[neverminder]

> climate change isn't some liberal fetish

It's not and I'm pretty sure most people agree. But the activists are focusing their efforts in all the wrong places. We have Extinction Rebellion extremists gluing themselves to electric trains in London. Electric. In the mean while, the likes of China and India are by far the biggest culprits while Africa is projected to quadruple it's population while rapidly industrializing. The growing number of people is the main problem.

The world is heading for the climate catastrophe and getting Americans to swap their trucks for Teslas is not going to change anything.

[numair]

Population growth in Africa has approximately nothing to do with the problems facing the American West. The problem in America is due to ridiculous property- and ag-developer-friendly water policies that resulted in “water credits” being tossed around like candy and a ridiculous belief that places like Palm Springs are built on “prehistoric aquifers” that will “last centuries.”

Suburbanization is still in vogue in those parts.

The problems have only begun.

[adamcstephens]

I agree with your final point, but China resource usage is partially attributable to American consumption. We can’t export all our manufacturing to other countries and then point at them for causing climate change.

[tzs]

> In the mean while, the likes of China and India are by far the biggest culprits while Africa is projected to quadruple it's population while rapidly industrializing.

India!?

India emits less than half the CO2 that the US does, and almost an order of magnitude less per capita.

China is twice the total as the US but about half per capita.

Africa was way lower than the US both in total and per capita.

And yes, per capita is the correct comparison, because the atmosphere does not care about arbitrary political boundaries.

Let C be the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions per year that the world as a whole can produce to keep the climate within acceptable parameters.

We do not have a one world government, so staying under C requires a per country approach, probably some sort of quota system. The question then is how to determine each country's share of C.

One approach is simply allocate each country C/N where N is the number of countries. This approach fails because if country X splits up into multiple separate countries, with no change in any greenhouse gas related activities of anyone who was in X, the quota for every other country goes down. In fact, the new countries that were formerly part of X might all actually be able to shift toward more greenhouse gas production.

Example. Let us say C = 10000, N = 200. Then each country has a quote of 50. The US finds it hard to limit itself to 50, having say 5 states that each on their own produce 30. Solution: turn each US state into a separate country, tied together in an EU like web of treaties so that life doesn't actually change much for the people living in those new 50 countries. Now N = 249, quota drops to 40.16 per country, and now those 5 countries that were once problematical at 30 each have quotes of 40.16 and are OK. The American Union as a whole would have a quote of 2008, and many of the new countries could now actually switch to heavier use of fossil fuels.

It goes the other way too. If Russia for example was able to reform the Soviet Union and get back all its former components, everyone other country would see their quota go up around 7%.

To fix this you have to abandon the idea of the quota being equal per country. The quota needs to be per person. Then all that changes when you redraw your maps and the US becomes the American Union or the Soviet Union reforms is who is in charge of enforcing the quota on a given group of people--the amount of emissions allowed by that given group does not change.

[rileymat2]

It would seem the solution here is to use our wealth to demonstrate how to do this sustainably on a per capita basis.

We have no high ground until we are lower per capita than these growing economies.

[belltaco]

>getting Americans to swap their trucks for Teslas is not going to change anything.

That's like saying Americans buying iPhones in the late 2000s won't do anything for poor people in India and Africa, but they revolutionized communication and a lot of other things.

Battery research isn't cheap.

[rocknor]

> the likes of China and India are by far the biggest culprits while Africa is projected to quadruple it's population while rapidly industrializing. The growing number of people is the main problem.

Bullshit. The western ignorance and entitlement is unreal. Americans and Europeans are responsible for the vast majority of historical CO2 emissions, while having a small fraction of the world's population. If someone is to be blamed for climate change, it's them.

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$line$data$fi...

What gives you the right to stop the rest of the world from industrializing?

Look at the obscene CO2 emissions caused due to over-consumption in western countries:

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$line$data$fi...

Poor countries are going through the standard demographic transition model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition. You cannot blame them for having high birth rates, even Europe and America had high birth rates when they were poor.

Birth rates in India and China are already below replacement, Africa's will also be later in the century.

Do you think people in America are more entitled to have babies than in the rest of the world?

The problem is not growing population, correlation is not causation. The root problem is lack of renewable tech that can sustain the modern quality of life for all humanity.

I suggest watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348

It's high time people stopped the tiresome and senseless bitching about India/China/Africa having too many babies, and focused on renewable energy research instead.

[tomjen3]

Historically the west has pumped out more CO2, but we are not talking about historic levels, we are talking about current and future levels as those are what we can do something about.

And here China and India is going to be the main issue in the growing CO2 production. This has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with physics.

We haven't made great renewables for the same reason we haven't made flying cars: the tech is too far advanced for what we can do.

[rocknor]

> but we are not talking about historic levels, we are talking about current and future levels

That's the problem. We need to talk about it. The west is causing a disproportionate amount of emissions despite the climate emergency, and still their citizens are blissfully unaware and ignorant. That's obviously unfair so justice is relevant here. Talking educates people and allows them to do something about it.

Yes it's going to be an issue, but nothing can be done about it. For poor countries like India, industrialization with climate consequences is still way better than poverty!

[zepto]

> Americans and Europeans are responsible for the vast majority of historical CO2 emissions, while having a small fraction of the world's population.

Historical levels are irrelevant. Only present and future levels matter.

> If someone is to be blamed for climate change, it's them.

Blaming dead people is irrelevant.

[rocknor]

> Historical levels are irrelevant

Yeah, no. The west industrialized by polluting the world, and it still reaping its benefits at the expense of the rest of the world. Historical emissions are absolutely relevant because they affect the present. Nice try though.

> Only present and future levels matter.

Yes. But present levels are high because of the historical emissions of the west. And presently the west is using way more than their allocated CO2 footprint.

[zepto]

> Yeah, no. The west industrialized by polluting the world,

That’s not relevant, unless all you care about is blame.

> and it still reaping its benefits at the expense of the rest of the world.

Anyone who industrializes or uses the products of industrialization reaps the benefits of the west’s industrialization.

If ‘the expense’ you refer to is climate change, the west will experience that too.

> Historical emissions are absolutely relevant because they affect the present.

They aren’t relevant because the past is not changeable.

> Nice try though.

Nice try at what?

> present levels are high because of the historical emissions of the west.

And because of the historical emissions of everyone else, but that’s not relevant to the future.

> And presently the west is using way more than their allocated CO2 footprint.

Who allocated a footprint?