Oregon youths’ climate lawsuit against US government can proceed to trial, judge rules

LTC (Join to see) - Good article. Mr. Bean knows his cars and engineering.

SFC John D. - What you say is true. But it's not the whole truth, especially since you are using the CO2 production PER CAPITA figures.

PER CAPITA, US CO2 output is 14.86 tons/yr, China's PER CAPITA output is 8.05 tons/yr. That means, on average, every American produces almost twice as much CO2 per year than every Chinese. So, from a personal responsibility point of view, each American has further to go than each Chinese.

Looking at it another way, China contains just over 18% of the world's population, and produces 27% of the world's annual CO2. America has just over 4% of the world's population, and produces 15%. 18% responsible for 27%, a ratio of 1.5 -v- 4% responsible for 15%, a ratio of 3.75.

Since 1900, China has added 249.4 billion tons to the excess load of atmospheric CO2. In the same time, the US has added 411.2 bt., or 1.6 times as much. Since 1750 (the beginning of the industrial age) to 2021 (most recent compilation), the United States' contribution to excess CO2 is 421.9 bt, or 25% of the global total to that date. In that same time frame (1750-2021), China's contribution has been 200bt, or 12.7% of the global total to that date.

No matter how you compute the data, the United States bears greater responsibility for the current climate condition than China, or any other country for that matter. (India[2.71bt] and Russia[1.76bt] combined still, currently, emit less CO2 than the USA[5.01bt].

Even with the progress the US has made in using cleaner technologies, PER CAPITA, we are still responsible for more pollution than China. Pat ourselves on the back, though, we're doing better.

Because China has more than four times as many people as the US, it's TOTAL output is obviously going to be greater. With it's surge in coal generated power, China is, as we are discussing, a bigger threat to the world's air quality and temperature than the US is. At this point in time.

So what's my point with all this number crunching and data overload? Just to encourage a little humility, or at least to accept responsibility for the current condition of the world re: excess CO2 in the atmosphere. We don't need to "decimate our economy" or jeopardize our national security to do so, nor should we. Neither should we decrease whatever influence we can bring to bear on China to decrease rather than increase their carbon footprint. That's all I'm saying.

If we were to do so with a little less arrogance and a little more humility, I'm sure the world would be pleasantly surprised.


(I wasn't able to find the macrotrends data you mentioned or their data for the information I just used. The numbers I just used came from "Our World in Data" which data covered only to the year 2021. I am familiar with macrotrends, have used their data in the past and trust their information.)




https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states?country=USA~CHN#per-capita-how-much-co2-does-the-average-person-emit

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/

Sgt Bob Leonard – I was already typing away to fire back because your response came out as a “China Apologist”, but I will admit that I hadn’t fully read your response.

To make sure this is focused and not going off the rails, all this in context of the discussion that is happening here.

You brought up the per capita comment. My original response previously was going to point out the 13 countries that have a worse per capita emission than the United States and ask if we shouldn’t be focusing the attention on those countries? After all, if the conversation is a comparison between how much more environmentally aware China appears to be because we are 1.8 times them in a per capita output. I mean, those filthy disgusting people in Palau have a per capita output of 55.29!!! Those 18,000 people each pollute over 4 times that of the average American! Unacceptable!!!!

I just raised that up to show that a comparison of per capita is nonsensical unless you want to discuss trends (they are getting better … they are getting worse).

As to your other points, I agree.

Is the US a worse polluter per person than China? Yep. No argument. Is China a worse polluter than the United State? Yep. No argument.

There’s no disputing that the United States has produced more cumulative CO2 emissions than any other country. However, we’ve also cut back on CO2 emissions more than any other country. During the rapid industrialization of the US, nobody in the world cared about what went up in the atmosphere and when the world did start caring about it, we tightened down on emissions and cut back significantly (16% decrease in the last 15 years despite a 10% increase in population).

Are we where we need to be? Nope. Are we getting there? Yes, and a lot better than the other leading contenders (maybe not Japan).

You’ll have to dig deep into why China has a much less ‘polluting population’ than the United States (or the 13 other no-good per capita polluters above us! 8P) – is it because 80% of our population lives in an urban area while they have much less? Is it because they are less industrialized for the average citizen? Again, you’ll have to dig deep to find the reason, but is it because they are a bunch of evolved environmentalists? Not by a mile.

Are there Climate Crusaders that want us to “decimate our economy” and jeopardize our national security? Absolutely. All you have to do is look at some of the more extreme proposals that have been coming out of our politicians. Should we let them? Not at all.

Does the fact that we have been doing a good job in reducing our emissions significantly mean we can start patting ourselves on the back? Not at all. We should keep improving like we have been and if there are better methods that are reasonable and cost-effective to implement, by all means do so.

LTC (Join to see) - Good article.