[21echoes]

You can wax poetic all you want about anecdotal values differences between the first and third worlds, but speaking in terms of actual practical impact: what you are saying is simply not true. Greenhouse gas emissions scale super-linearly with income: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-world-s-top-1-of-emitte...

There are dozens and dozens of studies all reaching this same conclusion, if the International Energy Agency isn't good enough for you: https://www.google.com/search?q=greenhouse+gas+emissions+by+...

OP's point was that the global rich (most US citizens included) have lifestyles and patterns of consumption which produce an outsized amount of greenhouse gasses, and any attempts to alter those behaviors are routinely met with anger and political backlash

[pentae]

Yeah and my point is that these studies look at energy consumption they don’t take into account things like burning yard waste or plastic garbage into their co2 consumption which is often done daily to keep mosquitoes away and from laziness. Nor does it look at air pollution nor waterways pollution. So it’s a useless metric that doesn’t even have accurate data or tell the real story.

What will we do when these societies who give no fucks about the environment (compared to the west) get wealthier?

White guilt is not going to save anyone

[refulgentis]

I don't think proposing cutting CO2 emissions is "white guilt" -- I probably missed something, I'm not sure how race entered it. (and I don't mean that snarky! I probably missed it :) )

I'm also unsure if "White guilt" is a good descriptor for the West enforcing emission cuts by force on not-West: that sounds like aggression as opposed to an expression of guilt.

The fun/exciting part: a total mind-bender on this is not-West countries are installing renewables at scale without incentives or "[any color] guilt", solar is cheaper than any other supply you can think of.

Then we can start talking about "solar isn't enough because unreliable", true.

Then maybe we start talking about how it's racist to prevent people from having unreliable electricity, true, but rest-assured, the idea of enforcing cuts on other nations isn't on the table.

To avoid the tarpit of moralizing, I try to stay focused on saying "they're installing solar panels and it's cool if they gotta do coal/tires/etc. while we 10x batteries again like we did last decade" --- this also has the benefit of matching the uncoordinated reality as it stands

[concordDance]

Your link has the Chinese top decile with higher emissions than the EU top decile, so your "what you are saying is simply not true" seems incorrect, their central point of value differences and higher pollution in third world countries seems to stand up well.

[onetimeusename]

This doesn't take into account that countries like the US have already cut emissions and emissions have been declining for years. Meanwhile, China has much greater total emissions than the US does and emissions in China are increasing per year continuously as they are in India. Total global emissions are what matters for the climate. Although reducing waste and being more efficient are always helpful, fixating on lifestyles of people like US citizens is not particularly useful.

[refulgentis]

Source? (AFAIK it does, and it'd be very unexpected for it not to. The rest of the comment is unclear to me. I may be reading it as a strawman instead of a steelman -- would a reply like: 'just because our derivative is negative doesn't mean on a per-capita basis we're less' be accurate? I'm sure I missed something)

[onetimeusename]

Source for what? That emissions are declining in the US?

You can find some details here https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... I am surprised you didn't know this already.

Here is China https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KT?location...

It doesn't take into account trends that already exist. In the next decade small reductions to emissions in US transportation per year will be meaningless. Also reducing agricultural emissions which are only 10% of CO2 emissions in the US will have little affect on total global emissions. I'm not sure why there is so much hand waving about the CO2 emissions of China alone.

[refulgentis]

> Source for what?

"This doesn't take into account that countries like the US have already cut emissions and emissions have been declining for years."

> You can find some details here https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... I am surprised you didn't know this already.

This being US / 1st world emissions are decreasing? Thank you for looking that up etc., I appreciate it -- I did know that, and seriously, thank you for taking the time to source it: I'm only saying I knew so you can rest assured at least one other person is up on data. These are strange times and it's hard to get a read on if facts are common knowledge or not, and our estimate of that can cause intense feelings.

Putting my comment more simply and extending it so it doesn't feel like I'm passive-aggressively quoting my comment back at you:

I'm curious why we think the per-capita emissions data "isn't accounting for it decreasing"

[onetimeusename]

What I am taking issue with is the assertion from the other poster that "Greenhouse gasses scales super-linearly with income" which links to a page. That page looks at one year, 2021, and makes assertions that don't account for annual trends like the decrease in emissions the US has been experiencing for years and will continue to experience. The US _IS_ reducing emissions. It also doesn't take into account the large expected increases over just say the next decade in countries like China.

Total global emissions are an important factor to consider for the global climate and focusing only on reducing emissions of the US will be meaningless because total global emissions will still continue to go up.

edit: thanks for clarifying btw and here is trends in total global emissions found on the page https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...