Re:Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)
by AstralStorm on Thursday May 30, 2019 @02:33AM
(#20048905)
It should be moved some from China to USA because of trash exports too. (Also probably Malaysia.)
Anyway, it's great when you compare yourself to second worst.
CO2 emissions are a decent proxy for primary energy in our present fossil-dominated era, and when accounting for CO2 embodied in imports, the US does look worse. But it doesn't make a big difference:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-largest-co2-import...
"Despite the large total of CO2 imports and exports, US emissions are only 6% higher and Chinese emissions are 13% lower when CO2 transfers are taken into account."
If the energy/CO2 really should be increased 6% to account for imports, that would put American energy consumption at 6804 * 1.06 = 7212 kgoe per capita in 2015, still lower than in the 1970s.