|
You can google all the stats I provided, just like I can google all the no-citation stats you provided. Yup! I’m a big fan of contraception and options for women. That will probably start to bring the global population down slowly within about a hundred years. But we have less than thirty years to fix the climate problem. Per-person carbon emissions in the developing world are <1 ton per year. For Europe, China, India its 5-10 tons per year. Which is bad enough. For the United States, it’s TWENTY TONS PER PERSON PER YEAR. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_... That isn’t because we for some reason have worse power plants or worse ways of making steel. It’s because we eat too much; we drive too much, in cars that are too big; we use too much heat and air-conditioning, in houses that, in spite of what you keep saying, are the largest in the world, and getting bigger every decade (you can google this too). We fly too much, we buy too much, we use too much, we consume more than literally any other people on the planet, and if we don’t stop, we are going to kill everyone, ourselves included. To put this another way, if every American started living, not even like people in Kenya, but like people in France, that would take 3 gigatons off of global annual emissions. Holy shit. |
Did, and did not find what you suggested. I did find a 300 dollar figure which just reflects cost, not the number of toys.
> For the United States, it’s TWENTY TONS PER PERSON PER YEAR
As I said: everyone has a higher carbon footprint in the West, mainly owing to infrastructure and industry. The combined consumer spending choices are not what is leading to the extra tonnage.
Here's the breakdown straight from the EPA: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
Industry. Electricity. Transportation. Agriculture. Commercial and Residential COMBINED are just 13%.
Americans are not consuming so much more than Europeans as to generate 10 extra tons of carbon. The average spending reflects it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household... . Not to mention this doesn't take into account prices, and digital service & goods consumption.
I hope that clears any doubts.
> That isn’t because we for some reason have worse power plants or worse ways of making steel.
The suburban experiment is a North American one, and America is absolutely huge. Infrastructure is vastly more expensive to maintain in NA, and yes there are inefficiencies everywhere. Simply living, having access to water, electricity and food, creates more emissions in America based on location.
Suburbs are money-losers and subsidized by city-centers, despite the taxes on residents there. Sprawled cities are way more wasteful than dense cities, and America is a nation of sprawled cities.
Ultimately, you're dwelling on a red herring. I addressed the primary issue already. Sustainability matters because of scale. If the population were actually stagnant, a) consumption would not lead to increased emissions anywhere, b) we'd actually address the problem. Bullying consumers does not. It's just a race to the bottom.
Sustainability matters because of scaling.