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by rocknor 1829 days ago
> 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.

2 comments

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.

> 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!

> 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.

> 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.

> 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?