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The US Is the Biggest Carbon Polluter in History (nytimes.com)
Justin Gillis, and Nadja Popovich, writing for The New York Times: The United States, with its love of big cars, big houses and blasting air-conditioners, has contributed more than any other country to the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is scorching the planet. "In cumulative terms, we certainly own this problem more than anybody else does," said David G. Victor, a longtime scholar of climate politics at the University of California, San Diego. Many argue that this obligates the United States to take ambitious action to slow global warming. Against that backdrop, factions in the Trump administration are engaged in a heated debate over whether to remain a party to the 195-nation agreement on climate change reached in Paris in 2015. President Trump promised on Wednesday to announce his decision at 3 p.m Thursday in the White House Rose Garden. A decision to walk away from the accord would be a momentous setback, in practical and political terms, for the effort to address climate change. Several news outlets, citing people in the administration, reported on Wednesday that the US is likely to pull out of the agreement.
Australia (per capita), a country that faces a similar geographic situation.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The Trump administration made clear months ago that it would abandon the emissions targets set by Obama, walk away from pledges of money to help poor countries battle global warming, and seek to cut research budgets aimed at finding solutions to climate change.
This is assuming that carbon is a "pollutant".
It fits the definitions found in the dictionaries that I looked in.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So it's not only because the USA has a large population that it is the worst polluter.
Can we quit with the hyperbole, please? Climate change research is a serious matter. I know that's all journalists know how to do, but we need everyone to get on board with at least researching this stuff.
Saying it's "Scorching the Planet" is inflammatory and highly unrelatable to 99% of the people of the Earth, having likely only seen nearly undetectable average temperature increases.
I'm from the U.S., and you probably wouldn't even have to cite me any sources for me to believe we have generated the most cumulative CO2 of any other country. That doesn't seem like it should be news to anyone..
The US is also one of the first countries to establish the Environmental Protection agency to explicitly DO something about getting emissions down. Which is why things like smog in Los Angeles is much less a problem today than it was before and we didn't need a worldwide treaty to do it. But I guess the EPA did nothing according to these guys. Nor do I suspect they've bothered to really look into China's carbon emissions or Russia's (which I'm sure China and Russia's governments are open about sharing information and that the information is actually... y'know... factual)
We saved the world from Hitler and the Soviets and created air conditioning, internet, mobile phones, air travel, and thousands of other critical inventions. The rest of the world hasn't done much to thank us or help us out in any way.
So I see no need to feel bad about some CO2. Especially since US emissions are falling faster than other countries due to cheap natural gas from fracking - another great US invention.
Let's remove all of it from the atmosphere then. Life will then be great.
As in most Asian metro centres. Such as Beijing, Shanghai, any of China's tier 1 to 3 cities, plus Siberia, pretty much anywhere in India, and the list goes on. Not to mention large parts of Africa and South America.
Their rate of pollution in any sense is staggering and increasing, while the USA has been better than any of them for 20 odd years if not longer.
Adding insult to injury the level of ground water pollution, let alone carbon, in those places is staggering.
Winner of Project Consored top 25 articles for 2009 - 2010 news stories: Pentagon's role in global catastrophe
By Sara Flounders
In evaluating the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen -- with more
than 15,000 participants from 192 countries, including more than 100 heads of
state, as well as 100,000 demonstrators in the streets -- it is important to
ask: How is it possible that the worst polluter of carbon dioxide and other
toxic emissions on the planet is not a focus of any conference discussion or
proposed restrictions?
By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of
petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket
exemption in all international climate agreements.
The Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its secret operations in
Pakistan; its equipment on more than 1,000 U.S. bases around the world; its
6,000 facilities in the U.S.; all NATO operations; its aircraft carriers, jet
aircraft, weapons testing, training and sales will not be counted against U.S.
greenhouse gas limits or included in any count.
The Feb. 17, 2007, Energy Bulletin detailed the oil consumption just for the
Pentagon's aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and facilities that made it the
single-largest oil consumer in the world. At the time, the U.S. Navy had 285
combat and support ships and around 4,000 operational aircraft. The U.S. Army
had 28,000 armored vehicles, 140,000 High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled
Vehicles, more than 4,000 combat helicopters, several hundred fixed-wing
aircraft and 187,493 fleet vehicles. Except for 80 nuclear submarines and
aircraft carriers, which spread radioactive pollution, all their other vehicles
run on oil.
Even according to rankings in the 2006 CIA World Factbook, only 35 countries
(out of 210 in the world) consume more oil per day than the Pentagon.
The U.S. military officially uses 320,000 barrels of oil a day. However,
this total does not include fuel consumed by contractors or fuel consumed in
leased and privatized facilities. Nor does it include the enormous energy and
resources used to produce and maintain their death-dealing equipment or the
bombs, grenades or missiles they fire.
Steve Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, reports: "The ... The war emits ... This information is not readily ... because military emissions abroad are exempt from national
Iraq war was responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide
equivalent (MMTCO2e) from March 2003 through December 2007.
more than 60 percent of all countries.
available
reporting requirements under U.S. law and the U.N. Framework Convention on
Climate Change." (www.naomiklein.org, Dec. 10) Most scientists blame carbon dioxide
emissions for greenhouse gases and climate change.
Barry Sanders in his new book, "The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs ... the Armed
of Militarism," says that "the greatest single assault on the
environment, on all of us around the globe, comes from one agency
Forces of the United States."
Just how did the Pentagon come to be exempt from climate agreements? At the
time of the Kyoto Accords negotiations, the U.S. demanded as a provision of
signing that all of its military operations worldwide and all operations it
participates in with the U.N. and/or NATO be completely exempted from
measurement or reductions.
After securing this gigantic concession, the Bush administration then
refused to sign the accords.
In a May 18, 1998, article entitled "National security and military
policy issues involved in the Kyoto treaty," Dr. Jeffrey Salmon d
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I have been to environmental protests where the event ends and everyone climbs into their SUVs and pickup trucks and drive home. It's hard to get someone to shut down a pipeline when you keep buying their product. We have Three Mile Island nuclear power plant closing down now because the cost to generate electricity with natural gas is so low. We should be protesting coal burning plants, not nuclear ones.
Which other pollutants are essential for all life on earth?
Sulfur.
Without nitrates, nitrites and ammonia plants would die off, and animals would follow, yet they are definitely pollutants for animals.
Metals such as copper, iron, and magnesium are highly toxic in high concentrations to most life forms, yet are essential for most life.
Pollutants might be beneficial for life in small doses, but too much IS a pollutant even if it is needed for life.
Heck, if the earth was buried 3 feet deep in pizza. Pizza would be considered a pollutant. Being needed for life does not mean it isn't a pollutant.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Better than purposefully misunderstanding all problems?
Anything is a pollutant if there is too much of it.
The Sun's activity is actually down, while temperatures have soared.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl...
With that logic, Oxygen is a pollutant as well.
If we had an atmosphere of 100% CO2 we would all die very quickly. If we had an atmosphere of 0% CO2 we would all die very quickly. Looking after the environment is about removing the effect of our behaviors from environmental conditions. We know that a range of historically established range of conditions allow us and other species of the present time to live unharmed on this planet. As established above, we know that extreme conditions do not. Moving away from the historically established conditions will eventually cause catastrophic destruction, the only guaranteed solution to preventing any damage is to return the planet to its natural equilibrium.
So...if New Orleans were to sink beneath the waves or, more likely, be washed out due to another hurricane with higher sea levels, then you will have been proud to not pay any additional taxes.
And if other nations sink beneath the waves, then that's okay with you as long as you stay cool. And if other nations lose the ability to feed themselves or enough land mass to support their populations, then you'd be more than happy to accept them graciously into your home as refugees. But you won't be paying more in taxes.
And if your seafood prices go up because we've raised the water temperature enough to kill off the seafood you eat, you'll be happy because you didn't pay additional taxes. And if your land-based food prices go up because the climate change whacked the breadbaskets of the U.S., you'll be happy because you didn't pay any additional taxes.
Cumulative doesn't matter. It matters where you are trending. This is being reported solely to try to bully the US into staying in a questionable agreement.
Heck, if the earth was buried 3 feet deep in pizza. Pizza would be considered a pollutant.
Yeah, but it would a totally *awesome* pollutant.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
If you removed all CO2 from the atmosphere, the earth would have a stable temperature of about 3-deg Kelvin. It's the greenhouse effect from those trace amounts of CO2 that has kept us cozy and warm for the last few billion years.
Did you get that nugget knowledge from another Trump supporter on the Internet?
Clue: Mars isn't at 3 degrees Kelvin, not even fucking Pluto is at 3 degrees Kelvin.
No sig today...
To add to the sib post.
CO2 account for a tiny % of the total greenhouse gas effect on Earth. It's mostly water vapor.
For CO2 to be problem the models pull a CO2/H2O vapor positive feedback coefficient from a dark place. That coefficient is what accounts for the range of warmth predictions.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
While true, that says nothing about CO2 and it is CO2 that is the subject of the Paris treaty.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The entire idea is bollocks. Plants would benefit massively if carbon dioxide concentration were multiplied by 4. The entire biosphere would thrive as a result. However divide by 2 the concentration of co2, and we would end up with mass starvation. Remove another 50ppm, and plant life would entirely disappear. So there's major downside with less co2, and plenty of upside with more co2.
I hope he pulls out. It will be a GOOD THING to have denialism firmly endorsed by a man that most of the world (and much of America) views as an idiot. This will give political cover to other leaders around the world to take stronger action on climate change.
In practical terms, the agreement means almost nothing, since it requires almost no actions, and has no penalties for violations.
The solutions to global warming will come from us nerds (scientists and engineers) not politicians. We need better solar panels, better wind turbines, geothermal, carbon sequestration, etc.
With Trump's bold policies on science, industry, business and the environment, the USA will be ready to confidently stride into the 13th Century before you know it!
MAGA!!!!!!
Did you get that nugget knowledge from another Trump supporter on the Internet?
Actually that "nugget" is a frequent feature of Elon Musk's rhetoric. Apparently he's off a bit... but the the overall point still holds. Anything less than about 273-deg Kelvin would be inhospitable to life as we know it. (Not to mention that plants could not live without CO2...)
Did you get that nugget knowledge from another Trump supporter on the Internet?
Hmm... you seem to have me confused with someone else. I'm a Bernie-crat who held his nose and voted for HRC last November.
The point here is not the CO2 is either "good" or "bad"... the point is that the precise amount of CO2 turns out to be hugely important. Even a miniscule change can have drastic repercussions.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Which other pollutants are essential for all life on earth?
Plenty -- because dose makes the poison. Nutrients such as nitrates or phosphorous are limiting factors in many ecosystems -- which is why we put them in fertilizers. But fertilizer runoff can have catastrophic consequences for ecosystems.
Ever go swimming in a natural body of water? I've got news for you fish shit in the water. In fact waste products are an important resource in ecosystems, which recycle them. Does that mean you're OK with swimming in shit?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"...longtime scholar of climate politics..."
If you hadn't noticed, most countries don't act purely based on what science tells them. They have political concerns as well, hence the need for political solutions to the problem.
Fracking has happened mostly on Private Land
Does pollution respects property boundaries?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"Blah, blah, blah...Just how did the Pentagon come to be exempt from climate agreements?...blah, blah, blah"
Oh, are the Russian, Chinese, ISIS military following the accords? Yeah, I didn't think so. Once you get the world to sing Kumbaya, then you'll have a valid argument, but until that, STFU.
Just another day in Paradise
I do for 8-9 hours a day - the usual concentration is 300-1000 ppm.
Te rest of the time the concentrations are much less. But then I'm always getting a lot of nitrogen, around 780000 ppm typically. And 9000 ppm of argon, which isn't good for me either.
Your point was not lost on me, but your criteria for defining a substance as a pollutant was...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
As an American the most frustrating thing to me is that our political agendas are being set more by big businesses than the public. (This applies to both parties) Loads of people here in the states are intelligent and do care about the world. I have yet to meet someone who actually believes climate change isn't a thing. I live in Republican Utah. I have meet people who think it's not as bad as "they" say or that companies shouldn't be restricted because we can't compete with China because of those restrictions. We're losing jobs since it's cheaper to do business elsewhere.
I try to explain that health care benefits and labor costs have more to do with why it's expensive to do business in the U.S. Taxes might also be a reason, but I'm no tax expert and I don't trust big media or politicians to weight in on it.
As for China polluting they just opened up this solar plant: http://www.sciencealert.com/th... That's a lot more then what we're doing here.
... in framework:
- Scientists: Tobacco kills
- Tobacco: Jobs
- Courts: Tobacco kills
- Tobacco: Jobs
--
- Scientists: Reduce carbon
- Americans: Jobs
- Planet: Reduce carbon
- Americans: jobs
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Sure. Even breathing emits carbon dioxide.
But chances are you emitting carbon dioxide in ways that aren't even useful to you. For example, if you're air conditioning a room heated by a big picture window all day while you are out, that's emitting carbon that's doing you no actual good. Draw the curtains and put the AC on a timer and you'll be just as cool and save money too.
There's lots of things like this where you're actually paying to pollute for no benefit to yourself. Like not keeping your tires inflated. That seems like It's too easy to possibly make any difference, but keep in mind transportation is the single largest use of energy in the economy. People saving themselves wasted money could have a big impact.
As with anything else, the place to start with a problem is the low-hanging fruit: carbon emissions that do us no good, or even cost us money no result. Is that enough to turn the tide? No, but there's no reason not to get started there.
That and I don't want to pay any "world taxes" either, I"m playing plenty enough for the US fed/state/local as it is.
What makes a "tax" a "tax"? An accountant will tell you that the defining characteristic of a tax is that it's an exaction. You don't get to choose to forgo the tax.
Pollution also exacts a non-voluntary cost from people. If you live in Beijing, you have no choice but to pay the costs of breathing a mix of diesel and coal particulates. If the climate of the planet changes, everyone has to pay the price of adaptation (although some people will also make money off that adapation). Chances are you'll be using more Btus of air conditioning, and because everybody else will be doing the same you'll be paying more for each BTU.
If the government tried to tax you that much, you'd be livid. But the fact it's not an elected official who's doing the exacting doesn't change the fact that you're paying for someone else's wasteful habits.
If you don't want to pay pollution exaction you can either forbid people to pollute entirely, or you can tax pollution. The advantage of taxing pollution is that it gives people more freedom in choosing whether the utility of emitting a unit of pollution exceeds the cost. Cap and trade gives you even more freedom in that it involves incentives as well as penalties.
But even under a simple pollution tax, you can still limit your exposure to the tax through conservation. Once the pollution is emitted, you're stuck paying the price.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The state of progress in a few slides:
https://data.bloomberglp.com/bnef/sites/14/2017/04/2017-04-25-Michael-Liebreich-BNEFSummit-Keynote.pdf
Looks like the transition ship has sailed and will continue (because at least 50% decarbonisation - and eventually 100% - will be cheaper than not doing it) with the US in the Paris agreement or outside it.
Your primary argument is sound, but what is this about Argon being "bad"? It's a noble gas, it is inert. It doesn't really do anything except exist, unless you'e trying to turn it into a plasma.
So basically anyone who isn't a scientist with published, peer reviewed papers to back up their position is just making an appeal to authority. That's stupid.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The point is that pointing to an authority on the subject is not automatically a bad thing. To be an appeal to authority logical fallacy, the authority has to lack credibility or standing in the matter. In this case, climate science is both credible and relevant.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They'll spend $10 to pollute half as much and then spend $9,999,990 marketing that fact.
Huh?
What does the USA export, exactly? Even the USA buys most of its "stuff" from China.
Check out your balance of trade, it's never been positive, ever:
https://tradingeconomics.com/u...
The USA does not buy most of its stuff from China.
The USA imported is about $480 billion of goods from China and sold about $116 billion to China.. The USA's GDP is about $18,000 billion. Trade with China is about 2.5% of the USA GDP.
Most of what the USA buys is made in the USA.
"But he's still 1000 times better than HRC"
Don't be a moron, unless it's too late.
HRC is uninspiring but at least competent & fully understands trade & foreign policy.
"Pure evil??" Why? For strangling Vince Foster with her bare hands and eating his kidneys?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The fact that the agreement left it to individual nations to determine how much they were willing to do to reach that temperature target, allowing them to come to Paris with commitments that collectively put us on a disastrous course towards more than 3 degrees of warming, was lobbied for and won by the United States.
The fact that the agreement treats even these inadequate commitments as non-binding, which means governments apparently do not have anything to fear if they ignore their commitments, is something else that was lobbied for and won by the United States.
The fact that the agreement specifically prohibits poor countries from seeking damages for the costs of climate disasters was lobbied for and won by the United States.
The fact that it is an “agreement” or an “accord” and not a treaty — the very thing that makes it possible for Trump to stage his action-movie slow-mo walk away, world in flames behind him — was lobbied for and won by the United States.
I could go on. And on.
Naomi Klein
So what percentage of the current climate shift is natural versus induced by man?
It's about 110% caused by man, and -10% by nature. You can find the details in the latest IPCC report.
Better still, if we shut down all Petroleum Production and usage today, what would the economic impact be and how many people would die because of it?
That has nothing to do with AGW science.
The American people are the most generous in the world, with the most concern for other nations in the world. While we don't always take the "right" actions, the intent from the public is never "screw them other guys".
Strange that the rest of the world has a different picture of you.
And your history must be lacking ... /me looking to south america where the USA destroyed legitimated elected regimes and put up dictatorships
In my eyes the US did not do anything great after the Marshall Plan.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You can pat yourself on the back as much as you want and wollow in the comfort of your flag draped echo chamber. The rest of the world thinks you're a bunch of selfish arseholes, and your desire to expend incredible amounts of cheap energy is not bias, it's just observation backed with numbers. Hell the fuel economy of an American car combined with the energy consumption of an American household is an international joke.
Call me a biased moron if you want, but that's just because you're completely ignorant of the world. By the way thanks for your charitable donations. Maybe we wouldn't need them if the USA didn't proceed to fuck up much of the world in the first place. .. Why was that again? Oh yeah, that dirty black stuff in the ground had something to do with it in many cases.
Kick the guy and then throw him a dollar so he can treat his injuries. We the world thank you kindly.