> China is a dirty old dinosaur of an economy, it has double the carbon emissions of the US while only generating 2/3 of the GDP!
Does this account for the goods exported from China to the US? These should be added to the emissions caused by the US. The west exported much of their environmental problems to poorer nations, including China.
It doesn't, it also doesn't account for the fact that China has a larger population.
The US only has about ~23% of China's population to sustain. GDP/CO2 is a silly metric to compare (No Patrick, selling financial products to increase GDP/CO2 isn't green).
In reality China is just "greener" (in CO2 emission) than the USA if you measure more reasonable metrics like CO2 emission per capita.
> Does this account for the goods exported from China to the US? These should be added to the emissions caused by the US.
No they shouldn't, China sells products in the global market. The emissions belong to them, along with the price they charge for the product.
> The west exported much of their environmental problems to poorer nations, including China.
Well, globalist corporations and politicians exported their environmental problems, I agree. The solution is not to give dirty polluting countries a free pass, it is to account for the externalities in tariffs.
> No they shouldn't, China sells products in the global market. The emissions belong to them, along with the price they charge for the product.
Well, emissions caused by burning oil would belong to Saudi Arabia, then. I believe the ultimate consumer of a product bears responsibility for its emissions. Without a consumer, the product would not have been made.
Of course it does. Not much US oil usage, of course, because US uses oil extracted domestically. And most of China's carbon emissions come from burning coal not oil, and almost all of that coal is mined domestically.
But Saudi should not get a free pass either, and should be made to pay for its profiteering from carbon pollution along with all other people, corporations, and countries accordingly.
Not sure if you're editing your comment or I didn't read it entirely before.
And your last sentence is not some kind of proof of your belief. Without a dirty cheap producer then a cleaner producer who has paid for the environmental externalities they created might have made the product.
I'm not a fan of China's actions but your post is both mis-informative and ironic given that every one of your points apply to the U.S. at various points in time.
> China is a dirty old dinosaur of an economy, it has double the carbon emissions of the US while only generating 2/3 of the GDP! Horrific carbon intensity. Not to mention all the other environmental destruction it causes. The worker exploitation, the corruption, the human rights abuses, the bullying of its neighbors.
The U.S. produces roughly double the emissions of China per capita. Ignoring population is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. As for bullying neighbours, the U.S. lost both those legs after a long string of funding terrorists, assassinations, and aggressive wars.
> It's modernization strategy consists of copying from the west, and little else innovative, certainly not for its size and wealth. A single American company started less than 20 years ago has already surpassed its entire space program, which sees it losing control of its rockets in orbit and crashing them all over the globe.
Wikipedia has a quote from Alexander Hamilton:
> American founding father and first U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton advocated rewarding those bringing "improvements and secrets of extraordinary value" into the United States. This was instrumental in making the United States a haven for industrial spies.
Industrial espionage was how the U.S. caught up to the UK and Europe. All developing countries will try to copy what's already been discovered because it gets you to the point where you can actually start competing on new technology much more quickly than trying to reinvent the wheel.
> I'm not a fan of China's actions but your post is both mis-informative and ironic given that every one of your points apply to the U.S. at various points in time.
It is neither misinformative or ironic, and it's clearly talking about today and in future.
> The U.S. produces roughly double the emissions of China per capita.
I'm not talking about per capita. Per capita is about the worst metric to use for this, because 1. the environment doesn't care about per capita, it cares about total emissions, and 2. acting like lower per-capita is better creates perverse incentives to increase population and suppress quality of life. Carbon intensity is the relevant metric.
> Ignoring population is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
Rubbish. I'm talking about facts that have no relationship to population.
> As for bullying neighbours, the U.S. lost both those legs after a long string of funding terrorists, assassinations, and aggressive wars.
That doesn't address what I wrote I'm afraid. I never said "China does this and USA does not".
> Wikipedia has a quote from Alexander Hamilton:
Also irrelevant. America (and almost all the world) had slaves. That doesn't stop me from saying any nation that uses slave labor will never be a leading country and will always be looked down upon, at least until [the use of slave labor] is dismantled.
