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Because "why not?" Do we understand that humanity includes Chinese people? Do we also understand A) the steps they're already taking to reduce emissions and B)

Because "why not?" Do we understand that humanity includes Chinese people? Do we also understand A) the steps they're already taking to reduce emissions and B) how much of their emissions historically and today are in service of Western consumers?

RugnirViking 1mo ago
i don't accept arguments in the form of B when its a business (our pollution is just serving our customers demand, its their moral responsibility to reduce consumption), and I also don't accept it in country form. centralisation makes centralised opporunity for change. You have all the power, and also all the responsibility.
- AlecSchueler 1mo ago
  > i don't accept arguments in the form of B Feel free to share why not. At the end of the China is still part of a global system dominated by capitalism and they have to play the markets game in order to survive. They could easily fully do things their own way but that would mean, for example, chance of private intellectual property, which would mean no WTO membership, which would mean massively reduced capacity for trade, which would put them at such a disadvantage they'd inevitably collapse.
  - RugnirViking 1mo ago
    I don't think you get to abdicate responsibilty of some avoidable negative externality of something you do just because some entirely separate function of it is the thing your customers want. If I were a plumber who fixed leaks by diverting the water into the customers' neighbors houses, my customers aren't the ones responsible for the damage it causes. I don't think it matters even if the externality isn't avoidable. I think people who sell murder-for-hire services are culpable of murder, even if they are paid by someone else If the argument were about slavery instead - slavery enables cheaper goods, ergo by buying our products, some of which were made using slavery, but we refuse to reveal which ones, but nonetheless by buying them you support slavery and are morally responsible for the slavery not us. Nobody would accept this framing. I agree that China has done very well from manufacturing and trade, and would not have done as well if they had not industrialised at a large scale. But that doesn't change the fact that industrialisation of this kind causes pollution and is damaging the planet and it especially doesn't mean that China has no moral obligation to do as much as it can to reduce emissions. I also don't believe the argument that the pollution is inherent to production, or that there is no way to satisfy demand without pollution. (or that china, specifically, derserves to be the one to profit from satisfying that demand). Production of almost all commodities can be done without massive emissions these days, and even when it couldn't, nobody was forced to ramp up production Someone will inevitably jump in here to point out that china makes a lot of solar or whatever. Sure, they do. They also make a lot of wind power. Their emissions per capita are trending in the wrong direction though. Europe's have been going DOWN since the 1970s, and china's are going UP. China's emissions per capita are roughly equal with the EU at the moment and are going up - pretty soon they will catch up and surpass the US.
    - lmz 1mo ago
      Re: emissions per capita - why should the Chinese be limited to a lower amount than the US citizens? They want a high standard of living too.
      - RugnirViking 1mo ago
        that might make sense in a world where the US has been chugging along emitting at a constant rate for many years, to maintain a certain standard of living.- but the reality is the US emissions has been going down for many years, while increasing their standard of living (arguable, but difficult to say that US standard of living is less than half of what it was in the 90s), while china is going up in emissions. I also don't agree that just because someone else became rich through some negative process (crime, perhaps), that everyone has a right to the same. This sort of thinking is the way the world burns. I don't get a free pass to behave like a mafia boss just because I really really want to have a bunch of money like one
        lmz 1mo ago
        There's a phrase for that "do as I say, not as I do" (see also: "pulling the ladder up"). This is rightly viewed as hypocritical by those on the receiving end.
        autoexec 1mo ago
        There's also the phrase "Now we know better". When the industrial revolution came to the US we were ignorant and we polluted the world like crazy because of that. Today, we've learned from that mistake. We now know that you can and must control the pollution factories spew out into the world, even though doing that cuts into corporate profits. China doesn't get a pass to pollute at historic US levels for their industrialization because they have the benefit of having learned from our mistakes. Rejecting the "No Fair! It's my turn to needlessly destroy the planet just to make myself richer!" argument isn't hypocrisy, it's just acknowledgement of history and the progress we've made in dealing with the problems we ran into while we were industrializing without the benefit of anyone else's past experience. China and every other developing country has already been benefiting enormously from the example of developed nations, but they want to cherry pick the things that maximize their wealth while ignoring everything else at the expense of every living thing on Earth. They want to point to the damage we caused while we were stumbling around in the dark with no idea where we were going, even though today the sun is shining and they've got all the maps we made and GPS to guide them.
- actionfromafar 1mo ago
  Centralisation also comes with upkeep necessary to maintain centralisation. The cost of that upkeep can severaly limit opportunity for change. If you are a dictator, staying in power is priority one, at the cost of everything else.
  - spwa4 1mo ago
    Don't worry China and propagandists will just lie about it. Just like people are doing here. In reality China is the main reason climate change got worse for the last 20 years. Ask ChatGPT who contributed to CO2 growth most in the past 20 years, Chinese industry was not just the biggest contributor to CO2 emission growth every year but most years bigger than everyone else combined. And the only real exception was 2020, when China shut down a lot faster for COVID, and a LOT more draconian, than everybody else. Also: China is STILL increasing coal use. STILL building new coal plants. Now, I get why (same reason even Germany is considering it), but that doesn't change the facts.
    - wlecometo 24d ago
      that's really looking at things in the worst possible way. China acquired most of the manufacture of the world, so yeah emission increased, the problem is that they did not decrease where the manifacture was lost. if you look at co2 emission per capita you can see how China is actually an example to follow, we can't say the same for USA, India or EU. you can ask this to chatgpt, or you could also ... search? for this data, it's publicly available. > China is STILL increasing coal use. STILL building new coal plants. this is misleading, yes they are building coal plants but not using them, that is the backup plan for "rainy days" . and the coal usage is going down.
drawnwren 1mo ago
China has never had a meaningful reduction in per capita carbon emissions. Ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita#/media/File:1850-_Annual_emission_of_carbon_dioxide_per_capita,_by_country.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- AlecSchueler 1mo ago
  What are you trying to say with this?
  - drawnwren 29d ago
    "steps to reduce emissions" is a platitude that sounds nice. they have never actually reduced emissions. they will surpass the US in per capita emissions at this rate within a decade.
    - defrost 29d ago
      They have a plan and they are sinking much of their current fossil fuel use into the largest renewable energy system on the planet. Compared to, say, rolling back windfarms and redirecting that money (almost a billion) into dodgy neighbours rolling coal ventures. Your prefer the US approach then?
      - deleted 29d ago
        [deleted]
      - drawnwren 29d ago
        This has always appeared to be a very measurable situation. Either one is committed to decreasing emissions or they are not. You can just measure emissions over time and compare. It has never made sense to me that people are willing to ignore the trends and argue in platitudes.

RugnirViking 1mo ago

i don't accept arguments in the form of B when its a business (our pollution is just serving our customers demand, its their moral responsibility to reduce consumption), and I also don't accept it in country form. centralisation makes centralised opporunity for change. You have all the power, and also all the responsibility.

AlecSchueler 1mo ago
> i don't accept arguments in the form of B Feel free to share why not. At the end of the China is still part of a global system dominated by capitalism and they have to play the markets game in order to survive. They could easily fully do things their own way but that would mean, for example, chance of private intellectual property, which would mean no WTO membership, which would mean massively reduced capacity for trade, which would put them at such a disadvantage they'd inevitably collapse.
- RugnirViking 1mo ago
  I don't think you get to abdicate responsibilty of some avoidable negative externality of something you do just because some entirely separate function of it is the thing your customers want. If I were a plumber who fixed leaks by diverting the water into the customers' neighbors houses, my customers aren't the ones responsible for the damage it causes. I don't think it matters even if the externality isn't avoidable. I think people who sell murder-for-hire services are culpable of murder, even if they are paid by someone else If the argument were about slavery instead - slavery enables cheaper goods, ergo by buying our products, some of which were made using slavery, but we refuse to reveal which ones, but nonetheless by buying them you support slavery and are morally responsible for the slavery not us. Nobody would accept this framing. I agree that China has done very well from manufacturing and trade, and would not have done as well if they had not industrialised at a large scale. But that doesn't change the fact that industrialisation of this kind causes pollution and is damaging the planet and it especially doesn't mean that China has no moral obligation to do as much as it can to reduce emissions. I also don't believe the argument that the pollution is inherent to production, or that there is no way to satisfy demand without pollution. (or that china, specifically, derserves to be the one to profit from satisfying that demand). Production of almost all commodities can be done without massive emissions these days, and even when it couldn't, nobody was forced to ramp up production Someone will inevitably jump in here to point out that china makes a lot of solar or whatever. Sure, they do. They also make a lot of wind power. Their emissions per capita are trending in the wrong direction though. Europe's have been going DOWN since the 1970s, and china's are going UP. China's emissions per capita are roughly equal with the EU at the moment and are going up - pretty soon they will catch up and surpass the US.
  - lmz 1mo ago
    Re: emissions per capita - why should the Chinese be limited to a lower amount than the US citizens? They want a high standard of living too.
    - RugnirViking 1mo ago
      that might make sense in a world where the US has been chugging along emitting at a constant rate for many years, to maintain a certain standard of living.- but the reality is the US emissions has been going down for many years, while increasing their standard of living (arguable, but difficult to say that US standard of living is less than half of what it was in the 90s), while china is going up in emissions. I also don't agree that just because someone else became rich through some negative process (crime, perhaps), that everyone has a right to the same. This sort of thinking is the way the world burns. I don't get a free pass to behave like a mafia boss just because I really really want to have a bunch of money like one
      - lmz 1mo ago
        There's a phrase for that "do as I say, not as I do" (see also: "pulling the ladder up"). This is rightly viewed as hypocritical by those on the receiving end.
        autoexec 1mo ago
        There's also the phrase "Now we know better". When the industrial revolution came to the US we were ignorant and we polluted the world like crazy because of that. Today, we've learned from that mistake. We now know that you can and must control the pollution factories spew out into the world, even though doing that cuts into corporate profits. China doesn't get a pass to pollute at historic US levels for their industrialization because they have the benefit of having learned from our mistakes. Rejecting the "No Fair! It's my turn to needlessly destroy the planet just to make myself richer!" argument isn't hypocrisy, it's just acknowledgement of history and the progress we've made in dealing with the problems we ran into while we were industrializing without the benefit of anyone else's past experience. China and every other developing country has already been benefiting enormously from the example of developed nations, but they want to cherry pick the things that maximize their wealth while ignoring everything else at the expense of every living thing on Earth. They want to point to the damage we caused while we were stumbling around in the dark with no idea where we were going, even though today the sun is shining and they've got all the maps we made and GPS to guide them.
actionfromafar 1mo ago
Centralisation also comes with upkeep necessary to maintain centralisation. The cost of that upkeep can severaly limit opportunity for change. If you are a dictator, staying in power is priority one, at the cost of everything else.
- spwa4 1mo ago
  Don't worry China and propagandists will just lie about it. Just like people are doing here. In reality China is the main reason climate change got worse for the last 20 years. Ask ChatGPT who contributed to CO2 growth most in the past 20 years, Chinese industry was not just the biggest contributor to CO2 emission growth every year but most years bigger than everyone else combined. And the only real exception was 2020, when China shut down a lot faster for COVID, and a LOT more draconian, than everybody else. Also: China is STILL increasing coal use. STILL building new coal plants. Now, I get why (same reason even Germany is considering it), but that doesn't change the facts.
  - wlecometo 24d ago
    that's really looking at things in the worst possible way. China acquired most of the manufacture of the world, so yeah emission increased, the problem is that they did not decrease where the manifacture was lost. if you look at co2 emission per capita you can see how China is actually an example to follow, we can't say the same for USA, India or EU. you can ask this to chatgpt, or you could also ... search? for this data, it's publicly available. > China is STILL increasing coal use. STILL building new coal plants. this is misleading, yes they are building coal plants but not using them, that is the backup plan for "rainy days" . and the coal usage is going down.

drawnwren 1mo ago

China has never had a meaningful reduction in per capita carbon emissions. Ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita#/media/File:1850-_Annual_emission_of_carbon_dioxide_per_capita,_by_country.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

AlecSchueler 1mo ago
What are you trying to say with this?
- drawnwren 29d ago
  "steps to reduce emissions" is a platitude that sounds nice. they have never actually reduced emissions. they will surpass the US in per capita emissions at this rate within a decade.
  - defrost 29d ago
    They have a plan and they are sinking much of their current fossil fuel use into the largest renewable energy system on the planet. Compared to, say, rolling back windfarms and redirecting that money (almost a billion) into dodgy neighbours rolling coal ventures. Your prefer the US approach then?
    - deleted 29d ago
      [deleted]
    - drawnwren 29d ago
      This has always appeared to be a very measurable situation. Either one is committed to decreasing emissions or they are not. You can just measure emissions over time and compare. It has never made sense to me that people are willing to ignore the trends and argue in platitudes.