake bite at age 40 on average That's the future selfish and short-sighted attitudes like yours will lead us to.
3y ago

endisneigh 3y ago

matrix_overload 3y ago
I would argue the we won't get anywhere because the real biggest sources of pollution have billion-dollar businesses behind them, that employ armies of lawyers, lobbyists and PR people. And they have been successfully redirecting the public attention into performative, but effectively useless forms that do not pose a threat to their bottom line.
- thejazzman 3y ago
  People have all the power. It's too bad they don't realize it and repeat the other phrase. There's a reason they don't want us to assemble. Ugh now I'm on a list.
  - yetihehe 3y ago
    Problem is, most people do not assemble by themselves. They need some leaders to assemble. That leaders will have better life by not trying to assemble mobs in order to fight people who provide some luxuries in life (like refridgerators etc). This could be of course solved if our current "elites" were not decadent and would listen to people. But because most people got enough luxury to be content, they didn't care about who they vote for and gruadually we've voted in selfish sociopaths to positions of power, which eroded trust in those at power, now no one trusts that anyone voted in will change anything. The result according to historians is strong authoritarian leader (the hero who will change everything), but those are rarely working for public good and people with weak education due to declining societal standards will not know how to choose properly.

matthewdgreen 3y ago

Wind and solar deployments are increasing exponentially. Except this was delayed for years because the previous administration blocked new wind installations (undone, for the moment) and put tariffs on solar panels. I don't know if we're going to survive what's coming. I do know that all it would take is a few more years of this kind of terrible leadership to end any chance at all.

dirtyid 3y ago

>a lot if it Physical goods pretty small slice of pie considering construction/building operations, transportation and heavy industries. Reality is 7B people in poor countries emissions will massively explode as they develop. Having a few billion slightly more durable refrigerators is relatively minor consideration to the billions tons of concrete that's going to be poured for new infra. There aren't any international body nor transnational coersive policies that's going to make poor shift away from budget CO2 intense methods/goods. Growing developing countries aren't going to wait to buy more expensive durable goods if it improves their QoL, they'll get that budget AC for relief as soon as they can afford it. Which leaves subsidies/funding, but no one (especially the west) going to fund developing world infra on scale that matters when infra at home sucks. Consumer goods producers aren't going to abandon emerging markets, and TBH it's more important for poor people to increase consumption and improve QoL sooner than not. Civilization better off when it's +5 warm but everyone has AC, than when it's +2 warm but only some have AC. Unless +5 warm spirals us into extinction, at which it's survival of fittest/geographic luckiest.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

China isn’t the biggest polluter per capita, that’s probably some small middle Eastern country that really doesn’t give a damn. Americans consume a lot, which is where their carbon footprint comes from. Chinese still don’t consume as much, and so don’t pollute as much, as Americans. Is that really fair? The Chinese don’t think so, and despite how much I dislike the CPC, I see no reason to disagree.

RicDan 3y ago

Ah yes, the good old "why should I change he is much worse!" I guess it was a good run fellow humans, or to say it in online gaming terms: "bg skill issue"

AlchemistCamp 3y ago

Yes. China is a bigger polluter than America, India, the EU and Japan combined. It’s also rapidly increasing whereas the second largest polluter, the US, is now down to 1979 levels of total pollution and 1912 levels on a per capita basis: https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/1686136305519050752 https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/1686136305519050752 Any kind of global warming plan that doesn’t include China is useless.

myshpa 3y ago
No. That's too simplified, and just looking at the current annual emissions. https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Annual-CO2-emissions-Treemap-1.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Annual-CO2-emissi... But look at global emissions to know who has contributed the most. https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-treemap.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-tr... Global CO2 without traded goods: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/10/CO2-emissions-by-income-and-region-768x774.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/10/CO2-emissions-by-... Those graphs you've posted are from https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions I recommend spending some time there yourself. Notice, that China's emissions started in 1980's when we've started offshoring our production there. Look at per capita graphs. Make your own picture. https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png (from https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-inequality-in-2030-per-capita-consumption-emissions-and-the-15c-goal-621305/ https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-inequalit...) While I don't think that China's without problems, they take global warming much more seriously than US or Europe does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_use_figures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_... (for example)
- AlchemistCamp 3y ago
  > Notice, that China's emissions started in 1980's when we've started offshoring our production there. Look at per capita graphs. See the third image from the economist I linked to in the comment you're responding to. It's a common misunderstanding that the pollution reduction in the US is largely due to offshoring polluting activity, but it's not true. If it were, the gap between production vs consumption-based CO2 would be large. > But look at global emissions to know who has contributed the most. > https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-tr https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-tr... Keep in mind that humans have never created as CO2 emissions at as fast of a rate as in the past year and that no country has ever produced as much as the PRC has in the past year. Sharing graphs from 6 years ago, as you did, grossly distorts the situation we face in 2023. Furthermore the graph starts before the US or the PRC even existed! While I can understand how it may satisfy curiosity to examine pollution that happened hundreds of years ago in various parts of the earth, it's utterly irrelevant to solving climate issues facing humanity in the present day.