[0xcafecafe]

Measuring per capita carbon footprint makes more sense for climate science as the effects don't limit themselves to artificial borders.

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

Per capita carbon emissions of US are 8 times as of India and 2 times as of China. And which country is withdrawing from the Paris agreement?

[75dvtwin]

With regards to

> Measuring per capita carbon

being better...

It is not clear to me why this makes sense.

If person A drive 2 miles per day in an SUV, and another person B drives 100 miles per day in a sedan -- person B pollutes more.

Why would driver A considered to pollute more ?

[oefrha]

Because supposedly it is self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The amount of emissions correlate strongly to that pursuit of happiness at least for now — you only see extremely low per-capita emissions in extremely underdeveloped countries.

Meanwhile, “all miles driven are created equal” said no one ever.

[75dvtwin]

I am not sure that 'dividing' amount of pollution a given geographical region produces, on to number of people there -- is the only righteous and effective measure of international accountability).

In my view, measuring delta in total greenhouse gasses produced, would a better measure for international accords, and their subsequent corruption-free enforcement.

This is why I brought the pollution-per-mile vs pollution-produced analogy.

With regards to > "The amount of emissions correlate strongly to that pursuit of happiness at least for now..."

I think, you are also averaging out to-per-capita that, might not be appropriate...

Say there is energy-demanding and mineral demanding manufacture process, that causes deforestation, pollutes rivers, mows down beautiful mountains to get coal, produces lots of green house gasses.

You are claiming that this benefits, at least, economically, 'every' per-capita person on that country.

But if same manufacture used more renewable energy, and produced more expensive goods. Would the 'per-capita' be worst off?

Perhaps it would not be. Right?

In other words, we really need to measure what that manufacture is doing.

And that's why I think measuring changes in pollution (due to changes in policy of a given country), and changes in preservation of natural habitats -- is a much more effective way to measure policies of governments.

Another way to look at it is this way:

Performance indicators should be relevant to the individuals or institutions that are actually accountable for the execution of what's being measured.

In this case, we are measuring government policies, not individuals. Therefore dividing per capita, should not be used as 'first-order' measure.

[24gttghh]

What does that have to do with anything? You've completely ignored the concept of what "per capita" even means in this context. Person B could be in Country 1 with low per capita emissions, or Person B could be in Country 2 with high per capita emissions. It doesn't change the fact that on average, individual people in Country 2 emit more CO2 emissions than people from Country 1...

Also, deciding to not do something positive because other people are still doing something negative somewhere else is a shitty argument.

[75dvtwin]

@gttghh, your "... is a shitty argument ... " critique, is insulting.

This is also against HN guidelines

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>" When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

"

[24gttghh]

I called their argument shitty, not them personally. I stand by my statement.