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If we're going to let them in by the tens of thousands, we really should vaccinate them at the border.

Mexico has a higher measles vaccination rate than America.

So it is the south-bound Americans who need to be vaccinated at the border.

The job's created are not as many as the jobs destroyed

...for the same amount of the same product produced.

We either consume more (e.g. at a point, carriages and horses were for rich folk and regular people walked or road donkeys; cars are now a commodity) or we consume other things (e.g. we no longer spend 40% of our income on food, so we can buy iPhones).

allows them to have a greater part of a shrinking pie.

The size of the pie out there per individual person is getting bigger.

The hot-blast furnace allowed 200 workers to produce, in the same hours worked per worker, what 86,000 workers once produced in iron ingots. The wooden shipping pallet eliminated 85% of dock worker labor to ship the same goods. Pneumatic power tools. Computers. Intensive agriculture.

Because we don't have 98% of our workers laboring 16-hour days 100 hours per week on farms and at loading docks, we can make all this stuff. Those workers make tons of other things--many of them are doctors and nurses, researchers, engineers, computer programmers.

Perhaps you have some more recent figures as the most up to date I find quickly are from 2014 which show the USA emitting over twice the carbon on a per capita basis as China, 16.5 tonnes per year vs 7.5 tonnes per person per year with India at 1.7.
The data I'm looking at doesn't lump the EU together, but has Poland at the same level as China, Germany and even Finland higher and the UK, Italy and the less developed parts of the EU lower.
The idea of someone bitching about someone else emitting half or close to 10% seems biased at least, especially considering that both China and India seem to be promoting nukes and renewables more then America which has elected a leader to push coal and has mostly just happened to replaced coal with gas for economic reasons rather then for environmental reasons.
https://data.worldbank.org/ind...

doesn't it make sense to start with the person contributing most to the supposed problem?

Yes person, why are you fixated on group? The average Chinese person emits 7.54 MT of CO2 (as of 2014) vs the average American's 16.49 per year.
Numbers from https://data.worldbank.org/ind... and seem to be in agreement with other sites.

Hey git. You are Caffeinated Bacon trolling again. Your pretence just is not working.
Did you pull your head out of the Bog? Apparently not. You continue to lie about everything.

Here is World banks simple average and it shows US way down at the bottom for 2017.
Here is Cato showing multiple averages and no matter which way it is done, the Yanks are down at the bottom
Go back to Xi. Your head is been banged so many times against the wall, that it is obvious that you are a bloody idiot.

the 10's of thousands of medical unknowns flowing across our open southern border and it is no wonder measles, tb and such are making a real come back

Measles vaccination rate in America: 92%
Measles vaccination rate in Mexico: 96%

Measles vaccination rates by country

Also, you may want to look at a map. Clark County, Washington is a long way from the southern border.

Clark County is a prosperous suburb of Portland, and not many poor Mexicans can afford to live there. It is only 4% Hispanic, and they are not causing this problem.

LOL, Mexicans literally have to worry about sick Americans bringing diseases into their country!

the 10's of thousands of medical unknowns flowing across our open southern border and it is no wonder measles, tb and such are making a real come back

Measles vaccination rate in America: 92%
Measles vaccination rate in Mexico: 96%

Measles vaccination rates by country

Also, you may want to look at a map. Clark County, Washington is a long way from the southern border.

Clark County is a prosperous suburb of Portland, and not many poor Mexicans can afford to live there. It is only 4% Hispanic, and they are not causing this problem.

It has actually changed drastically in the last decade. 2008 was nearly half this number, according to the world bank the median is now $2000.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/n...

Sustainable farming could be applied to either organic or conventional farming system, as its aim is to uphold long-term ecological health, regardless of it's implemented. Organic farming is more about the ideological decision to use naturally occurring pesticides and fertilizers, and prohibiting synthetic ones, regardless of results.

There doesn't seem to be much data on its effectiveness though, perhaps because it's a relatively recent viewpoint and not strictly defined, though there are reports of it improving productivity in some cases.

Does any first-world country ever cut their military spending? No.

Uh, yes they do. Even the US, probably the wort example in the lot, has been on a steady downtrend of spending since 1954.

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

France is the 3rd largest nuclear power, so 2nd largest 1st world nation on that front and their military spending as percent of GDP has been heading down since 1960 too.

https://data.worldbank.org/ind...

So, yeah, you're wrong on the first point. What follows is reasoning from incorrect data.

U.S. military spending is huge simply because the U.S. economy is huge. If you look at military spending as percent of GDP, the U.S. doesn't even make the top 20. It's slightly above the world average (3.1% vs 2.2%). And if you factor in that the U.S. is bound by the peace treaties ending WWII to provide for Japan's national defense, it's pretty much at the world average.

Comparing based on raw dollars is like comparing food budget of an apartment complex in first world vs the food budget of a single family in a developing nation. You're ignoring differences in population and economic productivity.

IE, if we think that poverty is bad for society, reducing income inequality might help.

The measures are likely entangled in such a way that the conclusion you draw isn't valid, or you're at the very least attempting to draw a causal relationship from a correlation. It's pretty easy to look at parts of the world where almost everyone is impoverished, yet because they're all about equally dirt poor, there's not much income inequality.

On the other end you can get something like Hong Kong which has a high (comparable to Haiti using the CIA's numbers) Gini coefficient. Everyone there is extremely well off by the standards of the rest of the planet, but there are some people there who are so incredibly wealthy that they just blow the numbers out.

If you look at World Bank numbers, Liberia and Switzerland have about the same Gini coefficient (in 2014), but are quite obviously on different ends of the poverty spectrum.

So we're already at the global peak of non fossil fuels?

https://data.worldbank.org/ind...

30 years of growth out of the last 30 is a good track record.
https://data.worldbank.org/ind...

I expect their growth to slow mainly because they're catching up with the US and Europe and growth from there is inherently slower. Whether it's further slowed by a change in Government policy or kept above global averages by those policies is going to be interesting in the next couple of decades. But as I said, I expect their growth to slow from its current rate.

Now explain what that nonsense means in the context of national percentage of CO2 annual emissions reduction.

Easy. Look at pollution per-capita and do your part for the world without shitting on others who are less fortunate than you.

And yes I am judgmental, a lot of people are. We are judging the USA for your cavalier attitude constantly. Worried about your quality of life going down? Don't. Just look across the Atlantic to see how your quality of life actually could still improve while your emissions could plummet.

Stop blaming China and India, two countries which per-capita are a small fraction of the problem, and yet together are investing almost an order of magnitude more into solving the problem than the pathetic contribution the USA is making.

OK, have it your way. Per-capita CO2 emissions are what's important!

According to this World Bank data the US comes in 11th on a per capita basis
https://data.worldbank.org/ind...

Go focus your righteous indignation on the top ten.

You sick fuck. Read this and stew in your hate.

"Africa was the world’s fastest-growing continent at 5.6% a year, and GDP is expected to rise by an average of over 6% a year between 2013 and 2023.[3][8] In 2017, the African Development Bank reported Africa to be the world’s second-fastest growing economy, and estimates that average growth will rebound to 3.4% in 2017, while growth is expected to increase by 4.3% in 2018. Growth has been present throughout the continent, with over one-third of Sub-Saharan Africa countries posting 6% or higher growth rates, and another 40% growing between 4% to 6% per year.[3] Several international business observers have also named Africa as the future economic growth engine of the world"

What that article conveniently leaves out: taken as a whole bloc (that is, averaging all the nations), about HALF of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP comes from foreign aid. Note that at least half a dozen nations' GDP is more than 75% foreign aid. Did you ever see a white nation run itself this way? Sub-Saharan Africa is immensely rich in terms of natural resources. It's pure mismanagement.

I came across that info while reading a blog detailing the ways people like Tony Blair, Bob Geldof and other powerful progressives are trying to effectively re-colonize Africa after issuing a "Report on Africa" detailing a large number of ways they feel Africans are unable to govern themselves. That's what is really happening in Africa and it's nothing new.

Were you ignorant about the facts yourself? Or were you counting on the ignorance of the rest of us? Like I said, maybe it is you who needs some Tough Love.

For what it's worth the HBD movement is not a bunch of backwoods redneck racists. It's well informed people who are drawing conclusions from facts. The more you research it yourself the more obvious those facts are and the more the whole "equality" deal shows itself for what it is, an article of religious faith that has never panned out. Meanwhile it costs us dearly in terms of money, social capital, and crime. I don't want to abuse blacks, oppress them, enslave them, or anything of the sort. I want to live apart from them.

And yet, we see that costs of electricity increase as solar and wind deployments increase. More expensive power is not generally good for people, and low cost power is key to fighting poverty.

Astounding ignorance is believing that such a major disruption in such a massive employer in the third world ( https://data.worldbank.org/ind... ) and yet one that needs to make truly massive efficiency gains to feed everyone ( https://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/1... ) will be compensated for by "progress".

Western agriculture is already massively automated and using up most of the available land it has for agriculture which means the real gains in food production will necessitate the sudden adoption of ultra modern tech in third world agriculture. When all these third worlder's suddenly become unemployed what are they going to do? These are people from countries that can't afford to properly educate their own people, there's no way the vast majority of them will just magically "adapt" and create the needed economic growth to employ themselves in other industries.

Meanwhile, white collar jobs are being increasingly automated which in the past is where manual laborers went when they were displaced by technology.

Sorry, but believing in historic pasterns in the face of overwhelming contrary data is what is astoundingly ignorant. In other words it's really astounding ignorant to think that society will always be able to keep up with Moore's Law. Society needs to start planning for this shit.

Maybe a picture will help explain it for the slower people.
It's a bit out of date (2014) but shows Americans per person use 3x as much power.
30% of 3 is 0.9
69% of 1 is 0.69
You can probably figure out which one is bigger...

Despite your drop and their increase, you still use more.

Maybe a picture will help explain it for the slower people.
It's a bit out of date (2014) but shows Americans per person use 3x as much power.
30% of 3 is 0.9
69% of 1 is 0.69
You can probably figure out which one is bigger...

The USA has more guns than most countries, and yet still manage fewer homicides than countries with fewer guns and stricter gun laws.

*Citation Required.
As far as I can see that's mostly bullshit, if you're comparing apples with apples.
Check this graph out.
I added the US and compared with your rate per 100,000 people with a couple of rich countries and a couple of random other countries.
US rate = 4.9 (2015)
UK = 0.9
All High Income countries = 2.4
Feel free to have a play, I mean you might like to compare yourselves with Somalia or whatever.

So many things right and wrong here.
First off, Most European nations are quite rich. Look, there are 2 ways of looking at this. The first is the AVERAGE/mean, which really does not tell you much about the population. It is the median that tells you everything. America is #5 with mean,but we are #24 using Median. Nations like Germany and Sweden are just below America,while most of Europe is ABOVE America. For example, France, UK, Spain, all of the netherlands, etc are all wealthier than America. So, that argument goes out the door.
Likewise, Canada and Australia both use more Energy per capitia than does America.

Do you realize the difference between R13 and R9? Back in the 70s, my family built a 7500' home. We have R20 in the walls and R30 in the Roof. Why? Because my dad said that energy was going to go up in costs and made it so that a simple oak log would heat our home when it was -40 or a small AC could cool us when it was 105F. And that was the case.
In my own home, I have R20 in the walls/ceiling and took it to R-30 in the ceiling. Now, with solar panels on the roof, our AC bill is next to nothing (relatively little heating in the attic).

Now, as to paying for our HVAC, America has wider temperature extremes. Very few places in Europe go from -30F to 105F (or -35C to 41C). And that is just our midwest. Go to the southwest, and you run from 25F to 115F (-5C to 47C).
In addition, we actually pay LESS than most of Europe. Europe likes to compare electricity to us, but Europe is far to the north and they use mostly Nat Gas for heating. Spain and soon France, are going to be installing lots of AC, due to their temps starting to be more like ours.
Then you have the issue with traveling more. Europeans really do not travel. They go to nations next door, but few of them have actually left Europe. And Europe is smaller than our eastern seaboard. As such, traveling in America takes energy due to how far we have to go. For example, few Europeans will travel 60-200 miles to go to their job. Heck, America has more km of railroad tracks than European Union does. And yet, we need it due to our massive size compared to Europe.

No, we DO consume more energy than many other nations, but Europe is actually a lot closer than most ppl realize. The fact is, that Europe HAD one of the best living conditions. Now, with AGW, they will have to deal with temp extremes similar to ours. That will mean that they will be installing lots more AC, which is already the case. North America is relatively flat, while Europe has started to increase for the last couple of years, and for decades, China and south east Asia has WAY outsold America for ACs. In fact, looking at it, Europes residential demand for AC is bigger than North Americas (not surprising). It is in the commercial that it is not the case.

Have some intellectual honesty.

Yes, you should.

You are free to add in as many other western nations as you like. I only used those examples, as they are the ones Windy likes to say are causing the problems. Germany France and the UK as well. Doesn't change the fact America is way out in front.
Only a disengenuous idiot thinks 572 German cars are nearly the same number as America's 910. German cars are much more fuel efficient and travel shorter distances too.

You've been inventing things for 50 years, ok, but how many more decades do you need to cut your CO2 to similar levels to all the other much cleaner countries?

It's clear who's causing the problems America. Last time you said Sweden and Switzerland were your targets so I showed you them too. Which countries are all clustered together down the bottom? Which country is double the other countries?

You first Windy. Drop your levels down to anywhere near those other countries and you won't just look like a whiny douche blaming everyone else for the problems you caused.

Seriously, in any large city, there are 2 main sources of pollution and CO2. 1) electricity since most cities have 1 or more coal plants.

Since Americans use way above average levels of electricity. It leads to them using more coal powered electricty per person that just about any country. More than China even.

2) vehicles, esp since nearly all are ICE.

And America also has the most vehicles it also has less eficient vehicles and drives them further than just about any other country.

Just these two things by themselves go a long way to explain why Americans per capita are amongst the dirtiest in the world.
And both those things are things people could change. You can't blame anyone but yourself Windy. You are the dirtiest, you know why and how, but you deny the need to change because you feel you are entitled to pollute more.

Why do you keep lying about what I said.

I don't. You constantly say America is doing better or well, It's not. It's amongst the worst/highest. Your nonsense about going in the right direction is meaningless handwaving to cover the fact you are more than twice the world average and won't be down to anywhere near that level for 50 or 100 years if ever.

Americans, Like Germans, Australians, Canadians, etc are NOT entitled to use more. That is why we need to continue bringing ours down. BTW, Canadians and Australians use more per capita than does America. Yet, you scream about America, nothing else.

The West, and you in particular act like you are entitled to use more. You keep raving and ranting about other countries doing what you already do. But not a peep about getting America, Canada and Australia to more than half their Emissions. Just patting yourself on the back for being slightly less horrible than the year before (wait until 2018 shows you increased).
Why do you still lie about what I say. I talk about advanced countries, high consumption countries, western countries all the time, not just America. If America is singled out, it's because you already mentioned them and I'm pointing out your lies/entitlement. Would it make you feel better if I mention Australia and Canada every time as well? Will it help you to reduce your CO2?
Or will it just add to your entitlement attitude, because, well, those other countries are also doing it.

You Chinese, like most westerners, are way too high. We ALL need to bring it down.

I'm not Chinese, but you are right (how did that happen?) they are like most westerners, about average, similar levels. Want to know who isn't like most westerners? America, Australia and Canada. They are much higher.

What is important, is that nations are headed in the right direction.

The direction is not enough by itself if it's too slow to make any difference. I can start walking to the north pole, I'm heading in the right direction, do you think I will ever get there?
Getting to the target is the goal. If countries like China and India, plus all the other developing countries increase for a while then level off at I lower level than America reached and then decrease, they will likely get to the target before America does. No one credible thinks those countries will just keep going up and up and up to US levels.

China is NOT. Germany is NOT. India is NOT. OTOH, UK IS. America IS. Canada IS.

Apart from the fact direction is just a meaningless way for you to keep your entitled high levels for as long as you can, and stop other countries from developing. India is most certainly heading in the right direction according to you. At less than half your target of Sweden and Switzerland the right direction for them will be up. China is expected to level off in the next few years, if it hasn't already and start heading down, starting from a much lower level than you rose to, so they should easily remain below your levels.

Sweden and Switzerland's levels are where we need to be. BUT the only way to get there is to be headed down not up like your nation is.

If every country was at those levels it wouldn't solve AGW anyway, it would still need to be lower.

You want to compare Sweden, Switzerland, China and the US, take a look. One of those countries is not like the others...
If you like trends and directions, the last few years all look pretty flat, and America is about as much as the other 3 added together.

Simple fact, you are unwilling to give up the luxuries that advanced economies have and revert to developing standards, no ac, no car, less meat, less consumption in general, etc, but you don't want those countries to develop and have what you have. Why aren't you asking all the developed countries to go backwards to their levels of consumption/lifestyle? Is it because you feel entitled to so much more than those people? If it's not entitlement, whats the reason?

China has a very low birthrate - well under replacement. India, in the last couple years, has become sub-replacement. Mexico is essentially at replacement. So I don't know which "high birthrate" countries you're talking about.

The relevant measure isn't today's replacement rates -- babies generally don't crawl across borders. Looking at birth statistics for people now approaching 30, India's birthrate was 4.0, China's was 2.6, and Mexico's was 3.7. We'll be dealing with the hangover from that era for quite some time. And even today's rates show that the globe's net population growth is generally constrained to developing countries, so migration pressures aren't going away any time soon.

While it is true that EU emission rose and US emission are slightly more down, per capita the US emission per capita ~16t are slightly more than double the one per capita in EU ~7t (2014 numbers sorry, difficult to come back to all country 2017/2018 nubmers https://data.worldbank.org/ind...). That is the ONE measure which is far more telling than absolute change from years to years. 2% up to 7t*500 million is still vastly less than16*300 million even if that country emit slightly less CO2 due to change from coal to natural gas. Both really should be massively going toward renewable or nuclear. Unfortunately this does not happen to go that way, so our grand children and their children gen screwed. But yes saying that emission is down for the US and up for the other hide the very inconvenient fact that per capita the US is still vastly ahead.

China has a very low birthrate - well under replacement. India, in the last couple years, has become sub-replacement. Mexico is essentially at replacement. So I don't know which "high birthrate" countries you're talking about. Essentially the only countries with high growth populations are in sub-Saharan Africa plus a handful of poor oddballs around the world (Pakistan being the largest of these).

source - note that world average replacement fertility is 2.3, lower in rich countries, higher in poor ones.

Even the US hasn't managed to be a high birthrate country despite the fact that local money-aristocracy has done its best to eliminate birth control, family planning and abortion for the poor (not for themselves of course, hypocrisy abounds) and then continue to bitch and moan endlessly about how prolifically the poor breed, and how the real solution to that problem is bible study and sexual abstinence (except for themselves of course, once again hypocrisy abounds).

China has a very low birthrate - well under replacement. India, in the last couple years, has become sub-replacement. Mexico is essentially at replacement. So I don't know which "high birthrate" countries you're talking about. Essentially the only countries with high growth populations are in sub-Saharan Africa plus a handful of poor oddballs around the world (Pakistan being the largest of these).

source - note that world average replacement fertility is 2.3, lower in rich countries, higher in poor ones.

Politifact points to a Pew report that without immigration the USA would see a 4% growth in population in 50 years. My claim was that the population in the USA would not grow if it weren't for immigration. I'd think that 4% growth over 50 years would be considered a very stable population. I didn't say the USA population would shrink, I said the only real population growth in the world comes from immigration from Africa. There are many European nations that would be experiencing a shrinking population if it weren't for immigration.

Here's a map with fertility rate by nation.
https://data.worldbank.org/ind...

Depending on who you ask the birth rate needs to be above 2.1 or 2.2 per woman to have a stable population. That's one to replace the mother, one to replace the father, and a bit extra for the Darwin Award winners. Look at the list of nations and regions below the map and you'll find that much of the Americas, Europe, and Asia have fertility rates below 2.2. Sub-Sahara Africa has a fertility rate above 4.

I also claim that if CO2 output from human activity is a problem then population growth must be contained, especially in high CO2 producing nations in Europe and the Americas. To contain growth in Europe and the Americas is simple and, as best I can tell also politically viable, by restricting immigration. That doesn't mean put a stop to it, but it does mean not taking in everyone that jumps the border. Entering a nation without permission is a crime everywhere in the world. Contain this crime. Those in need of sanctuary should be allowed a means to get it by seeking permission at a legal port of entry. I cannot fathom a nation allowing someone that violated their border still being allowed to claim asylum after being caught. That's like someone breaking into a home and then asking to rent a room after being caught.

So, student 15 years ago? You haven't been to China. I've been going since the mid 90s, and lived there from 2005 to 2011, and still spend about half my life there. You have ZERO experience with anything building or making in China - being a student means you didn't see squat. And China comes in 78th in the world for ease of doing business. If you actually lived in China, you would know that's not from their banking or infrastructure, it's from the regulatory side of things. Banks are open 7 days a week, 12-24 hours at a time. You can get anything you want done whenever you want (SF Express delivery pickup at 2 AM on Tuesday), but want to build something? Get ready for the red tape - and thousands of pinks for bribes....

Seems to be OK given they have the highest GDP per capita in the Caribbean. Of course, recovery from the hurricane has been slow and terrible, but just like in the US that is more a State/territory issue - the Federal Government is limited in what it can do, and even then it must happen only with the express request and permission of the Governors.

Funny you should mention transport. America's is getting worse and worse. Much higher than the world average, China is much lower.
https://data.worldbank.org/ind...
Low and stable vs high and increasing...

If something simple like Social Security will fail

Social Security actually has a funding source that needs a lot of babysitting. It takes a percentage tax from income (and payroll, which is just income from a different, less-visible vector) up to a certain cap. That income cap needs adjustment when the income distribution changes: the area under the Lorenz curve up to the income cap must be proportionally-related to the number of retirees and the cost of living.

That's a lot of variables. You're looking at the area under the Lorenz curve up to a certain position (an interval) multiplied by the FICA rate against cost-of-living adjustments to the area under the Lorenz curve for a prior generation, which then gets into population changes and other things as well.

Over time, we have to keep tweaking the FICA rate and the payroll tax to keep up. Again: only the portion of the Lorenz curve from 0 to the FICA cap is exposed to this FICA tax, so changes in the shape of the Lorenz curve have an extreme impact on the funding source.

Did you get all that?

Good. That causes an odd problem:

there are many alive today that are paying into a ponzi scheme that will lose because of what I am saying

Not quite, but close enough: the system is founded on a really poorly designed funding source. The Trust itself is well-designed; the way FICA operates, however, is crap.

how would your plan not fail when people ask for more?

Social Security isn't failing because people are asking for more (although they are, for a different reason: the bottom end of Social Security leaves 10% of recipients in poverty). It's failing because of its funding source, as described above.

My Dividend's funding source is a flat FICA on all personal and corporate income. That gets you something directly-correlated with the GNI-per-Capita in Local Currency Units. The Dividend should be roughly 1/8 of the GNI-per-Adult (GNI-per-Capita excluding those under age 18--I'm considering making it age 16), although because of things like tax-deferred accounts (IRA, 401(k)) and such it will be a bit less than that.

The Dividend, as such, increases its benefit faster than cost-of-living. That is to say: if there's 10% inflation and zero productivity increase (on a per-capita basis), the Dividend will pay 10% more because there was 10% more income. Simple enough.

However, if there's a 10% productivity increase, then products are being made for roughly 9% cheaper blahblahblah let's approximate this by just saying there's 10% more income per person (adult) and 0% inflation: with the absolute average (per-adult) income, you can physically purchase 10% more. That's simple enough, right?

The Dividend is bluntly pulling in a fixed proportion of the income and paying it out flat.

That means those productivity increases--the increase in general wealth--are also taxed by that same, unadjusted FICA tax.

If you had $10,000 in 1985, then you would have $16,000 in 2000 based on blunt inflation.

If you received $10,000 in 1985 from a Dividend structured this way (you wouldn't: it would have been $6,700 in 2016), then the Dividend would pay--without changing the tax rate or the way the tax is applied--$20,337 in the year 2000.

That's 27% more than inflation, and without raising taxes to fund that increase.

That's guaranteed to happen in that manner, and it's not affected by population or income distribution. The Dividend doesn't promise to adjust by some amount each year; only to distribute based on what comes in and enrollment (which is basically everyone).

If the Minimum Wage were adjusted this way from the $3.80/hr wage in 1990, it would be $9.40/hr today. It would have been $8.12 in 2011 (or $6.57 by cost-of-living adjustment).

Do

And high levels of income inequality

Income inequality in the US
and
Inequality and Violent Crime

for example.

One way or another, you pay for income inequality. Either in taxation and social programs that distribute wealth or in police, prisons and judicial systems and crime.

While the US continues to value the ability for a small group to have more of the (relative) wealth than most of the population, then it is going to continue to see higher rates of violent crime than in countries with a smaller gap and broader access to wealth.

I don't think tighter controls, on their own, are going to do much without significant cultural reform - and part of that is going to need to address the reluctance to fund social programs (like mental health care) and to tax the wealthy.

Relevant numbers in an easy to parse - chart:

https://data.worldbank.org/ind...

Compared to population growth,dysgenics, poor governance and fossil water depletion, temperature increases aren't even a drop in the pond.

See for yourself :
http://sdwebx.worldbank.org/cl...

Rainfall hardly budged from the beginning of last century.

Hmm, nope. They have (recently) achieved the magic 0% open defecation rate necessary for non-shithole status. All the Trump-designated shitholes have nonzero rates, with most scoring well into double digits.

https://data.worldbank.org/ind...

GDP 2016 in USD
1) USA, 18,624 billion
2) China, 11,199 billion
3) Japan, 4,940 billion
4) Germany, 3,478 billion
5) United Kingdom, 2,648 billion
6) France, 2,465 billion
7) India, 2,264 billion
8) Italy, 1,859 billion
9) Brazil, 1,796 billion
10) Canada, 1,530
11) Korean republic, 1,411 billion
12) Russia, 1,283 billion

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se...
California, 2,600 billions

So if California was a country it would had been #6 in 2016.

World Bank report here

http://documents.worldbank.org...

This paper analyzes the short-term fallout of trade in goods from Brexit, through potential changes in the trade policies of its main trading partners. We construct the Overall Trade Restrictiveness Index (OTRI) of the UKÃs major trading partners.2 Our analysis shows that in the absence of any trade agreement between the UK and the EU post-Brexit, facing the EU's Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariffs could cause the UK's export of goods to the EU to drop by 2 percent. The impact is not larger because the higher tariffs are placed on the less elastic products that the UK exports, while the lower tariffs are placed on the more elastic products that the UK exports

See also Ruth Lea on the likelihood of a deal and the fact that trading under WTO rules isn't all that bad in the absence of one

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/...

The prospects for a bespoke deal are, therefore, reasonably positive. But, if there is no bespoke agreement, then the default position would be that the UK, a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), would trade under WTO rules. The UK would, for example, face the EU Common External Tariff as EU exporters would face the tariffs adopted by the UK. There is, however, convincing evidence that trade can thrive under this regime, given favourable commercial circumstances. Preferential trade deals may oil the wheels of international commerce, but their importance should be kept in perspective. If the commercial circumstances are adverse, trade will not thrive, irrespective of special trade agreements.

...

In the absence of any agreement with the EU, imports from the EU will raise £12.9bn for the Treasury in duties, whilst UK exporters will face £5.2bn in total in tariffs on their exports to the EU.
WTO rules on subsidies provide sufficient flexibility for the Government to implement "horizontal" programmes to mitigate the impact of tariffs. Such programmes are economy-wide measures which are not specific to any identifiable industry, and are not tied in principle or in practice to compensating for the exact cost of tariffs on exports.

I.e. as much as you wish for the UK to be devastated because Brits had the temerity to want to have self government, it's very unlikely to happen.

I.e. it turns out independence isn't as expensive as people like you claimed it would be. Make no mistake though, even if it were I'd still support it.

In my country (Spain) and quite a few other ones, medical expenses rarely represent an issue

And yet your country with a pubic health care system, and my country (US) without one, are in the same boat with respect to "catstrophic spending" on health care. More info here. (PDF)

this really shows one of the biggest issues, which is inefficiency by gov and business. if America would start taxing goods/services based on where worst part comes from, use satellites to get precise measurements, and normalize based on kg /$GDP, then it would stop all the coal growth quickly.

Sorry: forgot Teachers. And university attendees. And higher graduates.

There definitely /was/ a gender balance problem in the past. Now maybe it's somewhat (maybe not entirely) fixed, but there's huge momentum favouring women in many of these fields, and the more lucrative ones that they aren't currently dominating.

It's time to start pushing for equality in all respects so that we don't massively overshoot.

By that definition, Obamacare as it was passed is fascist.

Yes, and the cited opinion states exactly that.

Socialized medicine seems less evil by a mile.

Only because you've never tried it. As bad as Fascism is, Socialism/Communism is much worse — which is why I can't sympathize with the "Antifa" assholes, who "fight Fascism" with hammer-and-sickle.

Consider the example of Spain — ruled by Fascism for decades. For all their Collectivism-induced troubles, they were always better off than the USSR and, when they abolished the Fascism, they were able to recover pretty quick. Recover to the levels, that Russia could only dream about even during the height of its gas-fueled boom.

And Sweden, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Canada...

Not sure, why you listed these, but all all of them (with the possible exception of Norway, which has vast oil deposits) are barely at the America's wealth — despite not maintaining a military worth a damn.

you have a poor grasp on what communism really is

Collective ownership of the means of production — that's what it means. And every time you nationalize something — as the asshole above proposed — you get closer and closer towards that.

I'm glad America's worked out for you, but it doesn't work out for everyone.

It remains the magnet — and the lifetime dream — for millions of people. Millions, who come here (legally and otherwise) and manage to not only prosper, but also support extended families back whence they came from — remittances from the US are a major portion of the GDP in some countries.

Seriously? You are going to bleat, how US "does not work for everyone"? Venezuela beckons for you...

Funny, we just ended an 11 streak of no hurricanes in the US. Tornado activity continues to trend down. Antarctica is accumulating snow and ice mass faster than it's losing it. Methane has been increasing steadily since the 50s and Russia, the source of that permafrost was massively down in the 2000s, and still not close to the peak back in 1990. So that's all four of four of your "checked" predictions that are actual failures, not successes.

Funny, we just ended an 11 streak of no hurricanes in the US. Tornado activity continues to trend down. Antarctica is accumulating snow and ice mass faster than it's losing it. Methane has been increasing steadily since the 50s and Russia, the source of that permafrost was massively down in the 2000s, and still not close to the peak back in 1990. So that's all four of four of your "checked" predictions that are actual failures, not successes.

It's been stuck between ~80 and 82% for the last 20, and between 78 and 84% since the 1970s. That's not much variation, though you are correct that technically it has changed +-6%, and +-2% in the last 20 years: i.e. slightly. There has not been a dramatic shift by tens of percent since the OPEC oil crisis in the 1970s.

Most of the confusion develops because of what the article states: that significant changes in the mix for electricity do not amount to as much as people think because total energy use != total electricity use.

What matters isn't population or even GDP. It's GDP per capita - how much productivity each citizen is producing on average. This represents how much useful economic work each citizen can produce in a year. It mostly depends on their country's regulatory and living environment. Countries with better protection laws (to protect laborers) and business-friendly laws (to encourage business development) tend to have very high GDP per capita. Repressive societies tend to have very low GDP per capita. (Countries with disproportionately high natural resources like oil also tend to be high, since each citizen can accomplish more economic work with less effort acquiring and selling said resource.)

The U.S. is currently up around $57k per year per capita. Most of Europe is around $40k-$50k per year per capita, indicating that while Europe's socialist laws create a fairer society, they come at the cost of slightly lower overall productivity. China isn't even close at $8k per year per capita. Even Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are stuck at about $30k-$38k, probably because their rigid cultural social structure inhibits the fluid movement of workers to jobs they're better suited for and would like to do. An unhappy worker is a less productive worker.