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A comment on Sixty years of climate change warnings. Parent comment

Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by wolverine876 on Monday July 05, 2021 @12:07PM (#27739342)
Plenty of countries implement climate change protections, and do other things to protect the commons, especially the environment. It's a commonplace thing. It's really the US that is the exception on climate.

There's some fetish about violence these days, despite living in a world where the international order and democracy, both non-violent solutions to politics, have built freedom and prosperity many orders of magnitude beyond anything in human history.

We can do it. Let's stop talking about how hopeless we are and just get to work.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by Zababa on Monday July 05, 2021 @12:15PM (#27739431)
> It's really the US that is the exception on climate.

I don't think it is. For exemple, Brazil and China are both terrible from a climate perspective. Africa is also not reducing their numbers of births. The USA may be behind Europe, but the rest of the world still exists.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by loopz on Monday July 05, 2021 @12:38PM (#27739664)
> Africa is also not reducing their numbers of births.

African birth rates have declined steadily since the 1950's:

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/AFR/africa/birth-rate

There have also been lots of state/local-level initiatives in the US. USA is still an innovative driving-force of the world even though some leaders have tried to sabotage it.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by Zababa on Monday July 05, 2021 @01:57PM (#27740324)
Africa still has birth rates 3 times higher than Europe. That's a lot.

> There have also been lots of state/local-level initiatives in the US. USA is still an innovative driving-force of the world even though some leaders have tried to sabotage it.

They are, which is why I initially replied to the comment that singled it out.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by wolverine876 on Monday July 05, 2021 @01:19PM (#27739972)
I don't think significantly poorer countries are a fair comparison; they can't afford to do better. The US is the wealthiest country in the history of the world.

Among wealthy countries, the US is the exception (maybe there's one I'm not thinking of).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by adrianN on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @12:53AM (#27744345)
Unfortunately the US is not an exception. Pretty much no one is on track to limit warming to 2°: https://climateactiontracker.org/
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by beervirus on Monday July 05, 2021 @12:37PM (#27739656)
> It's really the US that is the exception on climate.

China’s pumping out more than twice as much CO2 as the USA is.

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by loopz on Monday July 05, 2021 @12:49PM (#27739769)
Per Capita paints a completely different picture:

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by tomatotomato37 on Monday July 05, 2021 @07:03PM (#27742658)
The climate doesn't care if it's 100 people emitting 1 unit of CO2 or 1 person emitting 100, it's going to have the same effect either way. China does not get a free pass because it has a lot of people or it likes to pretend it's still a developing nation, it's just as responsible as any western nation for fixing this mess
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Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by loopz on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @05:55AM (#27746164)
Simply divide by sqrt(Capita) if you want an average between these stances.

Good point btw.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by beervirus on Monday July 05, 2021 @05:54PM (#27742180)
Yes, if you look at it per capita, the US is #16 instead of #2. That is a great point that makes it even clearer that the US is not some horrible exception to the worldwide trend.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by bellyfullofbac on Monday July 05, 2021 @01:22PM (#27739993)
Yeah, but where is the world's factory? Where was your shiny phone, or your kid's Nerf gun (or whatever plastic toy they have), made?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sixty years of climate change warnings by beervirus on Monday July 05, 2021 @06:07PM (#27742258)
Yes, China does have an economic incentive to pollute, that is correct.
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