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Comment by mwint | Hacker News Reader

America produces 11% of global GHG emissions, compared to 27% from China and 7% from India, yet everyone is always blaming “the west”.

East? You have anything to say for yourself?

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East: Now do the per capita figures. And then do the per capita figures, cumulative back to 1900. Or even 1990.

Places that have been civilized for longer have been emitting civilization-byproducts for longer. That shouldn’t surprise anyone.

India and China have been civilized for much longer than North America.

I think the word is industrialized, not civilized. India and China have been industrialized for a much shorter time.

Even setting aside that a lot of China’s GHG emissions are in service of American customers, the per capita numbers for the US are huge. And that’s even before considering that the U.S. is responsible for a lot of the historic CO2 in the atmosphere right now.

The west is definitely to blame for GW. Look up cumulative historical emissions before spewing bs on the internet.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1224630/cumulative-co2-e...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1282760/cumulative-histo...

Now do per-capita emissions.

Y’all are always talking about overpopulation - seems like if a huge population is causing huge emissions, we can blame that. Maybe we should praise the US for having a responsibly sized population.

Looks like you missed the point. What’s ‘per-capita’?

It turns out that America has a population of one, once you adjust per-capita.

And yet those overpopulated nations are responsible for a tiny fraction of the cumulative GHG in the atmosphere. Whereas countries like the UK and US are responsible for the vast majority.

It’s almost like it’s got nothing to do with population.

How does that matter. Why do these countries have such massive populations in the first place?

> How does that matter.

Someone emitting significantly more GHCs has more room to cut while still maintaining a high standard of living? Someone buring firewood for fuel doesn't really have a lot of other options.

The reason they're struggling to survive is because they're not having a responsible amount of children, and for some reason future generations don't learn and have responsible amounts of children either.

Overpopulation is the issue.

Do these numbers account for the emissions caused when producing all those cheap plastic toys (and phones, laptops, lithium-ion batteries) that America can buy in Walmart?

In any case, I love the finger pointing and "They should do something first!" mentality...

Countries should stop pointing at what other countries should do and look more at what they themselves can do. Yes, China pollutes a lot and should clean up. And so does the US. It's not one or the other, it's both.

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