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Researcher: The US Owes the World $4 Trillion For Trashing the Climate
merbs writes: Climate change wasn't created equal. Rich, industrialized nations have contributed most of the pollution and gone way over their carbon budgets—while smaller, poorer, and more agrarian countries are little to blame. The subsequent warming will, naturally, impact everyone, often hitting the poorer countries harder. So should rich countries pay up? Researcher Damon Matthews has quantified how much historically polluting nations owe their global neighbors—and it's a lot.
What's the Chinese bill?
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TFS apparently calculates overall pollution since the dawn of time. In all fairness, it should be calculated since the moment people realized pollution hurts climate.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
We pay for pollution. The can pay us back for defense, food, funding UN, and Foreign aid.
Says every shakedown artist in every government on the planet.
Just when they'd started to convince people that "climate change" was legitimately about real phenomenon. But, as we suspected all along, it's just another way to loot rich countries for the good of ... who? Who gets the money? Certainly not poor individuals in poor countries -- they never get the money.
Socialists are getting their bread buttered by chinese money, so right now they won't say anything bad.
Damon Matthews looks like one of those crazy anti-human scientists from Twelve Monkeys. Perhaps that's not relevant, but damned if it's not true.
So should rich countries pay up?
No. The real solution is to lower the birthrate and eventually reduce the world population. Shifting money around wouldn't solve anything.
What's marxist about it? You break somebody's window, you have to pay them for the repairs. You poison somebody else's garden, you pay for having it replanted. This is pure capitalism and the very model libertarians propose.
Capitalist societies polluted far less than the communist societies did and still do.
Capitalist societies also lifted billions out of poverty while socialism killed 100 million.
If some bozo wants to start toting up a bill, I'd like to see his calculations for what he rest of the world owes the US.
In other words, fuck off and die, slaver. There are some things you just can't calculate on a balance sheet.
Infuriate left and right
Once you factor in the invention of peanut butter, they owe us.
Don't we get a discount for helping stop Adolf?
Table-ized A.I.
Oh, sorry, we already spent all of it on these guns, and bombs, and training this military force, and... I'm sorry, what were you saying we owed you?
Or, more reasonably, add an import tariff to anything coming from a country that pollutes
Did you even read the research? China and many Europen nations are also put in the equation.
Interesting how nearly every post by this submitter has to do with energy, climate change or some other bullshit social issue. Get off your soapbox, this is a TECH SITE not Climate Change News. Fuck off to Huffington Post or Salon with that garbage.
That would be a great idea. Also one for poor working conditions. It would start to put other countries on a fair playing field.
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To be fair, his title was "biased reporting". When the research talks about all nations, and the reporting talks only about the US, that legitimately is biased reporting. Especially when the US doesn't look so extreme compared to the other "climate debt" nations on a per capita basis.
This said, that bias isn't necessarily bad when your audience is from the US. And I say this as somebody who is not from the US, and who went directly to the article to find out how other countries did.
Also: comparing the entire US to individual countries in Europe.
Sorry, but you're talking about smaller populations in individual countries in Europe. If you wanted to compare apples to apples, you'd compare the US to the entirety of Europe since the populations are similar post-War.
The report also compares industrialized countries with non-industrialized countries who are trying like hell to industrialize, like India.
In short, this report does no per-capita analysis /and/ it compares countries that have industrialized with those that haven't gone through that phase fully yet (and lumps the post-1980 industrialization time in china /with/ its previous agrarian economy).
>brazil is a carbon creditor
Yeah, but not when you add in the coal mining and rain-forest stripping.
I am all for reducing pollution and carbon footprints. But the fact that we owe anyone for what went on in the past is nuts, especially to countries that have done the same damn thing or are making efforts to do so. We have been making efforts on pollution ever since the creation of the EPA. To say that the US is a big bad bully when it comes to the environment ignores the other countries that have done the same or are going through their own industrialization process.
I know that this is a schoolyard argument "but the other kid did it too!!" but fingerpointing over who is worse never does anyone any good especially when you go down this road because it becomes circular to the point of absurdity.
It's especially bad when you abuse statistics to do it and frame it as "science."
What is worse is that if I can come up with these criticisms in the time I read that article, the think-tanks for the fucking evil RWNJs disclaiming climate change (it's a fact guys, your insurance company and the Pentagon says it's real, and it's coming out of your pocket - you were saying something about fiscal responsibility, asshole?) will take this and run with it to deep-six any further efforts to reduce pollution, convincing people like Joe The (dumb) Plumber that it's all a conspiracy perpetrated by liberals.
This report is barely worth lining a bird-cage.
--
BMO
You're right. I'm an hypocrite who wants to buy that stuff. However, I don't want it from china. I want it manufactured here. While we have our share of shit product, a lot of the best stuff I own comes from America (note: I'm not an american citizen, though I live there. It's a recent thing. So there's no patriotism involved). It's more expensive for sure, but over the long term, I end up spending less money because Its not made to be replaced every 2 months to make money on volume from razor thin margins.
My backpack is from http://www.tombihn.com/FAQS.ht... and it's fantastic.
My dining table isn't from Ikea. It's from GeekChic, and it's fucking awesome. http://geekchichq.com/#categor...
I have a Subzero fridge (though I wouldn't have paid for that, condo came with it). They last quite a bit longer than the shit alternatives. A lot of cheaper brands made in the west do too.
And so on and so forth. A lot of those things are expensive, but you can give them to your children once you die so they don't have to spend 3 times the amount of money over their lives to buy the same shit.
I buy a lot of board games. Those are often manufactured in China. It sucks. They're poorly made, just to cut cost. I wish I could buy premium versions, that are more expensive, made here, but that will actually last. That I won't have to be afraid of dropping one of the plastic components and have it break.
But nope. The McDonald generation wants cheap shit everything. And because of scale, I don't even have the OPTION to buy the premium stuff that doesn't come from China. When I do, I pick that.
And the glazier benefits from broken windows. That your actions had an effect that was positive for somebody doesn't mean you get out of paying damages. See the broken window fallacy.
This was the main point behind the original Kyoto Accord. Of course it was not phrased this way, but this was to be the outcome.
4 trillion? Is that all? Why not make it 10 trillion? How much have industrialized countries given poor countries in foreign aid? Loan forgiveness? Accepting millions and millions of their citizens into our countries for better lives. Infrastructure, education, the list goes on.
The reason that many of these countries are poor is because they are run by dictators. Dictators that steal nearly every penny of foreign aid and either put it into their own pocket or use it to beef up the military to ensure that they are not thrown out of power.
Now some of the countries are genuinely poor and need our help. But many others (I'm talking about you, nearly every country on the African continent. And some south east asian countries - Indonesia and Philippines come to mind) are rife with corruption. Their people are poor not through their own fault but directly at the hands of dictators and ruling families.
Just suppose that we did cough up the 4 trillion. What do you suppose would happen? Does this guy really think that somehow, magically, all the people in these countries would be driving BMW's with their kids in boarding schools and a summer place in The Hamptons? Not fucking likely. It would all go into the dictator pockets.
Nice try though.
Exactly what kind of bucket are you using where the worlds number two polluter and carbon emitter is a drop in this bucket?
China's putting out more shit than the US, but the US is a close second and has been doing it an awful long time in comparison.
The US is in second place emitting 5,300 gigatons of CO2, China is the top emitter with 10,330 gigatons. On a per capita basis they're doing better than us, but the article's claim that "Even China, “the world’s factory,” has nothing on the US’s past penchant for whipping up carbon pollution." is just wrong.
FWIW, This analysis only covers CO2 emissions since 1990, not pollution in general.
What mostly saves china in this cursory analysis their CO2 emissions per capita.
Although china has lots of CO2 emissions (30%), it also lots of people, when you divide it out compared to the US (15%) and EU (11%).
If, however, you compare thing per GDP (adjusting for purchasing power parity in respective localities), thinks look a bit different.
China: 650 kg CO2/1000 USD
Russia: 530 kg CO2/1000 USD
USA: 330 kg CO2/1000 USD
EU: 220 kg CO2/1000 USD
We'll pay $1, because fuck you.
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"Research", that's funny. This is politics, and only politics.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Does livestock account for more than 50% of the CO2 emissions? If so, then meat-eaters owe us some cash too ;)
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
The U.S. can pay it off with a 100 trillion dollar Zimbabwean note. Get change back too.
Passionately Indifferent
Can we replace the real national debt of $18.3 trillion with this $4 trillion chump-change? 'Cause that would be shweet.
But the fact that we owe anyone for what went on in the past is nuts, especially to countries that have done the same damn thing or are making efforts to do so. We have been making efforts on pollution ever since the creation of the EPA.
Come on officer, so what if I have been beating my wife for the last 20 years, WTF has that got to do with anything! That guy over there just shoved her, arrest his damn arse! Throw the book at him!
Oh, and if you think the EPA has ever lifted a finger to curb any CO2 emissions, then you severely misunderstand how the good ole USA works.
Is $4 Trillion the present value of all future cash flows that the US represents? If so, the US should buy this bargain basement deal and then tax Rest-of-World into oblivion. The world's last remaining engine of innovation -- driven by champion of individualism -- is priceless. The global ecosystem needs a driver, and for better or worse it's the USA. Don't worry, folks, the USA is in slow decline... it's likely that someday soon we'll all enjoy the pleasure of being equally poor in the fairest of all global societies. Extraction of bullshit penalties like this would certainly hasten the socialist, commie-bastard fantasies that illustrate man's fatal flaw: the combination of a sense of superiority, entitlement, jealousy, and sloth that subverts individualism and champions equality. Fuck if these mythical agrarian societies have been so wronged, tell them to turn in their cell phones, learn to speak Japanese, German, Chinese or Russian, decimate their populations, and we'll talk about the balance of their account. Bite me.
The broken window fallacy is that it's false to think that there is economic benefit from the destruction of goods, that because the window maker benefits from the need to replace a window. The business owner has capital they would have spent anyway, but they are harmed because their freedom of choosing how to invest that money had been taken away from him. That is the lesson of government redistribution, thinking that there is benefit in taking and giving reparations for climate change, you are really penalizing the future by losing the opportunity to invest that money in growth.
"Oh, and if you think the EPA has ever lifted a finger to curb any CO2 emissions, then you severely misunderstand how the good ole USA works."
Increased gas mileage==less carbon emissions.
CAFE works when it's not undermined by RWNJs and corporatists that insist everybody drive H-1s.
Your move.
--
BMO
Research? By any legitimate research standards this thing is fucking opinion. Sorry if that butt hurts you but this isn't real research.
Under proposed TPP laws, smaller environmentally lower impact countries will be able to sue the US for these damages. Ah the irony.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/d...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Great idea. We could call it a "carbon tax".
Why has no one thought of this before?
You are welcome on my lawn.
1) You didn't spell "Republic" correctly. You're not a democracy.
2) Lots of other countries do that. You're not special in a good way.
3) You're assuming that those things wouldn't have been invented anyway. Television was invented by a Scotsman. The Internal Combustion Engine was developed by a Belgian living in Paris. Should I go on?
4) So you're admitting that you control currencies and ruin markets on a whim?
5) Foreign aid is a loan that must be paid back, so don't brag too much about offering someone a credit card to pay their bills. Many other countries offer disaster relief and so forth, as well - in fact, there were a number of occasions where the US demanded control of the relief military (UN) forces, threw a tantrum when they didn't get control, and just let the bad guys steal all the relief supplies.
6) World War 1 was being fought to a standstill. It likely would have ended before too many more years passed without your intervention anyway.
7) The British were going to defeat German, according to US wargaming. There was no way the Germans could keep it up, regardless of your intervention - and much of your intervention involved the transfer of money. Look up "lend/lease" if you want to see that it wasn't just you guys being heroes. Also, the US didn't fight the Japanese out of any ideal for freedom (just ask the Iraqis how free they felt with the US there, soldiers pointing guns at them screaming "I'M HERE FOR YOUR FUCKING FREEDOM!"), they attacked you.
8) The old Russian empire overthrew itself in 1917, you can't claim ownership of that. As for "liberating the remaining remnants of Europe from being ruled by others" (Department of Redundancy Department, anyone?) what are you talking about? If you keep sniffing that crap, it'll kill you.
9) Two things:
i) Second to none? I interviewed a New Zealand soldier who served in Vietnam. I recall very clearly that he told me "The Green Beret is a mighty soldier, and the New Zealand soldier is every bit as good as they are." For fucks sake, the New Zealand territorials ("weekend soldiers") go for a run while carrying a phone pole. US special forces do that and think they're mighty because of that.
ii) You now start spouting how we're lucky you don't invade us and make us all your slaves. (Panama, anyone?) But you are subjugating the world and making us live under your rules: the New Zealand government has funding and advisors from the US, teaching the government how to implement a special form of freedom that allows us to buy, but restricts our other freedoms. Caught with your hand in the till again. I don't want the US influencing my government, but the money and support they gave the current government has allowed them to get elected. Half the reason you get involved in wars is to keep your military ready and trained, just like the Wehrmacht before World War 2.
So, for the above reasons, don't tell me that you're the greatest and we owe you, because the truth is you only ever act in your self-interest. You've been a power conquering and subverting (UN Security Council veto used more than any other country) everyone else for most of the last 100 years, using the militaries and the poor of your country and others to fight wars to support your own business interests.
Your feeling of having the right to make the rest of the world pay marks you as one of the most blinkered and entitled people in the entire world.
Take your own imaginary debt and go home, or we can start discussing what you owe everyone else from history. Sheltering war criminals from us for your own benefit in a war you're waging against other states simply because it reinforces the wealth of the richest in your country, that's just sickening.
Do us a favour: grow up. A lot.
Because convincing citizens in free societies that their countries suck is one of several methods used by the far right to gain and retain relevance. How else to convince the population to give up their liberties other than with FUD and shaming language? Relating 'social justice' with climate and 'carbon budgets' is a dead giveaway.
I fixed that typo for you. I'm not sure why you are bringing up the far right's tendency to pretend welfare goes mainly to poor people vs. huge businesses and demonize the poor has to do with this though.
And rock'n'roll. Levi's, too.
Hell yeah, they better start paying up. They probably owe us $4 trillion just for Michael Jackson, goddamnit.
You are welcome on my lawn.
1) Nope, already done in the UK well before the US.
2) Yeah, you benefitted from immigration, well done. No debt owed to you for taking people from other places...
3) Wow, no. Airplane is a german invention, assembly line was in most of the industrial revolution, solid state electronics began at Manchester University, Digital electronics at Zurich, integrated circuits all over the place, microprocessors likewise. Petroleum based products? Really? In a story about pollution? Wow. And pharmaceuticals. Those ones you patent and then force poor countries to buy? Yeah, real generous of you. Not.
4) Hah, nope. The reserve currency status is a boon to the US, not the other way around, to the extent that the country seriously lost its shit when places tried to move to the Euro instead.
5) Wow, no. Let me know when you've paid back a tenth of a percent to the countries you took slaves from - they wouldn't need foreign aid if you hadn't fucked them over. Burning your neighbor's house down then renting him a tent isn't charity.
6) Nope again, you came in late after WWI was over, and PROFITED from it.
7) LMFAO. You entered WWII when Japan bombed you, then Germany declared war on you. Not vice versa. Mistakes that were not yours? Seriously?
8) Again, WTF?
9) Come and try it. We have nukes too - we won't win but neither will you. You tried in Vietnam and failed. What makes you think you'd stand a chance against any of the other places? Isn't this just the threat of the bully anyway "You owe me for not beating you up"? Seriously?
You my friend are delusional. Absolutely fucking delusional. Your country murders thousands every year, you invade countries for their oil (Oh right, Iraq had WMD my fucking ass it did!). You're a fucking disgrace. You shit the bed and smear it all over then claim that we should be grateful to you? Fuck right off.
Don't forget,
10. Kanye and Kim.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Maybe we should bill the rest of the fucking world for saving them from a world war and rebuilding their shattered nations.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Why do you not believe in the free market? What are you, a communist?
Do you think that Insurance Company A, betting against climate change and having lower premiums and having lower rates would have fewer or more subscribers than Company B betting on climate change and has higher rates?
If you think Company B can raise rates with impunity without driving customers to Company A, you're just nuts and need to take a refresher in Econ 101.
--
BMO
I think Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq showed the world exactly the US' ability to take whatever land and resources you wanted and needed. The US may have the best and biggest military and be able to overwhelm a territory but it's not so good at holding onto it against in a determined guerrilla fight. No oil was being extracted or refined in Iraq for the longest time despite the best efforts of the US. Hundreds of thousands of people died because of your actions yet all the world ever hears from American patriots is the few thousand US soldiers that died there as if none of the Iraqi citizens didn't matter. Some people only see that as representing your country and then you wonder why others hate you.
We in the US will give Mr. Matthews and his study all the consideration it deserves.
The US is both a republic and a (representative) democracy. The two are not contrary, they are orthogonal. Besides democratic republics like the US, you can have democratic non-republics like the UK, non-democratic republics like North Korea, and non-democratic non-republics like Saudi Arabia.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
You are ignoring how other countries have benefitted from our pollution.
So, wait... In your world, it's OK for the cable guy to shit all over your carpet simply because he's hooking you up that service you ordered?
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
I think I'd rather dodge this $4T bill by pointing out something in TFA that pissed me off.
At the top of the article is a picture of some godforsaken hellhole. My first thought was "holy shit, where is that horrible place? Is that somewhere on Venus?" Hovering over the image, told me the answer.
It says "Smog in New Mexico."
Yes, Albuquerque sometimes has a winter "inversion layer", bu there is no place anywhere in New Mexico that looks anything like that. On the worst day of the year during the worst forest fire ever, the sky doesn't look that bad, and hell no does any place in this state have a hundredth of that many tall buildings.
Click through the image credit to the wikipedia page, and they'll tell you it's Mexico City. But the TFA calls it "New Mexico," because some asshat retard who flunked first grade geography and got a job as an editorial intern at vice.com, doesn't know the difference. Oh, fuck YOU!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What budget? The budget that every different research organization defines based on their own criteria and agenda?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Because it's not a pure democracy? No more than not having a parliament means there is no Legislative branch in the U.S. If you think a republic is incompatible with a democracy, you don't really understand either term.
If you look at the fine article you'll find a graph that shows total debit/credit in billions of tonnes of CO2 for the most important nations (in terms of CO2). That is straight scientific research as it deals with physical quantities that can be calculated from fossil fuel usage and other factors for each country. Putting a monetary value on that may be somewhat arbitrary but the price of emitting CO2 is certainly not zero.
If you consider digging up fossil fuels a part of industrial output then Wyoming, Montana etc. have a fairly high industrial output, especially on a per capita basis.
because all I see are a bunch of dictatorships who borrowed some of Marx's words. And please, don't trot out that old "No True Scottsman" bullshit. There is such a thing as misrepresenting yourself. If I say I'm I lawyer that's misrepresenting, because I didn't pass the bar. If you say Stalin was a commie that's misrepresenting, because he followed none of Marx's tenets.
Not that I'm a communism. What the hell do I care if you own property so long as you don't abuse that ownership to my determent. That's what socialism is about. You get to own stuff, but we regulate it so you can't use it to take advantage of people.
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All that will do is saddle the world economy (and civil rights) with even greater bureaucracy and create black markets along the way. I guess you're a fan of lets-all-be-poor-and-miserable-equally?
Great.. yet another funnymoney currency even more abusable than the fiat currencies of today.
The greenies don't believe in growth. They are calling for a steady state economy, where technology and living standards are capped, because clearly they are at prefect levels already.
In the end we will all (worldwide) end up paying for the costs of anthropogenic climate change, both monetary and in the lost value of the ecosystems we depend on.
LOL;
Seriously, this idea that CO2 is generated by ppl is the biggest crock that there is WRT climate. Think about it. Where is most coal burned at? Yes, in poorer nations, it is burned for heating and cooking. However, with more developed nations, coal is burned to make electricity and steel . Who decides to burn it this way? Businesses and Gov. As such, ppl do NOT decide it.
So, what is the CORRECT way to normalize this? PER $ GDP. That is really the best way. However, many ppl do not want it, because it will not pin the blame on America. It will pin it on China and other nations.
In addition, it is interesting that he ties this to 1960. That is nothing less than the TOTAL joke. Emissions has been going on since Christ. But, even then, many like to use 1850. But, the reason why this author chose NOT to do this, is because America is again not the big one. Even on a per capita basis, America is way down there. OTOH, China, UK, and other western nations are BIG emitters.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
THis study is a joke. It was purposely done from 1960 onwards, and on a per capita basis. This was intentional.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The idea of compensation is idiotic because score settling works both ways, the major CO2 emitters have also got global science and technology to the point it is today and if you want to say you have no part in that then you have to give back your compensation if you live longer than your pre-industrial ancestors did, because you have access to knowledge or material goods generated from the source of the CO2 you are seeking compensation for.
Well what's the point of the US having any environmental regulations at all if US corporations can import goods from chinese factories that are dumping poisonous fumes into the air. We've effectively already created a market where we can only source certain products from China because it'd violate our own laws to produce them here at that price point.
Countries aren't equal in their economic output and energy usage correlates with output per capita. Essentially this study says that non-advanced economies don't use much energy per capita. Well everyone knows that. To a great extent economic growth is all about boosting per capita energy consumption. Sustainable energy is all about trying to break the tie between energy usage and carbon emissions because of the tie between productivity and energy.
If you want to talk about some sort of energy debt a better unit might be something like CO2 emissions per unit of GDP.
No. The real solution is to lower the birthrate and eventually reduce the world population. Shifting money around wouldn't solve anything.
The only proven way to reduce the birth rate is economic development and that demands a substantial investment of time and money. Graph of Total Fertility Rate vs. GDP per capita of the corresponding country, 2009
I would give you funny mod point but I cannot really decide whether you are not serious - the chances are that you are, we are after all surrounded by liberals and communists and the world is going to end if we do not do anything...
Well they took California from Mexico or Spain and so on, some islands like Hawaii, Cuba and Philippines, and before that most of the US itself from the natives?
The US just didn't have much time to do much more. After World War 2 the era of major countries fighting each other to grab territories was mostly over. You don't get to invade random countries like playing Risk when there are mass media, satellites and nuclear weapons around the world.
You also invented the software patent. Well done! So the US tech giants can operate freely in countries they are worth toilet paper, but the other way around is hardly possible due to litigation and legal costs and need for a "treasure chest".
Ask Canada how well the USA invades other countries.Then ask them to pay back for them burning Washington down.
You only won the War of Independence because you were part of the British Empire at the time. You've fucked up every other conflict since then.
Carbon per $ GDP isn't everything, if country with $10 trillion GDP has three times the efficiency of country with $10 billion GDP, the former still is putting out over 300 times the amount of the latter.
Also the GDP metric is muddied : former country likely has a lot of janitors, cooks, waiters etc. so that a lot of everyday tasks get in the GDP whereas the latter one has black market / undeclared work and people sewing their own clothes, making toys for their own children etc., not in GDP.
I don't see this being too hard to solve. Thanks to the massive capacity of their new fracking operations, they can probably pay it off pretty quickly now just by pumping more oil.
France does not show up in the picture, despite a high ranking GDP.
Does its 80% of electricity production from nuclear weight that much, that it cancels other contributions such as road transport? Or does the study fails to take the whole picture into account?
We will cut a check just as soon as the $5 trillion dollar payment the rest of the world owes us for protecting them from a Communist takeover is deposited.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Poe's Law strikes again.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Of course, the ironic thing is the article is not written in the world's alternative history native German. USA! USA! USA!
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Where is the study putting a price on technological advancement and breakthroughs.
Quality of life?
Life expectancy?
Modern medicine and health care?
Communications?
Knowledge?
Education?
Productivity?
You cant calculate the negatives and call it a day.
This study is shit. Its premise is flawed. Its part and parcel with the whole carbon debate.
I'm not French, but that's not fair. They did a lot of underground work to undermine the nazis. If you're talking about the policy of appeasement, then Neville Chamberlain -and thus the UK- is more culpable than France.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
This article fails to deduct from that $4T how much the rest of the world owes the US for all the technology that has come out of us being an industrialized nation. Sure, we could live like people in remote Africa, living off the land with a small carbon footprint, and then there would be probably a billion more people per year dying from diseases that have been cured or rendered treatable, starving from less food grown per acre, dying from dehydration since there would be less clean water technologies, etc. Almost all of this carbon usage was unavoidable if we wanted technology to advance. Even today, while people champion "green" energy, the fact of the matter is, "green" energy is still not even close to being a viable alternative to deliver the energy the world requires. We talk about "green" KILOwatt wind and solar farms in areas that have coal and gas power plants delivering MEGAwatts. One day "green" energy technology will be a viable option, but today it can only replace a small fraction of carbon-heavy power generation.
People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
Nobody can do what you claim the US somehow failed to do, but I put the following to you...
1. In Iraq, did we stay? Nope, where I would agree that we left too soon, that peace had not been brought to a stable state to a region, we didn't and wouldn't have stayed.
2. In Iraq, did we take anything from Iraq? Oil? Money? resources? Nope. You can argue and debate the reasons we did invade and put down the government on Iraq, but we didn't take anything and returned the whole country to the people living in it.
3. No military is good at defeating a determined enemy engaged in a guerilla campaign because the only effective option is killing massive numbers of innocent bystanders to get the few combatants who hide within them. How long did the Russians struggle in Afghanistan? Decades... We could have "won" the war quickly in Iraq, but we don't go out and start killing people if we can avoid it.
4. Finally, I'm not saying EVERYTHING the USA does is correct, only that we are NOT motivated by a desire to take stuff by force. We didn't invade Iraq to take it's Oil, though we could easily have done so. We didn't invade Iraq to expand the empire, but we returned it to local government control. You can argue the advisability of going into Iraq and make the argument that the USA's actions didn't help, but you CANNOT say the USA took resources and territory by force in order to take it.
So... Stop with the attempt to incriminate the USA and paint it as some evil force in the world. If the USA wanted to be evil, was out for just it's own good, Because it if was, there would be no Iraq, no Kuwait, no other oil rich countries still in existence in the middle east because they'd all be territory of the USA. Not to mention that if you examine history, the USA has expended a LOT of time, money, resources and blood protecting others from truly evil forces.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I know that this is a schoolyard argument "but the other kid did it too!!" but fingerpointing over who is worse never does anyone any good especially when you go down this road because it becomes circular to the point of absurdity.
Overall I'd agree, but it goes a bit beyond a schoolyard argument with, "the other kid did it too" when the accuser is particularly singling out one kid among several guilty kids, and in order to support their bias, fails to take all factors into consideration or deliberately elects to ignore certain ones. That's an injustice.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Who are we to tell the Chinese they don't want three eyed babies.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The family that lived in central america until 10 years ago and now lives on about $36k a year in california?
The family that lived in america until 10 years ago and now lives on $3 million a year in Monico?
The actual culprits in this story are mobile. And they are already moving around to avoid the bill due for their cost of living.
Almost by the definition of their immigration laws, most countries these days only accept people who are well off and probably would have the largest portion of the bill due for the pollution.
Is the bill to the country and who ever happens to live there now or is it to the wealthy few who may not even live in america any more and haven't for a generation or more.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
When Europe _starts_ to pay for it's own defense you will have a point. Right now the bill is still accruing.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The French underground was far smaller than the Vichy French government. By any measure the Frogs helped the Nazis more than they hindered it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You're forgetting the Europeans and other nations, which the Chinese do just as much work for.
I don't read AC A human right
So, as the other AC said, if you want to compare Poland to the US, it should be Poland compared to a US state. The US is a conglomeration of states, which is what the EU is.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm not French, but that's not fair. They did a lot of underground work to undermine the nazis. If you're talking about the policy of appeasement, then Neville Chamberlain -and thus the UK- is more culpable than France.
That's true. Plus the quick French defeat at the start of the war was more due to strategic errors than lack of effort. They relied on the imperviousness of the Maginot Line, the impenetrability of the Ardennes forest, and the neutrality of Belgium to protect their eastern border, and Germany invaded Belgium anyway and went through the Ardennes, rendering the Maginot Line basically useless.
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
The thread topic is flame bait.
The topic was adding up the accounts and settling scores. If you can't handle the consequences then don't ask for the closing of accounts.
Some idiot wanted to talk about it and on a tech site I commented that the US has contributed more to the WORLD than most countries ever will.
If you want the US to pay, we expect YOU to pay at the same time. We'll see if the US ends up having to pay a dime.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
No, you dolt.
The population density of Europe is also similar.
>overpopulation
Birth rates in industrialized nations have fallen to below population replacement.
--
BMO
I like your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
In all seriousness, thank you for those links/names, I had never heard of GeekChic or Sub Zero, and had forgotten about Tom Bihn, but all of those are awesome now that I looked into them. If you have any other suggestions like that, they are much appreciated.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
First of all, I don't need to assume everyone profits. Enough people do that it doesn't matter.
Second of all, every other industrialized power would have to pay as well on this concept and thus no one would pay.
Third, the point of the article was to troll. Its a troll article that only morons don't realize is a troll.
Fourth, it doesn't matter if everything was entirely created in the US. Enough of it was that it doesn't matter.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Hurry, everyone prostrate yourselves and beg forgiveness for your eco-sins! Yes, flagellate yourselves to prove (that is, to show off) how sorry you are. Oh, and in case you're just too busy but are never the less still very very sorry for all the eco-sinning that you've done then we've calculated it all up and converted the proper amount of sorriness into dollars. Just pay this amount to the eco pope and we'll call it even.
Is it any wonder why folks think all this green/tree-hugging/self-righteous eco bullshit is too much like a scam or a bullshit religion even worse than scientology?
Even if there's any truth to global warming articles and bullshit like TFA do far more damage to the cause than any amount of rhetoric from established religions or counter evidence/claims from deniers.
For myself I'll believe it's a problem when it actually starts impacting daily life-- PAH! Two degrees Celsius. No, global warming / climate change / whatever-you-want-to-call-it-today-so-you-don't-look-asinine-in-a-year is a strategic ploy to get us off of foreign oil or just a self-righteous new religion at best; at worst it's a scam
...is never having to prove anything you say. You just keep repeating the same accusation, and that's all the proof you need. Never mind that the UN's IPCC were caught doctoring their data. Never mind that they were "exonerated" and left in charge in spite of doctoring their data, global warming is forever.
On a more pragmatic note, assuming this lunacy is legit, it raises the national debt to $22.5 trillion dollars - and will neatly top off Obama's presidency with a nice, round $24 trillion dollars.
The sum total of every dollar in existence, printed or electronic, representing wealth or fraud, every single one, rich and poor, all the dollar-based money there is, can't pay even half that. So why even bother to talk about it? If people really expected it to be repaid, they blew that chance by electing Obama. Now, it's just 'well, you lose, sucker.'
When we deduct all of the trillions we've donated to the rest of the bottom-feeding countries of the world, and all of the helpless, thankless people we've given aid and amnesty to, the rest of the world actually comes out owing us a lot more.
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
The number itself is a total joke. I did a brief extrapolation five or six years ago working on the costs to fix the environment post climate change. The global figure I came up with was $40 trillion to $100 trillion - and that's still probably a conservative estimate. - If the figure is even in the right side of the park a liability of $4 trillion for the US would be the bargain of the century....
If I was going to guess a division in blame it might go :- 22% US, 12% USSR/Russia, 12% China, 10% UK, 8% S.Korea, 7% Germany, 7% Japan, 5% India, 4% France, 2% Australia, etc.. The real values are so complicated that they are virtually impossible to calculate. The UK is special because it was among the first industrial polluters and was the worlds biggest polluter until about 1930 - 1940. One of the most difficult & vaguest parts is the division between developed verses undeveloped nations. - The vast rump of the undeveloped/developing world is very hard to estimate..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Molon Labe
Be careful. When Watts was reminded of the three articles at WUWT making that silly claim, he pretended not to remember them.
The world will end if we do something also. It's not likely to last another five billion years.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No, it is NOT everything, HOWEVER, CO2 emissions track far more with $ GDP then with per capita. China has proved that. So has America and even Europe now.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Let's see, we have more people on earth than ever, lifespans are rising, there is enough food in the world that even in poor countries folks can eat too much - tho I do know food isn't universally easy - the hurricane activity is at a 45 year low, ...
Yeah. We in the USA will start paying, and we will send you a bill for the American inspired technology, medicine, and food exports.
Time for aother round of QE?
Casteism
... So you're literally stupid?
Responding to a troll comment doesn't make me either a troll or stupid. I don't moderate this board. My only means of expressing that something is shit is to say so here.
YOU are responding because you don't like that I called a topic you like on its bullshit.
To that, I say... deal with it. I care literally nothing for your petty ire.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Wrong, first software patent was British.
also, at least the USA excludes "abstract ideas" from getting software patent. Still room for reform though
Yes to both.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire