[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.