EPTChina, US and the environment - Page 4
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23168 Posts
On September 08 2019 23:02 ShoCkeyy wrote: Can you back this claim up, or would you like to have a word with the forced laborers? I already did when IgnE doubted it, but sure. + Show Spoiler + On May 12 2018 14:38 GreenHorizons wrote: Well there's: and www.scmp.com But in the US: www.cnbc.com and money.cnn.com That's how I got there. https://tl.net/forum/general/532255-us-politics-mega-thread?page=189#3771 On September 08 2019 23:12 JimmiC wrote: And their carbon per capita increase is well over 100% in that time period. Which goes to my point that it is not a great measure unless your plan is to force your population to live in poverty. Which was the most efficiently it's ever been done. Also your point that people have to live in poverty doesn't follow since they are still dramatically under US or Canada's per capita despite that massive growth and comparable income and wealth distribution (and hundreds of millions less people under the national poverty line than you suggested). | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28640 Posts
On September 08 2019 22:43 JimmiC wrote: Wow. No it is not. You have too look at many factors including but not exclusively gdp, gdp per capita and so on. Also you cant only look at carbon. Then you have to look past the number and say "what is this country doing, and is it there things they are doing we can learn from". If the answer is something like China and having nearing a billion people living at or below the poverty line and a few super wealthy. Than that country would not be doing well environmentally. GDP period is a completely useless metric for estimating how wealthy a country is, while GDP per capita is a useful metric for estimating the same thing. For example if you ask people, yourself included, which country is richer, Norway or Nigeria, you, and they, will answer Norway. Nigeria however has a higher GDP (however per capita, we're something like 30 times higher). The notion that this somehow changes because it's 'pollution' and not 'money', because we live in countries with smaller populations that are richer (positive) and pollute (negative) more, we can choose that 'rich' is determined per capita while 'pollution' is determined by country, is ridiculous. Saying we can't only look at carbon, that's true. The environment faces a lot of different challenges, that need different approaches. I imagine rich western countries are better at waste management than poor development countries. But we are worse in terms of consumption. period.. The countries that are the most polluting are the countries that pollute the most per capita, just like the richest countries are the countries that are richest per capita. We evaluate everything when looking at how a population lives by looking at per capita, there's no reason why co2 emissions should be different. That there are other important elements to fighting climate change, yes. But looking at 2015 numbers, your average Indian is indeed about 1/10 as harmful, from an emissions perspective, as your average american, and thus should not bear any brunt in doing personal emissions cuttings (in fact he has to be permitted to increase his consumption to escape poverty), while the american guy, in my opinion, has a strong moral obligation to consume far less. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28640 Posts
On September 08 2019 22:29 greenturtle23 wrote: I disagree that per capita is the only relevant measure. Think of country A that keeps emissions per capita constant but doubles in population vs country B that keeps emissions per capita constant but reduces their population by 50%. Population reduction is indeed not a viable political solution, because the population only decreases due to war, famine or disease. (I mean, those three go along just fine, so I prolly could have said and instead of or, but whatever.) Population increase however happens during the period where a country becomes more livable. That is, if you go back to 1800 europe, or travel to the most war-torn and underdeveloped regions of africa (tbh maybe you have to go back 30 years in time then too), you find that child birth is in a sort of equilibrium with child mortality; there's a high birth rate, high mortality. Then, as society manages to find ways to keep as many children from dying, there are usually 1-2 generations where you get high birth numbers, but without the high mortality numbers. Then the population 'booms'. And then after that, it stabilizes. This process has happened in most of the world, there are some african countries that aren't fully done, but mostly, the reason why the population is expected to increase until we get to 10-11 billion is not that people are getting so many more children, it's that people are not dying at the rates they used to die. We're getting more old people than we used to have - but estimated amount of 0-18 year olds is basically the same in 2060 as it is today. And this is why population reduction is not a viable strategy for dealing with climate change in the next 50+ years (during which time we desperately need to address it), because a one child policy doesn't cut it - you'd have to actively murder people, or at the very least, not give them food. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23168 Posts
China recently stopped importing the worlds plastics and increasing environmental regulations, the US started burning ours (since we can't ship it to China)/shipping it to India and has been rolling back regulations. Like your poverty stat, this is just something you made up their [China's] carbon per person is raising exponentially in comparison to their gains in gdp. That's simply not true. Back it up or take it back please? | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28640 Posts
And I'm sorry but the conclusion is not make everyone very poor. The conclusion is the realization that Indias overall consumption is bound to increase as their wealth increases, because it's still very, very low compared to their population. And this puts further pressure on western countries to decrease emissions. Essentially, any measurement that doesn't look at per capita, as I see it, is nothing more than a way for western populations to not feel as responsible as they should feel. This isn't a crisis that's just happening on a country / executive level, it's one where the average western human either has a wholly wrong impression of how much they can sustainably consume, or one where the average western human doesn't actually care all that much. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23168 Posts
On September 09 2019 00:59 JimmiC wrote: GH turn down the anger once in a while and you will be so much easier to take. If I had said money per person would have that made the point better? This is not shocking to anyone who follows the environment it is why environmentalists don't look to see what China or Chad, or Afganistan is doing in regards to policy. Because it is not scale-able. This is also why we are so excited about things like neutral circular economy and EPR. If you make convenience and throw away items more expensive than people won't buy them. Like if it was the same price for a metal reusable water bottle as for a plastic throw away one people would pick the metal, and I'm not talking about making the metal one cheaper but making the one you have to throw away much more expensive. Or if a cell phone cost 2500 for a new one, but you could have it repaired and buy parts to upgrade it, people would make those choices instead of right now where they choose to just throw out the old one and buy a new one. If the only difference is that the people can't spend as much and there for are not polluting as much, but as they are able to they are doing the same or worse that really isn't that helpful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emissions-per-person-capita https://www.wri.org/blog/2014/05/history-carbon-dioxide-emissions I mean if you want to be super callous the best thing for the environment would be everyone in the world living like the Amish or one of the various indigenous tribe's living the same way they have for 1000's of years. The consequences of such would be billions of people dying, because there wouldn't be enough food, and that is before you get into all the modern medicine. Not to mention there is no way to put the "genie" back in the bottle. Nothing there backs up your fallacious claim that: their [China's] carbon per person is raising exponentially in comparison to their gains in gdp. You always assume I'm angry, I'm not. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28640 Posts
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23168 Posts
On September 09 2019 01:19 JimmiC wrote: You could be right, I probably should have left out the word exponentially. I'm not sure if you think that changes my point that they are not doing a better job. And that what is keeping their carbon down per person is not something wonderful they are doing, but that there populous has less to spend. As they get more to spend, they just get more and more wasteful, like us. But the problem is they don't have the infrastructure we have to deal with waste. Also because they are so populous each gain in GDP per captia and there for a raise in carbon (and waste) per captia is far more impactful then for example Canada. You should have left it out because it's wrong and misleading and yes it greatly changes your supporting evidence for your point. Had it been true it would have been much stronger. Already back to this... + Show Spoiler + On August 25 2019 01:07 JimmiC wrote: You are again way off the rails my friend. I have explained to you the policies that I believe will help. The issue with China is they are currently the worst... I think you guys are too focused on who is worse. one post later... you think that changes my point that they are not doing a better job. This is what I'm talking about with you not maintaining coherent arguments. Yes massively increasing green energy, increasing regulations, and other efforts are significantly contributing to them lifting themselves out of poverty more efficiently than any country in modern history. That you're trying to argue otherwise is ridiculous. As Drone points out this really boils down to an argument from westerners that preserves their comforts and demands nations like China magically do even better than 3x more than the wealthiest country on the planet on green energy. As others suggested, I think it's racist too. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28640 Posts
On September 09 2019 01:23 JimmiC wrote: Looking at only one stat will always leave you blind to so much. I agree with you that it is a useful stat and should be included in any analysis. However, I would strongly disagree with your initial post where you said it was the ONLY stat that mattered and put it italics to emphasize how much you thought it was the only one that matter (or that is how I interpreted it). Trying to boil down environmental impact to one stat carbon emissions per captia won't provide any value. Using it as "ah ha" moment with friends who think they are doing a great job in comparison sure, any learning's to try to make the system better, no. The post you answered to with outrage was the following 'Per capita is the only relevant measurement when comparing countries.' That is, when comparing countries. It seems like you stopped reading and started replying before you were done reading the one sentence my post consisted of. Yes, obviously, other statistics can be useful for other purposes. But when you are comparing countries with each other, you use per capita rather than the absolute number. If you are comparing the justice systems of different countries, you use incarceration per capita. If you are comparing wealth, you are looking at gdp per capita. If you are comparing employment numbers, you look at %, not the total number of unemployed or employed people - that is a useless number on its own. Clearly the same should also be true if you are looking at emissions. If there are 200 indians for every norwegian and each norwegian pollutes 100 times more than each indian then overall india pollutes more, but clearly the norwegians deserve more blame than india does. That is an exaggerated number, but it's the very same scenario. China is not really part of that discussion, because their per capita numbers are similar to european ones. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23168 Posts
No, you just have one that has been demonstrably wrong. And my argument moves around because so do your questions, and I am not treating this like a debate where I'm trying to stay on point and not "lose". I'm sharing with you information. Misleading and wrong information is the point. You can't blame your incoherent arguing on my questions either lol? The time I cited from the start of this thread was just from your series of posts about me to which I never responded. edit: I also think it is really funny how you often talk about Westerners and act as if you are different. I would suspect that your carbon footprint is much higher than that of the average person in Chad, but I don't see you making changes to live like that. You think Westerns scape goat is China, your scapegoat is the capitalist class, really it is the same behavior. I obviously include myself as a westerner, but I'd like to think I'm in recovery. You don't see anything I'm doing, but it's not because I'm not doing anything... Comparing your misplaced haranguing of China to marxist/critical analysis is just shameful. | ||
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greenturtle23
86 Posts
On September 09 2019 01:36 Liquid`Drone wrote: The post you answered to with outrage was the following 'Per capita is the only relevant measurement when comparing countries.' That is, when comparing countries. It seems like you stopped reading and started replying before you were done reading the one sentence my post consisted of. Yes, obviously, other statistics can be useful for other purposes. But when you are comparing countries with each other, you use per capita rather than the absolute number. If you are comparing the justice systems of different countries, you use incarceration per capita. If you are comparing wealth, you are looking at gdp per capita. If you are comparing employment numbers, you look at %, not the total number of unemployed or employed people - that is a useless number on its own. Clearly the same should also be true if you are looking at emissions. If there are 200 indians for every norwegian and each norwegian pollutes 100 times more than each indian then overall india pollutes more, but clearly the norwegians deserve more blame than india does. That is an exaggerated number, but it's the very same scenario. China is not really part of that discussion, because their per capita numbers are similar to european ones. It depends what you are measuring. If you are comparing 2 countries total populations, it doesn't make sense to use per capita because that would be nonsensical. For limiting global emissions, it is total population times emissions per capita. Both reducing population and reducing emissions per capita are important, with emissions per capita likely being more important. Still over a billion people in India and over a billion in China is a problem. China actually took steps to address it with the one child policy. | ||
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arbiter_md
Moldova1219 Posts
On September 09 2019 01:35 JimmiC wrote: And the US would have more soloar energy but they realized the giant fields like China has made have negative impacts on this environment. That is one of the reasons they have slowed them California. China also built the worlds biggest hydro plant. environmentalists do not see this as a good thing. Care to share your sources for this? It feels like something's badly wrong with these statements. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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