That’s a fun fact. The US also roughly produces as much renewable electricity as total African production. Total African energy production is projected to grow faster than renewable conversion in the US, though.

How is it remotely fair to compare a highly developed first world country with third world energy usage?

Seems entirely fair, imo.

If, for example only, this was a significant contributor to global warming and impending doom, does it matter that our first world comforts are to blame? We don't get special exception just because we're used to a certain standard of living.

I desperately hope we don't need to abandon first world comforts. And i really doubt we would need to. However if, for sake of argument, that was the only solution - our answer should be to acknowledge the burden and take action.

This is all for sake of illustration though. Just that your comment seemed to imply because our first world comforts use more energy that it was somehow unfair to question the impact of said comforts.

The only option is to reduce population as what Thanos and Dan Brown addressed in their works. Less human less pollutions and energy consumptions. Anything else is just distractions.

One of the more defeatist comments I've seen in a while. Yes, there's no point chasing efficiency or greener generation, let's just bump off half the population.

But if murder is the only solution, you'd have to murder 10 Nigerians to save the same power consumption as an American; you'd do a lot less murder by focussing your attention.

Nigerian per capita gdp was only $2300. The US has $69,000 per capita gdp. The world would be better off letting the Nigerians go.

I feel like you are presuming some argument exists when it is a straightforward statement of fact. It's an interesting comparison, and I'm not sure how it could be described as "unfair."

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/23/663395064/the-u-k-economy-is-... - The U.K. Economy Is Growing — But Its Energy Use Is Shrinking

facts are neither fair or unfair, they just is.

Just some of them might be interesting, others not, this one certainly count as interesting to me.

I hope that in the future, the most advanced nations will be the ones leading the way on energy consumption, maybe because of technology, better regulation, and other factors.

energy usage ~ CO2 emitted (as of now), so... why not?

"Fair"? Shame!

The implied unfairness there becomes a bit more fictional when you consider that an electricity user in Washington state isn't exactly competing with an energy user in Gash-Barka region.

Where such a comparison does become intensely valuable is when the EU says things like "we will do whatever it takes" in relation to energy and food. The implication there is "we will out-bid anyone" and "anyone" happens to be Africa and much of Asia. That's quite a horrendous way of using your currency to export the famine and freezing that you deserve to people who had no say in your bad policy decisions.

From the emissions POV it's not fictional at all, since the marginal electricity use is fossil based. All fossils use is eating at the same global emissions quota we can efford to stave off the worst climate catastrophe.

(Or if in some corner of the US renewables production is reduced before fossil sources when load lightens, that's even a bigger wrong)

What is the call to action, or how is this useful? Can we shut off USA ACs and package the saved electricity to send it to African nations?

What if this said, "Reminder that the US use more electricity for its domestic-use TV than the entire African continent."

Electricity consumption is an indicator of economic success. FWIW, I own neither AC nor TV.

That is actually a mind blowing comparison. I knew heating/cooling is energy intensive but damn.

That comparison actually showed how small the electricity consumption level is in Africa. The lack of electricity usage is a problem for the lifestyle and health of people living there.

And?

People like comparisons rather than numbers.

>Air conditioners use about 6% of all the electricity produced in the United States, at an annual cost of about $29 billion to homeowners.

Just a fun fact, no need to get uppity.

It's not really fun nor useful to the discussion though. It's pandering to the "you should feel bad you live in the developed world and have money".

Exactly, it was really more of a truism, there are many manynother things that the developing world consumes more of than Africa, food, education, water, electricity, gas, on and on. It's just not really useful info, it's true, but doesn't really add to the conversation.

It is meaningful to point out. As the poverty rate declines worldwide more and more people will start consuming like Americans do. There aren’t enough resources in the world to sustain that long term unless we start mining asteroids and find a cheap way to send our garbage to the sun.

The distribution of resources is grossly unequal.

It's unsustainable

I found it to be an interesting fact that I did not know before.

It’s just a fact — why do you think it’s meant to make someone feel bad?

It doesn’t make me feel bad and doesn’t strike me like it was meant to. My thought was “whoa, fascinating” and then I moved on with my morning.

Maybe the “feel bad” stuff is a you thing that your projecting out onto somebody else’s words?

Wow, you know an awful lot of stuff that doesn't follow from that fact. Can I borrow your magic crystal that lets you read minds to get the intent of the op?

I don't read it at all as "you should feel bad". I read it as "just stop using so much energy".

But why should my goal to be user the energy of undeveloped Africa?

Why isn't the goal to provide Africa with the opportunities to generate and consume as much energy as I can?

Well not for global warming, at least until we have cleaner energy...

No, it is an useful piece of data.

The American way of life is not sustainable. Even among developed countries the US is an outlier in terms of their use of resources and energy.

Who gets to decide that?

So far tech has enabled us to keep up. Why can't it continue?

We have plenty of sun that hits the desert of the country to power 10x our current energey usage. We have plenty of places to put nukes. Lots of land for wind.

There may be technologies that would enable American energy consumption at global scale. Whether it is realistic is not certain, though.

But in terms of resources it is simply not possible. If every human being consumed as many resources as an average American then the planet would go up in smoke in 6 months. That's not really an opinion, these are the numbers.

Oppressive poverty and marginally functional electricity grids are moral virtues we should all aspire to, apparently.

Or some people could just reconsider if they really needed AC on all that days.. or at that temperature.. how can such facts be perceived so huffy?

When the fact is preceded with the word "Reminder:" it implies an importance and weight to the fact that takes it out of "fun fact" territory and into judgement.

Of course, all things are not equal between the US and Africa, so the comparison isn't worth mentioning.