World's richest 10% produce half of global carbon emissions (2015) [pdf]
www-cdn.oxfam.org
www-cdn.oxfam.org
Intermittency beyond a day isn't even a problem because wind and solar basically cancel each others seasonal shortages out. There will be a few days in the year during which output drops by 60% but is that the end of the world for us? It absolutely isn't.
CO2 pollution is mostly about short sighted greed than about maintaining our advanced civilization.
I personally calculated that planting trees would be thousands of times more cost-effective than driving Tesla vehicles: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19714034
Cutting down a fraction of industrial activity- which represents a fraction of human-made CO2 output, which is only about 5% of mother nature's CO2 output- seems a lot less efficient than improving upon mother nature's own carbon sequestration schemes. It's better to sequester potentially all of the CO2 in the atmosphere instead of targeting a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of atmospheric CO2
The answer has to be to apply technology. Cleaner energy generation and new (or old) methods to sequester CO2.
It's mainly China (it increased theirs in 300% in 30 years) that is the problem.
Legislation and treaties ate mostly worthless, when only the developed world does what they actually agree to, while China keeps making empty promises that they never fulfill.
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P.S. I also don't think that environmental data per capita makes much sense. What we should be looking at is environment metrics per land/sea area: you (a country) has control over a part of the planet, so they have to use that part in a way that they don't over tax those natural resources (for CO2 this is basically directly proportional to the full area of the country).
Most of china's emissions, pollution, environment damage has been to manufacture goods for EU and the US. Europe and the US are responsible for most of the pollution and emissions. It's the price for a high standard of living in a consumer economy. It's why chinese cities and rivers are polluted and why american and european cities and rivers are clean.
But going forward, as china shifts from a manufacturing to a consumer economy, they are going to be responsible for a tremendous amount of emissions themselves. And the manufacturing will shift to poorer/cheaper ASEAN countries or India and eventually africa. What happens after that, I haven't a clue. The global economic system has been to exploit cheaper labor. What happens when the last cheap labor source has been exploited?
If the chinese want to live like an american or a european, then the environment is going to suffer. Then India, ASEAN and africa would want to live like the chinese. Then the environment is going to suffer even more.
It's a hard sell to get the west to lower our standard of living. It's an even harder sell to tell the developing world to accept their lower standard of living.
Most people pretending to care about the environment, aren't really interested in protecting the environment from those that destroy it at all, they are just interested in - by any way - attack the foundations of Western countries so that they can build their dystopian dream from its ashes.
Of course that while they do that, China, and soon India, will pollute so much that will make it extremely difficult to live in here. But, that's really a small price to pay to make the West pay for their sins of the past - real or imaginary.
"This is because such a large share of China’s emissions is from the production of goods consumed in rich countries."
Presumably a discussion is held to arrive at some sort of solution or truth, and not to advertise the moral virtue of the participants.
We. Unless you are a extreme outlier here. The top 1% globally make 32k USD a year and up. I'd assume the vast majority if not all of the people reading this are in the top 10%.
I'm American. I have also seen comments on HN from people in very poor parts of the world. I don't think I'm the poorest person on HN.
Yes, the population on HN skews towards the well heeled, apparently pretty strongly. But I have zero reason to believe that all participants here are globally in the top ten percent for wealth/income. And, in fact, I have reason to believe otherwise.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/07/how-much-money-you-need-to-b...
A net worth of $93,170 U.S. is enough to make you richer than 90 percent of people around the world
That absolutely does not include me.
https://www.quora.com/What-salary-in-the-world-puts-you-in-t...
Meh, tired of looking for a definitive figure.
Could you either kindly provide an exact figure on annual income for the top ten percent, or walk that claim back and admit you were in error on your assumptions about the readership here or both?
Because I've been a regular participant for nearly a decade and I've been dirt poor for most of that time.
Thanks.
Source: http://www.globalrichlist.com
So I don't think wealth measured in dollars is a good metric.
Second, that income supports three adults. While homeless, I knew other homeless people who had a higher per capita income than us.
Currently, I have reason to believe that I'm one of the poorest people in the building I live in.
I'm pretty damn poor for an American.
You are also ignoring my previous statement that I've seen comments here from people from third world countries.
My essential point is that, no, not all people reading HN are rich. I have no problem agreeing that most (more than 50% of) people here are well off. That seems like a reasonable assertion.
But it doesn't take much to indicate that your addition of "if not all" is almost certainly not true.
Let me put it this way, if all global income were distributed equally it would be roughly ten thousand dollars a year per person. That's all in. Roads, police, social programs, private spending. Ten thousand dollars is the average household income in China. That's a the most fair distribution possible.
Do you know what the per median per capita income is in India? A growing nation with a tech sector and nuclear weapons? Less than $700 a year. Here's the worst bit, people in India are also disabled and deal with the same personal struggles that you do.
I'm not saying this to trivialize your life but the facts have to be put into perspective. People living in western nations, speaking English and with internet access really don't have the right to call themselves poor. Comparatively poor yes, nominally poor? Check your privilege.
There are lots of people here who are not living in Western nations.
I'm done arguing this. Your remarks are not remotely in good faith.
Unfortunately, politicians all think the personal and/or economic costs aren't worth it.
> Emissions associated with consumption by governments, capital and international transport are therefore excluded. The proportion of total consumption emissions attributed to the lifestyle consumption of individuals varies by country, but globally accounts for around 64% of the total.
> Oxfam’s estimates should only be considered indicative of the orders of magnitude, but also as conservative...
The report then goes on to say that women are hit harder by climate change than men and rails against "carbon baron billionaires" (the increase of which seems to be due to economic growth, not petroleum companies growing faster than the rest of the economy).
The effect this report had on me was to erode my trust in Oxfam.
For example they produce more than 50% of the research about climate change, or the efforts to frustrate climate change.
By your standard, a few members of the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia are personally responsible for a sizable portion of global emissions and completely lets off the hook every single consumer of oil and gasoline in the world.
I feel as though this only holds if you assume that all demands are just and deserve or should be allowed to be satisfied.
For instance, if I identify that there is an under-served demand for anonymous contract killing then why can't I start a company which produces the corresponding supply? Assuming it was legal, would you place the blame on me for offering such a service or my customers for consuming it?
I believe that careful regulation is a necessary evil to mitigate the self-serving nature of human beings at scale. That regulation seems to me to be better leveraged against the companies profiting on the back of unreasonable demands than those demanding what is in their nature to demand. Asking for something impacts no one other than the involved parties. Fulfilling the ask could potentially impact the world.
If it costs companies too much to produce a good (due to caps placed on their consumption and emission) then that good will cease to exist because it becomes inviable in the current environment. Although the demand remains to be addressed in the future when the environment is capable of supporting it - should the demand still exist at that time.
If you take the other approach and instead charge the consumer more in order to consume the good; then while sales will decline in general it may simply result in the good being repositioned in another demographic at the new price point. Or unrelated corners could be cut in production in order to offset the mandated increase in price without ever addressing the causes for the increase.
It seems slower and more error prone to attempt to change the behavior of a company through the behavior of their customers. Why not just set sane limits which force companies to adapt in order to continue servicing the demands of their customers? Customers expectations will change too based on what's available; just as I don't expect to be able to cheaply and easily put out a hit on someone via an app on my phone.
> World's richest 10% produce half of global food.
> World's richest 10% produce half of global medicine.
> World's richest 10% produce half of global scientific papers.
> World's richest 10% produce half of global interesting things worth reading about.
It's more proper to think of the production of carbon emissions as an act of consumption, making the parallel statement " World's richest 10% consume half of global food."
By caloric content, that is almost surely false. By retail price-paid value, that is more likely true (but irrelevant).
I'm probably in the world's richest 10% (I earn a decent salary in the SF Bay Area), but I don't produce any of the global food. I know how much a close relative earns on his farm, and his net income for a family of 6 is much less than my income. The bank owns so much of his farm and equipment that his net worth is less than mine too.
Some of my stock market investments likely go toward companies involved in food production, but that's a pretty indirect way to claim I'm responsible for any food production.
Completely disagree there - the stories I got out of kids in remote Chinese villages were way more interesting than the shit I see on top of news.google.com, and far less depressing to boot.