3 ms·

You are looking at the acceleration but without looking at the initial state. A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting USA 14.3 t, Chi

by abrezas 1mo ago

You are looking at the acceleration but without looking at the initial state. A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting USA 14.3 t, China 8.8 t, EU 5.5 t, India 2.2 t

TacticalCoder 1mo ago
> A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting We don't care about that notion of "fair": the cold hart truth is that China has 1.4 billon people. Another way to put it: China has one billion more people than there are in the US. Or another way to put it: 4.1x more people. Which means China is emitting nearly 3x more Co2 than the US. Our only hope is that China is using coal and fossil fuels only has a mean to sustain its insane growth while they transition to solar and nuclear (which they also do, at an amazing speed). Hillbillies and redneck with their gigantic pick-up trucks in the US are really the least of worries.
- mitthrowaway2 1mo ago
  Solution to save the environment: China should separate out Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia as separate independent countries. Hong Kong and Macao too. And then split north-south so that Shanghai and Beijing become their own capitals. Continue this process and eventually the population and emissions of each individual country will be low enough that they can be ignored, thus solving the problem once and for all.
  - edflsafoiewq 1mo ago
    That is the opposite of what GP said. The point is only the total emissions matter, the climate does not care about "fair" allocations over either people or nation-states.
    - tzs 1mo ago
      That's a pointless point, because any system to actually control emissions requires allocating them to nation-states, because it is nation-states that actually enforce things on people.
    - onraglanroad 1mo ago
      No, it's exactly what the GP said: per capita doesn't matter, it's just the size of the country. So split the country up fixes the problem. Yes, it's dumb, but you agreed with it...
- piva00 1mo ago
  The EU has more people than the USA but emits 1/3 of the USA's, what's the exceptionalist excuse for that?
  - toddy_flogsit 1mo ago
    well, yes we're overfed and over-commercialized. But we also vastly out build, grow and produce Europe. (and you have more people)
    - piva00 1mo ago
      If using simple metrics like GDP growth, I'm more in the camp of Paul Krugman's argument[0] that such comparisons with simple naïve metrics are insufficient to analyse it. I agree the USA has grown more steadily than the EU and the American software/tech industries have a leg up but the devil is in the details. I travel a lot for work to the USA and I do not experience what this GDP growth has brought to the US in the past 10-15 years: infrastructure in general is worse (worse airports, worse roads, etc.), urban life is worse, rural life is worse, quality of food is worse. [0] https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/europe-v-america-whos-really-winning https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/europe-v-america-whos-rea...
      - toddy_flogsit 1mo ago
        [flagged]
  - drnick1 1mo ago
    [flagged]
    - piva00 1mo ago
      Did I offend you by asking a question?
    - phartenfeller 1mo ago
      We have a meltdown, maybe we can extract clean energy from here
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
Muromec 1mo ago
The only relevant metric is ppm in the atmosphere. Every single other, especially per capita ones are distructioo
- tzs 1mo ago
  That is both completely right and completely wrong. It is right because all the planet cares about is the amount in the atmosphere. It is completely wrong because whatever total amount X of CO2 emissions we decide we need to limit humanity to, we have to somehow allocate that CO2 emission budget to people. Unless you can make a good case that some people have some sort of natural or divine right to a bigger share than others the only way to do it is for every person to have the same share. (Maybe on top of that there can be some system of trading, so that people whose emissions go toward things that the world finds more useful can trade for a bigger share, but it would still have to start from everyone is equal). Since it is countries that would be the ones actually enforcing whatever the limit is, the country effectively ends up as the entity in charge of the shares of all its population, making the allocation at the country level equal on a per capita basis between countries. Another way to see that anything other than per capita is nonsense is that anything else would allow groups of people to manipulate their allocation by splitting the country into multiple countries or merging multiple countries into one.
  - OroPla 1mo ago
    > the only way to do it is for every person to have the same share That is not a very good idea. Think about it, just breeding more people would give humanity a bigger share. Much better to let every square mile (or some other arbitrary region) have a share and divide that among the people living there. Higher population density would translate to less shares per person.
    - tzs 1mo ago
      Under per person the amount per person is the total amount we decide is acceptable for humanity to emit. Breeding more people doesn’t change the total. It just reduces the amount each person is allowed.

by abrezas 1mo ago

You are looking at the acceleration but without looking at the initial state. A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting USA 14.3 t, China 8.8 t, EU 5.5 t, India 2.2 t

TacticalCoder 1mo ago

> A more fair metric would be Co2 emissions/person and I’m getting We don't care about that notion of "fair": the cold hart truth is that China has 1.4 billon people. Another way to put it: China has one billion more people than there are in the US. Or another way to put it: 4.1x more people. Which means China is emitting nearly 3x more Co2 than the US. Our only hope is that China is using coal and fossil fuels only has a mean to sustain its insane growth while they transition to solar and nuclear (which they also do, at an amazing speed). Hillbillies and redneck with their gigantic pick-up trucks in the US are really the least of worries.

mitthrowaway2 1mo ago
Solution to save the environment: China should separate out Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia as separate independent countries. Hong Kong and Macao too. And then split north-south so that Shanghai and Beijing become their own capitals. Continue this process and eventually the population and emissions of each individual country will be low enough that they can be ignored, thus solving the problem once and for all.
- edflsafoiewq 1mo ago
  That is the opposite of what GP said. The point is only the total emissions matter, the climate does not care about "fair" allocations over either people or nation-states.
  - tzs 1mo ago
    That's a pointless point, because any system to actually control emissions requires allocating them to nation-states, because it is nation-states that actually enforce things on people.
  - onraglanroad 1mo ago
    No, it's exactly what the GP said: per capita doesn't matter, it's just the size of the country. So split the country up fixes the problem. Yes, it's dumb, but you agreed with it...
piva00 1mo ago
The EU has more people than the USA but emits 1/3 of the USA's, what's the exceptionalist excuse for that?
- toddy_flogsit 1mo ago
  well, yes we're overfed and over-commercialized. But we also vastly out build, grow and produce Europe. (and you have more people)
  - piva00 1mo ago
    If using simple metrics like GDP growth, I'm more in the camp of Paul Krugman's argument[0] that such comparisons with simple naïve metrics are insufficient to analyse it. I agree the USA has grown more steadily than the EU and the American software/tech industries have a leg up but the devil is in the details. I travel a lot for work to the USA and I do not experience what this GDP growth has brought to the US in the past 10-15 years: infrastructure in general is worse (worse airports, worse roads, etc.), urban life is worse, rural life is worse, quality of food is worse. [0] https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/europe-v-america-whos-really-winning https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/europe-v-america-whos-rea...
    - toddy_flogsit 1mo ago
      [flagged]
- drnick1 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  - piva00 1mo ago
    Did I offend you by asking a question?
  - phartenfeller 1mo ago
    We have a meltdown, maybe we can extract clean energy from here

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

Muromec 1mo ago

The only relevant metric is ppm in the atmosphere. Every single other, especially per capita ones are distructioo

tzs 1mo ago
That is both completely right and completely wrong. It is right because all the planet cares about is the amount in the atmosphere. It is completely wrong because whatever total amount X of CO2 emissions we decide we need to limit humanity to, we have to somehow allocate that CO2 emission budget to people. Unless you can make a good case that some people have some sort of natural or divine right to a bigger share than others the only way to do it is for every person to have the same share. (Maybe on top of that there can be some system of trading, so that people whose emissions go toward things that the world finds more useful can trade for a bigger share, but it would still have to start from everyone is equal). Since it is countries that would be the ones actually enforcing whatever the limit is, the country effectively ends up as the entity in charge of the shares of all its population, making the allocation at the country level equal on a per capita basis between countries. Another way to see that anything other than per capita is nonsense is that anything else would allow groups of people to manipulate their allocation by splitting the country into multiple countries or merging multiple countries into one.
- OroPla 1mo ago
  > the only way to do it is for every person to have the same share That is not a very good idea. Think about it, just breeding more people would give humanity a bigger share. Much better to let every square mile (or some other arbitrary region) have a share and divide that among the people living there. Higher population density would translate to less shares per person.
  - tzs 1mo ago
    Under per person the amount per person is the total amount we decide is acceptable for humanity to emit. Breeding more people doesn’t change the total. It just reduces the amount each person is allowed.