[chrneu]

>America had no idea how good they had it, in the before times.

The downside is the insane consumption associated with that. Americans are responsible for an insane amount of pollution, far more per capita than any other people in the history of the world, much of which is tied to how easy/cheap it is to order shit we don't need. So, good if ya wanna buy cheap pollution, pretty bad if ya care about the next generation.

[Retric]

America isn’t #1 in pollution per capita, that’s largely a function of per capita income and America is a long way from #1 on that metric.

For example, we where ranked 16th in terms of CO2 per capita in 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... We are just #3 by population and far richer per capita than the other 2.

[smcl]

You may want to take another look at that list. Proudly declaring you’re only the 16th worst per-capita (already very high!) when ahead of you are tiny places like Pulau, New Caledonia, Gibraltar and Curacao is really quite funny.

[Retric]

Facts are neutral, when someone says something incorrect it’s worth pointing out the truth.

UAE, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Russia, and Australia are mid sized countries that emit more CO2 than the US per capita but you need to come up with a new metric to get that list. CO2 emissions by countries with more than 10m people or whatever. Perhaps bump it to countries with over 100m people so America is #2 on a list of 16 countries, or 300m so America is #1 on a list of 3 countries.

[defrost]

> For example, we where ranked 16th in terms of CO2 per capita in 2023

For home soil central north american CO2 production, sure.

Things change if such rankings were to account for the CO2 production as a result of satisifying US consumption habits .. the "benefit" of having off shored industry to China is the final goods come to the USofA while the emissions and waste of industry occur elsewhere.

[Retric]

America has huge trade deficit from China but America imports more from the EU (605.8) and Mexico (505.9) than China (438.9) followed closely by Canada (412.7). At the same time just under 15% of China’s exports are going to the US, so America really isn’t a large fraction of their emissions.

In terms net imports vs exports staple agricultural products have a very high carbon footprint per dollar and America exports a lot of low value food. So the carbon balance is way more tricky than just suggesting America has exported its manufacturing.

[henry2023]

It’s also important to note that America is largely a service economy not a goods economy.

For every American citizen importing lumber from Canada there’re a thousand Canadian citizens who have a Netflix subscription.

Looking only at trade deficit is purposely blinding yourself.

[Retric]

Companies are also heavily cooking the books with IP and trade.

Netflix Canada Inc and Netflix Services Canada Ulc two local companies are collecting payments in Canada and they don’t want to look like they have any profits whatsoever. https://insights.greyb.com/netflix-subsidiaries-and-acquisit...

[henry2023]

It’s really cool to see progress in most developed nations in terms of co2 per capita emission today vs 25 years ago. Thank you for the reference.

[navane]

Tariffs are great for a left wing, socialist, anti-globalist, green agenda.

[NaomiLehman]

are these bad things?

[naIak]

If you are poor, you should be terrified, because what those policies mean is that the rich are pulling the ladder up behind themselves now that they’re rich beyond their wildest dreams.

[alsetmusic]

No. But some people have been successfully brainwashed by decades of propaganda to believe otherwise.

[navane]

No. It's just ironic to see them coming from a capitalist demagogue desguised as a republican.

[themafia]

> Americans are responsible for an insane amount of pollution

So does Canada.

> far more per capita than any other people in the history of the world

Not even remotely close to true. Aside from that it's down 20% from it's peak 40 (!) years ago.

> much of which is tied to how easy/cheap it is to order shit we don't need.

The data does not support this conclusion.

> pretty bad if ya care about the next generation.

Speaking of trends.. care to guess which country has doubled it's pollution in the last 10 years?

[mulmen]

> Speaking of trends.. care to guess which country has doubled it's pollution in the last 10 years?

I really don’t. I genuinely have no idea and I have zero interest in guessing. Just say it and stop wasting everyone’s time.

[NaomiLehman]

I think the answer is China (CO2 emissions). But the longer answer is that they are mainly making stuff for the US and the EU.

> While China emits over one-third of global CO2, it is also the world’s factory, producing more than one-third of global manufactured goods (IEA, 2024a; Norton, 2024) . Research indicates that China remains the world’s largest generator of embodied trade carbon emissions. The gap between emissions embodied in China’s exports and those in its imports widened from 0.7 GtCO2 in 1990 to 1.8 GtCO2 in 2019 (CGTN, 2024) . According to the Global Carbon Budget, China’s 2021 consumption-based CO2 emissions are about 10% (or 1.2 GtCO2) lower than the territorial emissions (Friedlingstein et al., 2025).

- https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/

[themafia]

> Just say it and stop wasting everyone’s time.

I didn't waste your time. I posed a question. Your options were to ignore it, answer it, or complain about it. You've decided to complain and thus have maximally wasted your own time.

The point was, perhaps instead of saying things that are absurd, one should look at the graphed data to draw conclusions. I didn't /want/ you to guess, I wanted you to just go look. Or probably just admit to what you almost certainly could have guessed or already know is true.

[mulmen]

> I didn't waste your time. I posed a question.

So you don’t know what country doubled their pollution in the last 10 years? Was that a genuine question?

> The point was, perhaps instead of saying things that are absurd, one should look at the graphed data to draw conclusions.

What graph? What are you even talking about?

> Or probably just admit to what you almost certainly could have guessed or already know is true.

As I already said I genuinely don’t know. I could find sources for any answer if I interpret the question appropriately. As you posed the question any answer could be correct. Is it China? The United States? A developing African nation? Who knows! You brought it up. It’s on you to answer.

To those of us with more than a passing interest these details matter a lot. I don’t have the energy or desire to go back to first principles on this with you.

[NooneAtAll3]

> > Americans are responsible for an insane amount of pollution

> So does Canada.

it's not as good of a comeback as you think it is...

[themafia]

It's not a comeback. I'm not trying to win a diss war. I'm adding information to the conversation. Information which is true and laughably apparently offends most of the HN audience.

This forum loves to invent negative facts to justify it's default misanthropic positions. I find this pathetic.