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Just finished watching the film Before The Flood and the representative from India's Centre For Science and Environment really frustrated and upset me. She was blaming US consumption as the source of the problem and how we don't practice what we preach. Our air is not poisonous, we don't have 300 million citizens without power living in poverty. The US has some of the best and greatest companies working on energy (see Tesla) and it is time India stop blaming the US and start putting in the work on their own.

See the following short clip from the film: https://youtu.be/90CkXVF-Q8M?t=36m2s

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Even on absolute levels, India's pollution is a fraction of US. US also still gets 60% electricity from fossil fuels. It is time US fixes their science and education when a major political candidate and half of their population are climate change deniers. Oh, and they are the most polluting in the world, even in per capita numbers.

PM2.5 and PM10 corruption are dangerous only for people in the region and are not responsible for global warming, which affects everyone. In essence, India is killing its own people and US is killing everyone.

> Even on absolute levels, India's pollution is a fraction of US.

I don't think this is true for particulate pollution. You may only be talking about carbon dioxide.

Also, "Somewhere else is worse" isn't a good defense, especially when it may not even be true; it's just deflection. India has a real problem here with air pollution, and pointing fingers at other nations won't fix it.

No denying there is a problem and that we should work on a solution, it is just getting media attention now. Politicians now are under public pressure to fix it.

The person I replied to was saying that India's PM2.5 pollution is equatable to CO2 pollution done by the US. Which is really not true, plus he saw that opinion in a documentary about climate change. Which would be a valid opinion.

Carbon footprint and particulate matter are two different issues. The US has an enormous carbon footprint, but the air quality in the US is much better than India's. This also includes densely populated places like Manhattan. Increase in PM2.5, PM10, NO2 and SO2 directly affects and damages the lungs of healthy individuals. Yes the US has a carbon footprint problem, and yes they're atleast trying to solve it. But their citizens aren't choking. People in New Delhi are. Stop trying to conflate the two issues. Long term climate change != particulate matter in the air we breathe, though they're both important.

I didn't conflate the issues, he equated them.

In my opinion, particulate matter is a problem that will be solved with a small amount of effort. And now in India it will be, we had similar scare in 1998 and Delhi became the first city in the world to convert entire public transportation plus all the for-hire auto-rickshaws to CNG.

On the other hand, an entire political party in USA denies climate change is even real. Plus, it's not a problem that will be fixed at all, we can merely contain it's effects.

Fact check. Total US CO2 emissions as of 2014 was 5.3 million, India's was 2.3 million. That's not a huge difference. Also, China produces twice the amount of CO2 as the US [see 1]. India has 700M people who use cow dung as their source of fire. Once India progresses in terms of fuels they will overtake the US and potentially China.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

Since when is any unit of '3 million' not a huge difference?

At least since the invention of SI prefixes

With 4x the population of US, per capita comparisons might make more sense. No?

So basically you are saying that the US emissions are more than 2x India's. Taking into account that India has 3x the population of the US then it means that

US emissions are 6 times bigger than India in terms of population

<sarcasm>Everything is awesomeeee</sarcasm>

You need energy to make stuff and the US GDP is 14x that of India.

How does it make sense to say that the smaller population of US deserves way more energy than the 4x population of India. Just because the US economy is better? And does the better US economy enable people all over the world or just the US? If things are fair, such an argument wouldn't even come up. Of course, we don't live in a fair world.

I am not saying that developing countries should just pollute as they wish. But the developed world have not been saints in this regard.

You basically just said that the US is allowed to pollute more than India because they make more money.

Make more stuff. How much energy does it take to make cars that are sold all over the world?

I don't know how much energy it takes, but:

1. Do you?

2. America doesn't make all the cars in the world.

According to wikipedia, America made just over 12 million vehicles in FY2015, and India made just over 4 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_motor_veh...

I would also point out that India made MORE steel than the USA in the same period. Another polluting industry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_pro...

3. The US has gone through similar stages of growth. Pollution in cities dropped as measures were taken to improve the quality of life over there, and as technology improved.

http://www.businessinsider.in/This-Old-Picture-Of-Manhattan-... .

4. None of the above matters.

That's the wrong metric you're looking at. If the US and India both stopped making cars or invested in lower pollution manufacturing methods, that would reduce the pollutant output. It would also reduce GDP.

Neither country is willing to sacrifice their growth and industry, and so the whole world chooses to keep boiling the frog.

I think the point being made is that America made harsher pollution laws to fix pollution internally, with the side effect that pollution was exported to factories that did the manufacturing (and polluting) in other nations.

Until very recently (in historic terms), America was the consumer of a large share of goods produced in those markets.

So I don't think you can say technology improvements are a prime reason for mfg pollution dropping in America. It is A reason, but not the only.

But India's CO2 emissions are some 15x greater in terms of GDP. Assuming a straight-line consumption path, as India continues to grow economically its CO2 output will -- much as China's did -- start outpacing the US. (This has, incidentally, been at the heart of BRIC arguments against multilateral ecological controls: "You WEIRDOs made your fortune without caring about the environment, and now you want us to stifle our own growth!")

And umm, US oursources its polluting industries to China. Maybe compare on consumption.

Plus the BRICS (atleast India), are willing to settle with some financial and technological help in moving to renewables. But of course, that's not happening.

India's population is a problem we have created ourselves. If you look at forest cover, US has 2x forest cover of India's. So yes for once I agree Indian's should stop looking outside and start taking responsibility for our problem and solve them ourselves.

US is 3 times the size of India so we can't directly compare on the basis of forest cover alone. And forests help as a CO2 sink but they don't do much against other harmful emissions and PM

CO2 does not directl affects people's health - and so it's a different matter entirely.

Sulphates, DDT, particulates and other toxins represent immediate health hazards that we all need to work on, some more than others.

"climate change deniers"

What does that mean and how is it relevant?

CO2 is not causing the smog and elevated PM 2.5/10 levels in Delhi.

Ahh but the smog problem can be fixed. Our politicians are just not motivated to solve it.

Global warming on the other hand. CO2 has ruined the planet permanently.

I downvoted your other comment, because as someone who doesn't often agree with mainstream environmentalism, I've been called a "problem" or a "denier" or whatever many times in the past, usually by people who seem to think that I don't understand or care to learn some indisputable truth. I'm constantly seeking out information about this and other science from all manner of sources, and constantly trying to re-evaluate my beliefs and stay rational. You call for America to "fix education" but your own tone is overwhelmingly condescending. You must realize that rhetoric like yours alienates precisely those who want to hear new perspectives.

And then not an hour later, you imply that there would be no point in trying to "educate" people like myself because it is too late and the planet is now ruined. Go figure.

Just curious, what is your opinion on nuclear fission as a large-scale energy source?

Well, with all the scientific knowledge and education you can get in USA, you guys still believe that GMO are harmful (while they can solve world hunger), have tons of anti-vaccers, flat-earthers, young earth creationist and climate change deniers. You are welcome to question the current wisdom, but to take a non sensical position not supported by any scientific reasoning is not seeking out information.

Nuclear is the cleanest energy as per records, and causes far less deaths/cancer than coal etc. However, I don't expect a country like India to implement all the precautions and take care of maintenance, when even Japan didn't do due procedures. I would take wind and solar over any other form of energy.

> you guys still believe

I believe this is your error in a nutshell. The American environmentalist movement alone has pro- and anti-vaccine factions, pro- and anti-GMO factions, and pro- and anti-nuclear factions. If you lump these people together with various other political and religious groups, just about any sweeping judgement you make is going to be wrong.

I don't want to get any more confrontational about this, but the world is much more complicated than you seem to think it is, and most people don't fit into your stereotypes. The current wisdom is just that, it is not the only position that will ever make any sense, and carrying on as if it is will only make you look foolish in the long term.

About nuclear power, those are good points. I'd point out that at least Japan did build passive-safe reactors, and at least to our knowledge no one has been hurt yet by the Fukushima incident. Any community without effective building codes is definitely not the place for that kind of project, though. I like wind and solar as useful tools, but I question some of our current policies which can incentivize using them even where engineering would suggest better options. In any case this is the kind of stuff I'm actually interested in talking about.

I'm not sure what is the best way to address this air problem in Indian and Chinese cities, but the status quo is horrible (burning wood and coal, and running unfiltered diesel engines). Using energy in more efficient and prudent ways might be their best bet in the short term, but that kind of progress is very hard to manage at scale.

> you guys still believe that GMO are harmful (while they can solve world hunger), have tons of anti-vaccers, flat-earthers, young earth creationist and climate change deniers

You do realise there's 300 million people in the US, yes?

yes, and I didn't mean to imply that all of them are idiots. But an unreasonable number are, given the widespread access to education.

Education seems to be wasted on maybe 30% of the US population. That seems all right to you? Or maybe I should conduct a study?

Unchecked smog will kill people earlier than a mere rise in temperatures by what, 3°C?

The slope isn't nearly the same.

Unchecked smog will be fixed with enough political incentive. Unlike global warming, It's a problem that can be fixed in a year

>US is killing everyone

How?

GLOBAL WARMING is permanent.

Then build Nuclear plants immediately.

The French built 1960's style reactors and have a perfect safety record, 85% of electricity comes from Nuclear.

With i) modern designs and ii) re-investment in the tech, which hasn't seen advancement in 20 years, we'd solve the problem quickly.

Fukishima is avoidable, and Chenobyl ... was insanity, not even really a 'nuclear accident' (they were running reactors out in the open, without any containment or safety measures - like making sarin gas on a campfire).

Obviously it comes along with other complexities and challenges, but most of them - even long term storage of used fuel - can be addressed.

There's enough known Uranium deposits to power us for the next few hundred years - and that's even when we have not been looking for more deposits for 40 years.

Even without any 'new ideas' - we could be CO2 free within 10 years. The entire world.

We could even build CO2 'scrubbers' to pull CO2 out of the air.

Nuclear reactors are not actually as complicated as they seem, they are actually quite basic.

We have the solution in front of its, it just takes the political will, and intelligent information campaigns.

I agree

What's the point of PM2.5, PM10, per-capita emission and so on if you can't live in a city with your kids anymore?

No offense to you, but I think all those "experts" arguing on TV about this should just go and live in Delhi for a week.

There's a difference between CO2 emissions which are globally distributed and air pollution which is more locally distributed.

The Indian representative blames US consumption for global CO2 emissions not for the air pollution levels of Delhi's air.

"representative from India's Centre For Science and Environment really frustrated and upset me" -> please don't be upset over what one individual has to say

"how we don't practice what we preach" -> that's true for every country US, India and other countries

"Our air is not poisonous" -> really!!??

"we don't have 300 million citizens without power living in poverty" -> that's great. why are you comparing with a country that does have that many people below poverty?

"India stop blaming the US and start putting in the work on their own" -> true.

Google Porter Ranch.

Without supplying context, this is not helpful. (I work in a lab that analyzed the magnitude of the Aliso Canyon leak.)

I have heard mixed information on the scale of the leak. Some sources equated it to Deepwater Horizon.

What were your findings?

My viewpoint is just that saying "Google x" with no rationale or point is not helpful to a conversation. I have no independent desire to expound on the leak myself. I noticed your user tag is green and wanted to offer an explanation of downvotes you might get.

Then aren't you just saying "Google x" with more words.

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