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https://timeforchange.org/cumu... CO2 is a much bigger concern anyway. And we know that's mostly American. What have you been doing about it? So why the fake outrage over a little bit of plastic?

Nice try, but a ton of beef costs 30-100g CO2 to move 1 km by train, while that same ton costs 34.6 kg CO2/kg beef = 31,400,000g CO2 to produce. Even if the cows are raised 1,000 km from where the meat is eaten, the shipping costs of food in CO2 are still just a rounding error compared to the production costs.

I used to be all in favor of the local food movement until I realized this. Now I'm like "meh." So it's good to try to keep things in perspective.

Nice try, but a ton of beef costs 30-100g CO2 to move 1 km by train, while that same ton costs 34.6 kg CO2/kg beef = 31,400,000g CO2 to produce. Even if the cows are raised 1,000 km from where the meat is eaten, the shipping costs of food in CO2 are still just a rounding error compared to the production costs.

I used to be all in favor of the local food movement until I realized this. Now I'm like "meh." So it's good to try to keep things in perspective.

Americans could say that we are reducing, China is increasing, why tax us? And we would have no answer...

Because there is no answer.

Suppose Tesla was concerned about man made climate change. The company might want to decrease animal protein consumption because methane from farm animals is far more important than automobile emissions: http://timeforchange.org/are-c... If the government can force us to drive different cars, they can force us to eat different foods. Come on Tesla: lobby to force all bacon and hamburger be made with 55% tofu. See how popular you are. Disclosure: I drive a P85D and I love it. It is an amazing car and works great for my family.

This was, in fact, a proof of concept.

Proof of concept is market speak for publicity stunt.

Freight train between China and Germany is already regular

From the article;

From January to November, 2012, a total of 40 freight trains ran on the Yuxinou Railway, transporting 1747 containers with 21,000 tons cargo, and worth of 1.15 billion USD. The freight included 3.062 million laptops and 564,000 liquid crystal display screens.

Sending 1,747 containers in 11 months is very low capacity. Many large container ships can carry over 7,000 40ft containers, that means that one ship could carry 4 times as much as was transported in 11 months.

They are also way cleaner than ships, especially when using electric power.

Not true. According to this ships beat trains. When comparing of CO2 (in grams) emitted per metric ton of freight and per km of transportation the numbers are modern train 30 to 100 g and modern ship (sea freight) 10 to 40 g . The electric trains may not be much of an advantage if the electricity is produced by burning fossil fuels.

The focus solely on CO2 is fueled in part by misconceptions. It’s true that human activity produces vastly more CO2 than all other greenhouse gases put together. However, this does not mean it is responsible for most of the earth’s warming. Many other greenhouse gases trap heat far more powerfully than CO2, some of them tens of thousands of times more powerfully. When taking into account various gases’ global warming potential—defined as the amount of actual warming a gas will produce over the next one hundred years—it turns out that gases other than CO2 make up most of the global warming problem.

Even this overstates the effect of CO2, because the primary sources of these emissions—cars and power plants—also produce aerosols. Aerosols actually have a cooling effect on global temperatures, and the magnitude of this cooling approximately cancels out the warming effect of CO2. The surprising result is that sources of CO2 emissions are having roughly zero effect on global temperatures in the near-term!

This result is not widely known in the environmental community, due to a fear that polluting industries will use it to excuse their greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the Union of Concerned Scientists had the data reviewed by other climate experts, who affirmed Hansen’s conclusions. However, the organization also cited climate contrarians’ misuse of the data to argue against curbs in CO2. This contrarian spin cannot be justified.

...

By far the most important non-CO2 greenhouse gas is methane, and the number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture.

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/earth-day-update-meat-methane-laughing-gas/
http://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-meat-methane-CO2

We need to eat less meat and switch to less polluting meats (such as kangaroo).

***Where are our nuclear power stations?***

Actually, the US has more nuclear power capability per capita than most countries. See http://timeforchange.org/nuclear-power-consumption-per-capita-by-country. There are a few countries that do better, but they are countries with virtually no alternate energy sources. Which is not to say that we don't need more. I expect we'll get more, but only about a decade after environmentalists discover that flipping on the light switch only works if you have a reasonable power generation infrastructure on the other end of the wire. There seems to be no more point in arguing with them than in arguing with the disciples of any other revealed religion. I think most folks who have looked into the issue think that the problem is not whether we need more nuclear power. It is how to provide it with minimal environmental problems and maximum safety.

http://timeforchange.org/cost-advantage-of-nuclear-energy-pros-cons

Windpower is a relatively new technology, so it deserves some time to catch up. Or would you like to retroactively add the cost of the initial nuclear power plants ? Even so, the number indicate NOTHING about the free insurance they receive.
http://timeforchange.org/cost-advantage-of-nuclear-energy-pros-cons

And as no nation on this planet produces even remotely as much CO2 per head of the population as Americans do, that makes the USA a de facto threat, instead of an ally.

That's not true. The USA is very high in total, but there are several small countries that are higher per capita, and some large countries that are close. See here, or here.

The problem is that the US is NOT the biggest CO2 emissions maker in the world, that title belongs to China, and India is right behind it.

Utter bollocks.

China is catching up with the US but it hasn't got there yet (something like 1/2 to 2/3 of the emissions of the US). India is about 5th behind Russia and Japan as well as China and the US.

Assorted years for different countries.
http://www.carbonplanet.com/home/country_emissions .php

2003 figures:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_co2_emi-envi ronment-co2-emissions

2002 figures:
http://timeforchange.org/CO2-emissions-by-country

1996 figures:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/each- countrys-share-of-co2-emissions.html

Lots more here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=global+emis sions+by+country&btnG=Search&meta=

Tim.