| > an upscale of one or two order of magnitude I think you're underestimating how much polluting the west has been doing. After all, China got into the game only in the last maybe 20 years. As of 2011, the United States had released 28% of the world's total post-industrial revolution green house gasses, while China contributed 9%: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/21/countrie... Now granted 2011 was 7 years ago, but just eyeballing, if the US had stopped all its emissions and China released its current rate of 9.6B tonnes each year, they'd have to emit for another 24 years before they caught up to the United State's emissions. That's not to say that China shouldn't clean up its emissions before they become the new #1 emitter, but we who live in the west have to do our part as well. This should also be concerning: The US has over twice the emissions per capita as China [1], and China is not yet done developing. Basically if all nations are aiming to develop into the united states, we're hosed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... |