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Is it time to finally move on from "Stopping Climate Change" and instead work on mitigating it?

Per capita emissions are not relevant to the question of the overall impact on the climate
Bullshit. If overall per capita emissions are reduced, overall emissions are reduced. If one country (e.g. USA) indulges in far greater per capita emissions than another country, I think it is incumbent upon the higher emitters to reduce their emissions before demanding that lower emitters reduce their emissions by similar amounts. Certainly to whatever extent emissions are a proxy for standard of living.
 
As you can see, China emits nearly twice as much as US.
How much of that is emitted as a consequence of making stuff that's ultimately exported to, and used by, Americans, though?
Around 16% of China's exports go to the US. The next highest country is Japan with around 5%. Without the US, China would still be expanding its use of coal-fired electric plants. Just not as much. But China does not have to expand its use of coal to produce more electricity. That is a deliberate choice on their part (that Australia loves).
 
As you can see, China emits nearly twice as much as US.
How much of that is emitted as a consequence of making stuff that's ultimately exported to, and used by, Americans, though?
Around 16% of China's exports go to the US. The next highest country is Japan with around 5%. Without the US, China would still be expanding its use of coal-fired electric plants. Just not as much. But China does not have to expand its use of coal to produce more electricity. That is a deliberate choice on their part (that Australia loves).
Much of Australia doesn't.

The Queensland Resources Council, a lobby group representing coal miners, are absolutely incensed at the state government's decision to massively increase the royalties charged for mining coal; This policy is intended to reduce the scale of coal mining as an industry, and has the pleasant side effect of making us rich while mining continues.

The Queensland government’s controversial decision to increase royalties on record-high coal prices has contributed to an unexpected $10bn revenue windfall and a record surplus, allowing the state to fund cost-of-living relief, including free kindergarten classes and $550 electricity rebates for all households.

https://amp.theguardian.com/austral...unced-delivered-by-qld-treasurer-cameron-dick
 
Carbon footprint is tricky. When I lived in Southeast Alaska, my carbon print was very large. Even though it uses 100% hydro for power. Everything is barged of flown in. That's a lot of carbon.
 
Bullshit.
Bullshit3.
If overall per capita emissions are reduced, overall emissions are reduced.
Duh. I have shown that US has reduced its per capita emissions ~12% between 2017 and 2020, while China has increased theirs ~6% in the same time interval.
If one country (e.g. USA) indulges in far greater per capita emissions than another country, I think it is incumbent upon the higher emitters to reduce their emissions before demanding that lower emitters reduce their emissions by similar amounts.
That's just nonsense on stilts. We don't have the time to do this piecemeal, country by country. It should be a global effort. And, as I have also shown, China is building a lot of new coal-fired power plants, that should be priority, given how dirty and carbon-intensive coal is.
Why do you have such a desire to defend China? Is it just your kneejerk anti-Americanism?

Btw, US is not even at the top of per-capita emissions. A number of countries have higher per capita emissions that the US, including Canada and Australia.

Certainly to whatever extent emissions are a proxy for standard of living.
They are not a very good proxy. A MWh gives you a certain standard of living regardless of whether it was produced using coal, natural gas or nuclear. But the coal MWh emits almost twice as much carbon than natural gas and more than 250 times as much as nuclear.
5-Bar-chart-%E2%80%93-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png

Usable energy, and standards of living, are not good proxies for carbon emissions.
 
How much of that is emitted as a consequence of making stuff that's ultimately exported to, and used by, Americans, though?
As The Hound said, 16% of exports go to US. Not sure what percentage of emissions that would correspond to.
I do not see how that matters here really. The decisions what energy sources to use, e.g. to build more coal-fired power plants, are made by the Chinese government. The dependence of Chinese economy on exports could give other countries some leverage though. I have not seen Biden say anything about pushing China to abandon coal though. Or Schultz for that matter, but the Red-Green German government is hopeless. First they turn all nuclear power plants off for no reason, and now their bright idea is to make Germany dependent on imported hydrogen.
 
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We don't have the time to do this piecemeal, country by country.
Mealymouthed excuses don’t feed the donkey. You want to keep emitting twice as much as someone else, while demanding that THEY reduce their emissions, plain and simple.
That’s hypocrisy on steroids.
 
How much of that is emitted as a consequence of making stuff that's ultimately exported to, and used by, Americans, though?
As The Hound said, 16% of exports go to US. Not sure what percentage of emissions that would correspond to.
I do not see how that matters here really.
It matters because if we produced that stuff, those emissions would be ours. We outsourced a lot of our pollution. So it isn't as easy to say Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, China are polluting and need to get their stuff in order, when their pollution is in part connected to our materialism! When people stop being stupid and start thinking of pollution as a global phenomenon, then it becomes clear we all need to cut it back, substantially. But that generally requires some levels of sacrifice, something humans suck at. In America, we are overly sprawled and that genie won't go back in the bottle. Mass transit is a four letter word in this country that demands more lanes that'll just fill up too.

China needs to reduce emissions, the United States needs to reduce emissions. We need to stop tearing down forests that could help us with the emissions! We need to do a lot, and we needed to start doing it 40 years ago. Whining about China emitting today, when the US has been emitting CO2 into the atmosphere for the last 160 years is ridiculous.
 
I'd think that a lot of what you'd do to 'stop' climate change would be one and the same as 'mitigating' it, and we'll be forced to do both - transition to clean energy AND deal with consequences.

To me, what we're seeing now is a limitation of human society. For quite a long time many of us held a belief that people are all-powerful and invincible, but climate change is shattering that illusion. It's just not true. In the past ten years or so I've likely read about 300 academic books on world history, sociology, anthropology from across the past century. Guess how many of those made any mention at all of our impact on the environment?

That we're an intrinsic part of a biosphere just didn't enter our collective consciousness until it was way too late.
 
I'd think that a lot of what you'd do to 'stop' climate change would be one and the same as 'mitigating' it, and we'll be forced to do both - transition to clean energy AND deal with consequences.
No, not remotely. Climate change is impacting both fire and water and hurricane related insurances. Managing that isn't reducing emissions. We need more medical staff and staging for heat stroke in the south (and the north during La Nina years). This stuff is with us for a bit whether humans act or not (they won't at least not at any pace good enough to matter).
To me, what we're seeing now is a limitation of human society. For quite a long time many of us held a belief that people are all-powerful and invincible, but climate change is shattering that illusion. It's just not true. In the past ten years or so I've likely read about 300 academic books on world history, sociology, anthropology from across the past century. Guess how many of those made any mention at all of our impact on the environment?

That we're an intrinsic part of a biosphere just didn't enter our collective consciousness until it was way too late.
Actually it got there in the 1960s with the clean air and water acts. But 15 to 20 years later, a bunch of neocons derailed America. And now we have true believers that think what is happening is a lie.
 
Actually it got there in the 1960s with the clean air and water acts.
The US was behind the times; The UK passed their Clean Air Act in 1956, and that Act was itself pre-dated in England by the Smoke Nuisance Abatement (Metropolis) Acts of 1853 and 1856, which recognised that it might be a poor idea to pump unlimited amounts of pollution into the air, given that we intend to continue breathing it.
 
Actually it got there in the 1960s with the clean air and water acts.
The US was behind the times;
We have a history of that. Slavery, Great War, WWII, Environmental considerations, Prog Rock. The US has a tendency of being fashionably late to current events. Pretty much coasting on developing a viable form of representative democracy for 250 years at this point. Though I think maybe we weren't as lazy with arable land management (well... after the dust storm issues).
The UK passed their Clean Air Act in 1956, and that Act was itself pre-dated in England by the Smoke Nuisance Abatement (Metropolis) Acts of 1853 and 1856, which recognised that it might be a poor idea to pump unlimited amounts of pollution into the air, given that we intend to continue breathing it.
And I recall reading scientists were pondering global warming in the second half of the 19th century as well.
 
I'd think that a lot of what you'd do to 'stop' climate change would be one and the same as 'mitigating' it, and we'll be forced to do both - transition to clean energy AND deal with consequences.
No, not remotely. Climate change is impacting both fire and water and hurricane related insurances. Managing that isn't reducing emissions. We need more medical staff and staging for heat stroke in the south (and the north during La Nina years). This stuff is with us for a bit whether humans act or not (they won't at least not at any pace good enough to matter).
To me, what we're seeing now is a limitation of human society. For quite a long time many of us held a belief that people are all-powerful and invincible, but climate change is shattering that illusion. It's just not true. In the past ten years or so I've likely read about 300 academic books on world history, sociology, anthropology from across the past century. Guess how many of those made any mention at all of our impact on the environment?

That we're an intrinsic part of a biosphere just didn't enter our collective consciousness until it was way too late.
Actually it got there in the 1960s with the clean air and water acts. But 15 to 20 years later, a bunch of neocons derailed America. And now we have true believers that think what is happening is a lie.

There's quite a bit of difference between realizing pollution is a problem and the entire infrastructure on which our economy is based is a problem. The former is certainly not the collective consciousness we needed.
 
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