[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.