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Comment by matrix_overload | Hacker News Reader

Taking it seriously and addressing involves making a global list of biggest polluters and adopting policies that will make them unprofitable, making less CO2-intense alternatives more competitive.

The biggest polluter isn't the US. Most of it comes from China because they don't give a damn, and a lot if it can be addressed by making physical goods last longer and be more repairable.

Except, every repair initiative gets quietly swept under the rug. And we're not even considering banning imports and producing things domestically. Instead, we keep coming up with policies that make consumers busy, degrade their life quality, and have marginal effect on the actual amount of CO2 produced. Oh, that, and call everyone who disagrees magatards.

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> The biggest polluter isn't the US. Most of it comes from China because they don't give a damn, and a lot if it can be addressed by making physical goods last longer and be more repairable.

If you are going to compare countries you have to do it per capita because the environment does not care about arbitrary political boundaries.

If you allocate allowed emissions per country instead of per capita, with each country getting a 1/N share of the Earth's total allowed CO2 emissions where N is the number of countries, then a country that is feeling constrained by that could split into two countries. Everyone's new share is 1/(N+1) but the former residents of the pre-split country now get to individually emit almost twice as much without putting their new country over its quota.

Of course other countries will figure out that trick too. In the limit it reduces to a world of 8 billion countries each with 1 person, and then is indistinguishable from per capita allocation.

it could be more advantageous for china to, say, negotiate emissions and environmental agreements through multiple political groupings - like NE china, south china, and west china for example, and treat them as separate countries in a union.

Then we would also need to look at the heating costs, food quality, mobility and life expectancy. If we force everyone to go run with a bare arse in a jungle and die from a snake bite at age 40 on average, we'll get the number low, but I don't think it's the future you would want.

A more reasonable approach would be grouping by use case (production, shipping, construction, agriculture, commuting, etc) and addressing the highest contributors. But again, it's a billion-dollar industry vs. Average Joe with a plastic straw.

> go run with a bare arse in a jungle and die from a snake bite at age 40 on average

That's the future selfish and short-sighted attitudes like yours will lead us to.

The problem about per capita is that a country faces less repercussions for their policies that add to the CO2 load of the world via population. If you currently cap everyone, Y, to some per capita value of emissions, X, (total emissions Y * X). Then if some country adds 1m to their population, Y + 1m, everyone else then goes to X * 95% emissions, by the fault of those people.

> If you are going to compare countries you have to do it per capita because the environment does not care about arbitrary political boundaries.

The environment doesn’t care about your population, either. If population is large and total pollution is high, it’s a problem. If population is small and total pollution is low, it’s fine. If population is small and total pollution is high, it’s a problem. If population is large and total pollution is low, it’s fine.

A more rational approach than an arbitrary reward for overpopulation is to look at pollution per square kilometer of land.

The biggest polluter isn't the US.

It's been outsourced to China because they make what the west demands.

A lot if it can be addressed by having western countries order more costly physical goods that last longer and are more repairable.

Per Capita the US remains a leading consumer nation and one that sets an example, that example being to outsource problems and waste.

>A lot if it can be addressed by having western countries order more costly physical goods that last longer and are more repairable.

I would love, LOVE to see that. Together with more local production, repair industry with middle-class jobs, and overall education of people on how to take good care of what they own. Except, how many green activists have you seen actually suggesting it? The solutions proposed so far:

* Have fewer kids

* Eat less meat

* Suffer with no A/C

* Rent an apartment instead of owning a house

* Don't drive outside, sit at home

* Don't use plastic bags and straws

All of these lower life quality of regular people, are not even in the top 10 of biggest polluters, and often angled towards more wealth transfer to the corporations (like less kids => lower salary expectations).

I think, it's a reasonable, rational and well-informed choice to not agree with, and not support these policies.

Add biking or taking public transit instead of driving and not flying in planes as well. Having fewer kids, eating less meat, using human powered or public transport instead of cars or planes are the biggest things individuals can do to lower their personal emissions. Also everything you listed are things nearly everyone can do. Creating local production and improving our repair industry are pipe dreams that go against the current capitalist mindset.

It’s a tired argument that these things lower our quality of life: we are all going to die to global warming because we wont stop abusing fossil fuels to selfishly maintain our quality of life.

That's just not fair. "Sorry, honey, I need more drinking money, so the biggest thing you can do to optimize the family budget, is wear second-hand clothes and eat at soup kitchen".

Screw that, I'm not sacrificing my lifestyle for their profits.

>It’s a tired argument that these things lower our quality of life: we are all going to die to global warming because we wont stop abusing fossil fuels to selfishly maintain our quality of life.

Nope, you are being used. If the rich seriously thought that we are all going to die in our lifetimes, they would not be having kids and buying waterfront properties. Nope, they don't think so. They created the whole sense of panic and urgency, so you would not be asking them why you can't afford kids, house and a healthy assortment of gourmet meats, but would instead go after people like me who do not buy into the BS. You need to be skeptical, look what people actually do (rather than say), and who owns the people that say things that influence you.

Nothing is fair. Stop being selfish. The absurdly wealthy showcase sociopathic tendencies and will choose things in their self interest at the expense of the rest of us. Doing something because the opulent does will only create a tragedy of the commons that will only accelerate the death knell of global warming and climate catastrophe. I have no control over the actions of oligarchs (besides voting) but I have control over mine.

> It’s a tired argument that these things lower our quality of life:

The problem is that even if we solve global warming, we are still going to die, probably at the same time. Being concerned about the effects of climate change means having empathy for your children and grandchildren who will suffer much more from it.

The US still hasn't come to grips with the fact that half of the countries in Latin America are practically failed states as a result of our country's drug addiction. Good luck getting Americans to blame themselves for the environmental damage caused by their consumer-goods dealers. Out of sight, out of mind.

As usual, the only solution in grasp is really demand-side. What is really frustrating is the fact that tariffs on foreign goods (produced under inhumane conditions and without environmental regulations) are still widely rejected by the new (non-labor, middle class, supposedly ecologically conscious) Left, while the revanchist Right and the old Union Left are both okay with them. Why can't our trade policy both benefit American labor and serve an environmental purpose?

It isn’t just our drug addiction problem (which is increasingly being sourced from China these days), but we also provide them with lots of guns.

drugs & guns are both fine, if people are able to control themselves. In a society where self control and common purpose are valued, the ability to tolerate all views is a strength. Trouble is that the underlying set of ethics has been obliterated, so you're left with rights that don't pertain to the people who have inherited them.

Yeah but even that doesn’t explain the extent of US uniquely high emissions. The US has close to 2x per-capita CO2 emissions than China even without adjusting for export. The only ones beating North America are small petro-states like Saudi and Bahrain.

I'm well aware "my comment" falls short of the full story.

It's best read as a minor edit of a portion of the comment above mine.

TBH bigger issue is bulk of new emissions is going to come from ~7B (85% of global pop) poor people from global south who all want to develop and own their own refrigerators, air conditioners etc. Value engineering cheap consumer goods so they can have it ASAP is more important. Frankly budget models without basic features in countries with low labour costs actually get fixed/repaired because it's economically viable. But really physical goods pretty small slice of pie considering construction/building operations, transportation and heavy industries.

https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png

> The biggest polluter isn't the US. Most of it comes from China because they don't give a damn, and a lot if it can be addressed by making physical goods last longer and be more repairable.

The fact people say these sort of things with a straight face without any context is why we will never get anywhere

I would argue the we won't get anywhere because the real biggest sources of pollution have billion-dollar businesses behind them, that employ armies of lawyers, lobbyists and PR people. And they have been successfully redirecting the public attention into performative, but effectively useless forms that do not pose a threat to their bottom line.

People have all the power. It's too bad they don't realize it and repeat the other phrase.

There's a reason they don't want us to assemble.

Ugh now I'm on a list.

Problem is, most people do not assemble by themselves. They need some leaders to assemble. That leaders will have better life by not trying to assemble mobs in order to fight people who provide some luxuries in life (like refridgerators etc). This could be of course solved if our current "elites" were not decadent and would listen to people. But because most people got enough luxury to be content, they didn't care about who they vote for and gruadually we've voted in selfish sociopaths to positions of power, which eroded trust in those at power, now no one trusts that anyone voted in will change anything. The result according to historians is strong authoritarian leader (the hero who will change everything), but those are rarely working for public good and people with weak education due to declining societal standards will not know how to choose properly.

China isn’t the biggest polluter per capita, that’s probably some small middle Eastern country that really doesn’t give a damn. Americans consume a lot, which is where their carbon footprint comes from. Chinese still don’t consume as much, and so don’t pollute as much, as Americans. Is that really fair? The Chinese don’t think so, and despite how much I dislike the CPC, I see no reason to disagree.

>a lot if it

Physical goods pretty small slice of pie considering construction/building operations, transportation and heavy industries. Reality is 7B people in poor countries emissions will massively explode as they develop. Having a few billion slightly more durable refrigerators is relatively minor consideration to the billions tons of concrete that's going to be poured for new infra. There aren't any international body nor transnational coersive policies that's going to make poor shift away from budget CO2 intense methods/goods. Growing developing countries aren't going to wait to buy more expensive durable goods if it improves their QoL, they'll get that budget AC for relief as soon as they can afford it. Which leaves subsidies/funding, but no one (especially the west) going to fund developing world infra on scale that matters when infra at home sucks. Consumer goods producers aren't going to abandon emerging markets, and TBH it's more important for poor people to increase consumption and improve QoL sooner than not. Civilization better off when it's +5 warm but everyone has AC, than when it's +2 warm but only some have AC. Unless +5 warm spirals us into extinction, at which it's survival of fittest/geographic luckiest.

Wind and solar deployments are increasing exponentially. Except this was delayed for years because the previous administration blocked new wind installations (undone, for the moment) and put tariffs on solar panels.

I don't know if we're going to survive what's coming. I do know that all it would take is a few more years of this kind of terrible leadership to end any chance at all.

Yes. China is a bigger polluter than America, India, the EU and Japan combined.

It’s also rapidly increasing whereas the second largest polluter, the US, is now down to 1979 levels of total pollution and 1912 levels on a per capita basis: https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/1686136305519050752

Any kind of global warming plan that doesn’t include China is useless.

No. That's too simplified, and just looking at the current annual emissions.

https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Annual-CO2-emissi...

But look at global emissions to know who has contributed the most.

https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-tr...

Global CO2 without traded goods:

https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/10/CO2-emissions-by-...

Those graphs you've posted are from https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

I recommend spending some time there yourself. Notice, that China's emissions started in 1980's when we've started offshoring our production there. Look at per capita graphs. Make your own picture.

https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png (from https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-inequalit...)

While I don't think that China's without problems, they take global warming much more seriously than US or Europe does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country#Global_... (for example)

> Notice, that China's emissions started in 1980's when we've started offshoring our production there. Look at per capita graphs.

See the third image from the economist I linked to in the comment you're responding to. It's a common misunderstanding that the pollution reduction in the US is largely due to offshoring polluting activity, but it's not true. If it were, the gap between production vs consumption-based CO2 would be large.

> But look at global emissions to know who has contributed the most.

> https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/10/Cumulative-CO2-tr...

Keep in mind that humans have never created as CO2 emissions at as fast of a rate as in the past year and that no country has ever produced as much as the PRC has in the past year. Sharing graphs from 6 years ago, as you did, grossly distorts the situation we face in 2023. Furthermore the graph starts before the US or the PRC even existed!

While I can understand how it may satisfy curiosity to examine pollution that happened hundreds of years ago in various parts of the earth, it's utterly irrelevant to solving climate issues facing humanity in the present day.

> See the third image from the economist

That's our world in data graph.

> the pollution reduction in the US is largely due to offshoring polluting activity, but it's not true. If it were, the gap between production vs consumption-based CO2 would be large

You're mistaken. Consumption based CO2 is production_based - exported + imported. It only means that you import more than you export. If you export a lot, you may also import a lot from china. This graph doesn't say what you say it does.

> Sharing graphs from 6 years ago, as you did, grossly distorts the situation we face in 2023

Where did I shared 6 years old graph? I'm linking same source as you do (our world in data).

> pollution that happened hundreds of years ago in various parts of the earth ... to solving climate issues facing humanity in the present day.

The CO2 stays in the atmosphere for decades to centuries, and some portion even for thousands of years. It causes acidification of the oceans, deforestation also tips the scales a bit by removing carbon sinks, industrial ag degrades soils and releases a lot of carbon, etc. ... you're wrong again.

> Where did I shared 6 years old graph?

It's the only link of yours I quoted. Click it. The data is from 2017.

> you're wrong again.

No. You really can't do much constructive by criticizing pollution from 250 years ago by countries that no longer exist. If you actually care about the climate, you've got to look at where pollution is happening now and find a way to decrease and/or recapture those emissions.

Also, please don't "quote" my comment by taking snippets out of sentences or, worse yet, joining multiple snippets. It misrepresents what I wrote.

> Click it. The data is from 2017

That graph is from https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions, same page you've got your data from. Even if you'd update the graph it wouldn't change much. If you have better / more recent data / graph, please share.

> by criticizing pollution from 250 years ago by countries that no longer exist

I was writing about US and Europe.

> where pollution is happening now

The real culprit of the pollution is the system we live, financial, politicial, imperial. It's all EU & USA's work. How the world looks is our work. Ours are the financial levers which drive everything up, exponentially.

We can conveniently ignore that we've offshored our manufacturing to other countries. We can ignore that EU & USA paid for destruction of forests all over the world for their consumption, and poisoned our oceans with their emissions, and filled the air with CO2 and methane and N2O, sources of warming that stay there for hundreds of years, "paying" for that with their make-believe printed paper money.

But than we should at least look at per person emissions.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita

You see, China still has lower emissions per capita than US, Australia, Canada there. Almost half. Same as half countries from Europe.

But we'd like to ignore that too.

What does it tell us? That we, by blaming China, want to continue consuming at the expense of everybody else, don't change anything on our part, and instead shift the focus to some third world country. Maybe China, or maybe few of those countries we've destroyed with our military/industrial complex? Just look how many people are being born there, scary, maybe war would improve the economy?

It sure seems so.

We should lower our consumption significantly instead, to enable other, less fortunate regions to develop and consume more. We're the ones who overconsume. Not some third world countries. It's just the excuse our politicans and corporations are spreading.

https://i.imgur.com/LaEFQmV.png

> please don't "quote" my comment by taking snippets out of sentences or, worse yet, joining multiple snippets

Sorry, that's how I do things.

> It misrepresents what I wrote

No, it doesn't. It shows you (and others) what I'm reacting to.

Ah yes, the good old "why should I change he is much worse!"

I guess it was a good run fellow humans, or to say it in online gaming terms: "bg skill issue"

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