As pointed before, I expect the CP in China to bite the dust if they do not accelerate the deployment of green technology and to control their emissions.
What about the part right above the numbers from me you quoted , where I labeled those numbers
“Per capita carbon dioxide emissions by nation, 2009:” ?
Not clear enough for you?
It’s ridiculous to use any numbers other than “per capita.” Is it your notion that each nation should be assigned a total amount of CO2 production despite how many people live there?
And it’s even more ridiculous to pretend that, if world manufacturing moves to China, the consumers of what is being manufactured are no longer culpable for consuming. That is exactly the point: we are culpable if we are doing the consuming. If I want more stuff, and making that stuff produces CO2 because manufacturing requires power, I need to stop buying stuff until making that stuff no longer contributes to AGW.
It’s hypocritical and inconsistent to be a consumer but blame AGW on the guy who is making whatever it is I’m consuming. I am responsible for my carbon footprint, which is in turn created by all that I consume. Whether it’s made here or there, the reason for the carbon is me (and Al Gore).
The typical Chinese (and Indian) has a long, long way to go to catch up to the typical American for their carbon footprint.
If, by CP, you mean Communist Party (and not Chief Pedant 
), you are welcome to any expectation you want to hold. My own expectation is that they will bite the dust if they fail to provide adequately for their populace, and that providing adequately for that populace will mean ongoing aggressive expansion of energy use. Whether such technology is clean or not will be only a peripheral consideration, secondary to the main goal of providing enough for economic expansion. Tragedy of the commons, and all that.
Green energy is typically a luxury for the rich right now.
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
Not clear enough for you?
[/QUOTE]
:smack: Totally missed it that you put it in the link (I clicked on to read your cite). Sorry about that. I guess you could chalk it up to my old age, but really it’s called ‘skimming a post on the run on my iPad and totally brain farting my read on it’.
My notion is that the country pumping out the most CO2 is the country that’s pumping out the most CO2. That’s pretty much it. I’m not trying to assign how much CO2 a country should put out…merely pointing out how much they are in fact putting out. I thought you were trying to pull a fast one by going the per capita route, having missed you saying that in your link.
We aren’t putting a gun to China’s head to manufacture anything for the rest of us…they do so willingly. Since they ARE doing it, then pointing out that their CO2 emissions are the largest in the world is merely fact. YOU are trying to make some point about assigning CO2 or something…I wasn’t making that point.
Certainly you can say that China’s increase in CO2 comes from making the rest of the world stuff, but not exactly in the way you mean. It has come because making the rest of the world stuff has made them orders of magnitude more prosperous…which means they use more electricity, drive more cars, and use more refined products themselves.
See, but I wasn’t doing that. I think that based on your own logic, it’s hypocritical for you to give China a pass, since it was there choice to do all this stuff and massively increase their carbon footprint, but to me both views are silly. China’s CO2 production is what it is…just as the US and EU’s is what it is. Obviously this is impacting our environment, and causing global climate change. What we can do about it is really the issue, from my perspective.
So what? China as a nation IS the largest CO2 producer (followed by the US and EU as 2nd and 3rd largest producers…and India is, IIRC, number 4), and attempting to hide that behind per capita numbers doesn’t change that.
Still no answer to a full quote from the original source.
You must be a Sebastian Vettel of dodgeball.
(my bolding)
So funny that you went for “reading comprehension”.
I said “CO2 is the main driver of climate.”
You even replied “No expert also has said that CO2 is the main driver of climate”
But since you can’t go for a simple reply you had to out-do yourself and say
“CO2 is driving all” and “CO2 is the single driver of the climate”.
Since I never said that, I don’t have to respond.
Could you give me a list of approved scientists that I can quote?
Or even if I quote six of the most important GW papers you’d accuse me of having an agenda for not quoting the 7th?
I’ll give you a chance to withdraw your complains as to CO2 not being the main driver of climate (of course in the context of GW, the main driver of climate overall is the Sun). There is almost no GW paper that isn’t about CO2 as the main driver and how this temp rises caused by a hgher concentration of CO2, c’mon!
There was already an answer, from the source itself, you do not like it, it is not my problem.
Of course, it was a moot point anyhow from you. And temperature is only one aspect of climate, making even more moot this silly point.
Piffle, the main problem was noticed many times before, you not do not even understand an skeptical scientist like Pat Michaels when he tells many contrarians to drop this silly idea of claiming that “it has not warmed from year X”.
Nope, the main driver of the current increase in warming is not the sun, this clearly demonstrates to all that indeed, no matter how many times is pointed out to you, you still like to show all how nicely you get your face on the floor by not checking what the science says:
And it is not my problem that actually, as it has been clear, that you are only continuing with the discussion with already demonstrated contradictory points, once again the reality is that you disagree with what most papers report, I agree with them, and once again it is not contradictory to point out that CO2 is not the the current warming is caused by us, but nature’s cycles are still there.
When I talked about climate over all, one has to indeed point out that the sun is still there, and with no global warming gases we would be an ice planet, on that context is that I and many others can say that CO2 is not the main driver of climate, the problem becomes when the balance is affected as it has been during the last 200 or so. Then when one deals with **what **is driving the temperature increase (a part of the overall climate), then of course human made CO2 and other gases are taking the wheel.
And of course it is not just Pat Micheals:
Temperatures graphs still report that the earth is warming and they are not made just for global surface temperatures, and even the few remaining skeptical scientists report also that the warming is still happening.
“When somebody says that there is no such thing as warming, one squirms, how can you look at those records and entertain that?” - Pat Micheals.
“You don’t argue with thermometers” - Fred Singer.
“So the planet is warming about 0.14 degrees C per decade” - Dr. John Christie.
Again, it is very silly and unnecessary to grasp this contradictory straw of claiming that there is a “temperature standstill” **that **is still the original dumb point of yours.
Real skeptics have been found to be wrong on their models and projections that only small raises in temperature are to be expected, but that is a different history that IMHO shows progress, dumping silly contradictions is good so as to then deal properly with the issue at hand, what is needed is to stop to continue to push for items that only discredit the bloggers and tabloids that propose it. And discredits too the posters that double down on points that even the real skeptics dumped awhile ago.
The U.S. is, by far, the largest per capita CO2 emitter. If one stipulates that a reduction in emissions is highly desirable, any opinion that the U.S. should not be leading the way on reductions defies any morality.
This point is tangential, but let me nitpick it anyway. 
In what scenario would the Earth have “no greenhouse gases”? Both Mars and Venus have atmospheres mainly CO2. An interesting question is: Why does the Earth have as little CO2 as it does?
This is nonsensical and meaningless.
To claim that “China is the largest CO2 producer..is merely fact” and imply that per capita production is somehow less important is ridiculous. The US produces over two or three times what China does, per capita, and there is no measurement besides per capita production that makes any sense whatsoever. It is meaningless–absolutely meaningless–to leave an inference about the degree of impact by leaving out a per capita figure. By such a measure it would be inappropriate to criticize Qatar, because even though the per capita number is 44 tons, only 2 million people live there.
It’s those sorts of statements that render the whole AGW debate utterly useless. It’s popular to buy into the general problem; highly unpopular to feel any personal responsibility or pain effecting a solution. This is exactly the tragedy of the commons, and exactly why AGW is a Great Cause Religion, and nothing more. It doesn’t matter how passionately we believe the world should be a better place if we constantly use language to obfuscate the problem: ourselves.
We in the US are responsible for three times what the average Chinese is responsible for. It is absolutely our responsibility to stop consuming things that create carbon if we are going to harp that carbon production is a problem. It’s the height of hypocrisy to consume, but then turn around and say you weren’t forcing someone to produce. Of course you weren’t. But you were nevertheless creating the market which drives the production. You are entirely capable of eliminating your share of the production.
I have a feeling plants have something to do with it.
Yeah, but your stance is still seems ridiculous on its face. What point are you trying to make? Currently china produces around 20% more CO2 but we produce more than 3 times more per capita and we have outsourced a lot of consumption to them. Are falling back on the popular denier talking point that we should not do anything because it won’t matter anyway? Or do you want to cap the rest of the world’s standard of living before the US addresses the changing climate? What is your point?
There really wasn’t anything hidden in it…I was simply pointing out that China produces more CO2 than any other nation. Full stop.
Should we do something about that? Sure. Devil, meet details. What CAN we, reasonable, do? IMHO, nuclear is the way to go if we are serious about wanting to cut CO2. Everything else is merely for warm and fuzzies…again, IMHO. I don’t want to, nor do I think it’s feasible, to cap the rest of the worlds living standard anywhere…and don’t think it’s either reality OR ‘fair’ to attempt to curtail China’s or India’s (or any other emerging industrial nations) CO2. Nor do I think it’s feasible or realistic to attempt to do that in the US or EU (the number 2 and 3 CO2 producers in the world…or India, number 4).
Realistically, IMHO, you have to try and use market forces to leverage in greener technology…and, frankly, get those hippies out of the way (to paraphrase Richard Prior) and allow for the large scale use of nuclear energy, as well as for at least the higher tier wind resources (so, no more NIMBY on key wind sites), as well as solar where it makes sense. We also need to try and make it cost effective for countries to start switching over to more efficient cars, hybrids and the like, and getting the older, more polluting cars off the road.
Sadly, none of this is realistically going to happen quickly…we are taking (again, realistically) medium and long term trends here, not something that’s going to happen next year, or even 10 years from now. Which means that part of all of this is to start preparing for years like this last one as more of a norm. Lots of freak snow storms. Lots more energetic hurricanes. Sea level rise. Drought and flood. Hell, dogs and cats living together for all I know. It’s going to happen, and one of the best things we can do in the short and medium terms it to prepare ourselves, both physically and, maybe more importantly, mentally, for what’s coming down the pike.
To get back to the OP though, saying that we ‘are among the last people that will ever walk the Earth’ due to climate change is ridiculous, and really undercuts the real, grounded science of climate change, and makes it easy for people to dismiss it all as hysterical horseshit. That helps no one.
Since you have no arguments, and chuicken away from answering a simple, full, direct quote from the source you wanted it’s always “piffle”, “moot”, “sillY” OR “you want to decieve people”…
You make the same mistake again by misquoting me on purpose
I said: "CO2 is the main driver of climate (in the context of climate change), the sun is the main driver of climate (overall).
From this you get both “CO2 is the only cause of GW” and “The sun is the main cause of GW”.
The problem is that you need to force whatever I said into the SkS page of your preference, and forget to address direct points.
I’ll state “Pachauri studied railroad engineering”…I want to see how this statement makes me kill Sudanese refugees.
Nope, the reason is to make the discussion honest and to check what exactly you are saying, this is just another bit in the painful education of contrarians everywhere, scientists indeed do not ignore that the sun in there driving the climate, it is still a dumb point to make the sun the main reason of the recent increase in temperature as most articles from the Australian and the Daily Mail fraudulently do, once again the teachable moment here is that you need to stop relying on deceiving sources of information. (Once again, skeptical science is a resource that should be consulted to make sure you are not being taken for a ride to public shame as it is here, you have to deal with what the scientists report, not just the messengers)
It just demonstrates to all that once again you are a complete ignorant, his position is just as an organizer, in essence his expertise is to put the real expert of a system to work together, and of course this demonstrates how stupid it was to put too much in this molehill of his statements, as he is just the organizer he is bound to make mistakes on what the specifics of the science is; indeed, then the efforts of the Daily Fail and others just managed to get a misrepresentation of what a manager says and they do not bother to confirm it with the experts and then use that misrepresentation as if it was very important (it is less so when the person is not a scientist, the contributors to the IPCC are) you are only showing even more evidence that your original point was even more stupid.
As pointed before, it is very likely that Pachauri never say that you quoted, and even if he said something similar, he would be only partially right as in this case he is not looking at all the other evidence that shows how the whole earth continues to warm (and again this is **if **he actually said that, once again the report from the Australian does not quote him saying that)
The point here stands, it is even more retarded to point out the fact that Paichiry is not a scientist **as it shows that the original jab of yours was even more stupid **as the only reason to bring it was to seed FUD and it comes from media with a record of misrepresentation and falsehoods on this subject.
By putting a full stop before adding the “per capita” detail, you are not making any point whatsoever. None whatsoever. Full stop. Your “point” means nothing…zip…nada.
If China had 6 billion people, they’d be doing fantastic with their current total output; if they had 6 million people they’d be doing horrible. Without the calculation per capita, an absolute number for total output by country is utterly meaningless, and any concern expressed over a total output for any given country instead of a per capita output is a concern expressed by someone not grasping the concept.
If you don’t get it that the only number which counts is a per capita number, I guess you don’t get it, but I suppose you can enjoy your little “fact” to your hearts desire.
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
To claim that “China is the largest CO2 producer..is merely fact” and imply that per capita production is somehow less important is ridiculous.
[/QUOTE]
As opposed to attempting to compare a country that has over a billion more people and that has only recently started to industrialize and modernize on any sort of large scale to a country that was part of the original industrial revolution, right? 
The only meaningful number is the actual level of CO2 being produced. The climate and the environment doesn’t give a good god damn how mush is being produced by each individual person, only how much is actually going into the atmosphere and what effect it’s having.
Again, so what? The US is more heavily modernized, and China is still in the building phase of it’s economy and industrialization, with it’s standards of living having started at the rock bottom and only recently started to come up.
I’m sorry that you can’t grasp that it’s the raw amount of CO2 that is the ONLY meaningful measurement (because it’s what actually is impacting the environment, which, again, doesn’t care at all how much an individual is producing, but instead cares about the total that’s being dumped in), but thems the facts. You are basically trying to parse the numbers to make a political point, but it’s meaningless in that it changes nothing…we are dumping X amount of CO2 collectively into the environment. Parsing it to say that each of the 1 and a half billion Chinese put out less than the 300+ million Americans is just a way of trying to put the blame, without context on the US (or the EU which is the 3rd largest producer of CO2). The US and EU have flattened out or even started to decline in their CO2 totals, which is a direct consequence of how rich our societies are, while China and India are exploding, because they are still ramping up both their economy, their standard of living and their industries, all of which pretty much require power, which is going to drive their CO2 production.
Why? What impact does the per capita use and production of CO2 have on global warming? You figure if you parse the numbers it will, what? Cause global warming/climate changes to somehow be different?? The only meaningful number is how much is actually being produced, and what it’s impact on climate change is.
That’s YOUR argument…I’m not criticizing anyone over their CO2 usage. And that’s really the key here…you are looking for who to blame, and I’m basically just pointing out the reality of who is producing how much CO2. I guess you figure that if the per capita number is low, that should give them a pass…or something…while if it’s high, that is some sort of ding…again, or something. To me, that’s silly, since you are comparing a population of a few hundred million people who have been at a high modern state for over a century to a country of over a billion who have only recently started to shift from an agrarian and poverty ridden state to an industrial one with a higher standard of living. It’s not a meaningful comparison to look at per capita usage, but instead the only meaningful view is how much actual CO2 is everyone producing and what impact it’s going to have.
To me, it’s you attempting to obfuscate the problem, to be honest, by attempting to assign blame without context. Whether you look at this from a per capita perspective or simply the over all production of CO2 by a given country (or, even simply look at ALL our CO2 production as a species), the only meaningful point is ‘how much is actually going into the environment, and what could be realistically done about it?’.
Ok, so, looking at things from your per capita perspective which you seem to feel is the only meaningful way to look at it, what’s the answer? Let’s forget about that whole context thingy about WHY there is such a disparity and what it means (and small facts such as while it’s true China et al build stuff for us, we build stuff for them too, as well as sell them a lot of agricultural products), since that obviously doesn’t matter to you, but instead what do those figures do to answer the question of what could be done?
Yes…and? We have more than 3 times their standard of living, have been industrialized more than 3 times as long, etc etc. Our CO2 production is actually flat as well, or even declining slightly, while China’s is going up fairly radically. There are, of course, contextual reasons for that as well, but you don’t seem to like nuance, so we’ll just leave it there. Why is it important that the average US citizen is individually responsible for more than 3 times what the average Chinese is responsible for (actually, I think it’s many more times more than 3, but that’s beside the point)?
Ok…how? Much of our (and China’s for that matter…and the EU, and pretty much every other nation that’s involved in world trade) prosperity and standard of living is tied to this, so how do we do this in a meaningful way? And if we cut it, how do we afford all this nice green(er) technology?
To me, the answer is not to try and assign blame through parsing the numbers, but to look at the overall problem and see what, if anything, can be done. Myself, I think that it’s going to take a combination of regulation, market economics and a realistic look at the problem and real world solutions (such as nuclear, as I mentioned earlier) to do anything. People simply aren’t going to radically cut back on their per capita CO2 foot print in any meaningful way if it cuts into their standard of living, and it’s unrealistic to even put that forward
Getting back to the OP…climate change pales in comparison with the problem of our burgeoning population. The absolute worst thing we could do for the overall survival of the earth in its non-anthropogenically altered state is to prosper as a species. We’ll rapidly finish occupying every possible niche, eating up the oceans, and farming out the land.
Ok. I was not sure before but this shows where the problem is, it does not matter if we have billions or millions of people, it is the **total **CO2 and other emissions that are warming the planet, it is correct to say that we are all responsible, but as pointed many times before, we can separate items like the total population from the harmful things that an increase of it would do to an environment, otherwise it would had been impossible for the USA and other nations to control pollution in rivers, acid rain and CFC emissions that affect the environment.
When there is a problem brought by technology we are not helpless to control it and use other technologies and incentives like taxation and regulations to control harmful emissions.
And once again, that issue is not ignored, the problem here remains that people like Anthony Watts and other contrarians also attack people like Al Gore for mentioning that, so many prominent contrarians (not the skeptical scientists) claim that all this talk of Climate Change and CO2 emissions control is a communist plot and the one of the reasons we need to be against Gore and other environmentalists is that “they are pushing for a communist” “one child only” forcible solution.
If anything I could say that you are not like the usual contrarians that think that environmentalists are already being draconian on the population issue, but you are still hung up on only a partial solution that can be employed for this issue.
To ask a quick question related to my OP link: what, specifically, is wrong with the science of his assertions? Is the exponential increase he shows in his graph the same as the “hockey stick” I hear so much about wrt this issue?