A remote township in China's arid northwest endured temperatures of more than 52 Celsius (126 Fahrenheit) on Sunday, state media reported, setting a record for a country that was battling minus 50C weather just six months ago.
Because China is a country with the third largest land mass with the second largest population in the world. But per capita, they produce half of what an American does.
2 things about this; the planet don’t care about per capita numbers - 52.2 is gonna drop that population real quick. I doubt that would even slow their ruling class down
Second fuck is America a bad comparision. Those 2 will race to a scorched earth quicker than a nuclear war ever could
Per capita numbers are very, very important: they tell us where the low hanging fruit are. The people emitting the most per capita should be pressured most heavily to reduce emissions, because they’re the ones who are polluting most unnecessarily.
Except we’re also setting high temperature records in Canada.
Even with that, it still pisses me off when I hear my fellow Canadians (mostly from a certain province that exports fossil fuel) saying “why should Canada do anything when these other countries are worse”.
Ok, doesn’t change that we need a ton of heat in the winter. An average 1.5 C change doesn’t matter much when we have to heat from -20 to +20, a delta T of 40 degs.
In a perfect democracy perhaps, but in the world we live in the power is in the hands of very few. Id also argue there’s too much noise using it to represent unnecessary pollution, as a single person running a generator in antartica would be horrible per capita - but quite so necessary. Larger populations have the benefit of larger systems, thereby operating more efficiently. A country could also reasonably just triple their population to increase their pollution “quota”, cause money - and a system that can be that manipulated isnt that reasonable of a system.
Looking directly at pollution on the other hand is more like looking directly at what causes the problem (climate change), and minimizing centralized sources of it would have a much more noticable effect. Especially those that have a greater population to landmass ratio (thereby having less untouched human areas) and so less so a positive effect on greenhouse gas removal.
Let’s frame this in inequality terms. Suppose (not the real numbers) we have the top 1% emitting half the greenhouse gases to fuel their lifestyles, and the bottom 99% emit the other half. You’re saying we should focus equally on the two groups when looking for emissions reductions???
Exactly, the world doesn’t care. The average co2 footprint per person globally is around 5 tonnes and as we’ve noticed, that is way too much for our planet to handle, one estimate is that we would need to drop that to below 2.5 tonnes.
China at 7.5 per person is a lot closer to than Canada at 18, Australia at 17, US at around 15 or Russia at 12. EU on average is close at around 8 I believe.
It’s not ignoring the problem, you are complaining that we are running out of food because that group of a billion people are eating too much when you have over twice as much food on your own plates, and saying the solution is that they should be forced to eat even less.
It is ignoring the problem. I’m complaining about the massive amounts of carbon China is pumping out and getting worse every year and you’re making excuses.
Classic tragedy of the commons. It’s no one fault. Everyone is doing it. Blah blah blah. None of this is lowering GHGs.
Incidentally, China is the single largest contributor of GHGs in the world. Their coal fired power generation is immense and incredibly damaging.
Because China is a country with the third largest land mass with the second largest population in the world. But per capita, they produce half of what an American does.
Both need to significantly reduce their emissions. We do not need deflection for either.
Thank you, I’m so sick of hearing it. It’s just another cop out from climate change deniers.
2 things about this; the planet don’t care about per capita numbers - 52.2 is gonna drop that population real quick. I doubt that would even slow their ruling class down
Second fuck is America a bad comparision. Those 2 will race to a scorched earth quicker than a nuclear war ever could
Per capita numbers are very, very important: they tell us where the low hanging fruit are. The people emitting the most per capita should be pressured most heavily to reduce emissions, because they’re the ones who are polluting most unnecessarily.
I agree with the idea, but there’s no getting out of needing heat in Canada.
Except we’re also setting high temperature records in Canada.
Even with that, it still pisses me off when I hear my fellow Canadians (mostly from a certain province that exports fossil fuel) saying “why should Canada do anything when these other countries are worse”.
Ok, doesn’t change that we need a ton of heat in the winter. An average 1.5 C change doesn’t matter much when we have to heat from -20 to +20, a delta T of 40 degs.
In a perfect democracy perhaps, but in the world we live in the power is in the hands of very few. Id also argue there’s too much noise using it to represent unnecessary pollution, as a single person running a generator in antartica would be horrible per capita - but quite so necessary. Larger populations have the benefit of larger systems, thereby operating more efficiently. A country could also reasonably just triple their population to increase their pollution “quota”, cause money - and a system that can be that manipulated isnt that reasonable of a system.
Looking directly at pollution on the other hand is more like looking directly at what causes the problem (climate change), and minimizing centralized sources of it would have a much more noticable effect. Especially those that have a greater population to landmass ratio (thereby having less untouched human areas) and so less so a positive effect on greenhouse gas removal.
Let’s frame this in inequality terms. Suppose (not the real numbers) we have the top 1% emitting half the greenhouse gases to fuel their lifestyles, and the bottom 99% emit the other half. You’re saying we should focus equally on the two groups when looking for emissions reductions???
I mean…… does Mother Earth give a shit if you’re a 1%-er?
Exactly, the world doesn’t care. The average co2 footprint per person globally is around 5 tonnes and as we’ve noticed, that is way too much for our planet to handle, one estimate is that we would need to drop that to below 2.5 tonnes.
China at 7.5 per person is a lot closer to than Canada at 18, Australia at 17, US at around 15 or Russia at 12. EU on average is close at around 8 I believe.
Ok? Thats a great way to ignore the problem. How does it reduce emissions?
It’s not ignoring the problem, you are complaining that we are running out of food because that group of a billion people are eating too much when you have over twice as much food on your own plates, and saying the solution is that they should be forced to eat even less.
It is ignoring the problem. I’m complaining about the massive amounts of carbon China is pumping out and getting worse every year and you’re making excuses.
Classic tragedy of the commons. It’s no one fault. Everyone is doing it. Blah blah blah. None of this is lowering GHGs.
You have to measure per capita. A population 4 times the size of the US, you can’t compare straight numbers.
Their one child policy is probably the best thing that ever happened to reduce greenhouse gas emissions too.