> Telling nations to abstain from carbon emissions is like asking teenagers to be celibate.
Not all nations are born alike. There are plenty of examples of wealthy nations in Europe and Asia with fractional carbon emissions footprint.
Before anyway throws the "they export their pollution" argument at me, you need to look at the stats on global GHG per capita.
Basically the US, Canada, Australia, and the Gulf Countries are disproportionately wasteful per capita.
This is largely due to how much people buy non-essential goods in those countries and how much energy is generated from Coal/Gas. Both of these can be changed without falling into medieval lifestyles.
To assume that nothing can be done about it is learned helplessness which absolutely plays into the interest of the hydrocarbon industry lobby.
"Before anyway throws the "they export their pollution" argument at me, you need to look at the stats on global GHG per capita."
I think it's more useful to look at carbon emissions per unit GDP, and the change therein. Stuff has to be produced somewhere, and it doesn't matter to the Earth where. What we want is for it to be produced as carbon-efficiently as possible. By this standard the U.S. still has a way to go to catch up with Europe, but it is catching up, rapidly (and our Canadian friends are weirdly awful, I guess because of tar sands and growing food in greenhouses).
> Basically the US, Canada, Australia, and the Gulf Countries are disproportionately wasteful per capita.
Gee I wonder why those countries would be producing so many emissions per capita. I mean it's not like they're supplying the entire world with food and energy, oh wait, they are.
Given the truly impressive number of golf courses in the area (for a desert), this isn't the worst descriptor, but I do wonder if you mean the Gulf Countries, referring to the countries with a shoreline on the southern half of the Persian Gulf? I remember being a kid in the early 90s wondering why they were starting a war over a game...
At least in Portuguese, "Persian Gulf" is "Golfo Pérsico", so that typo is perfectly understandable if the commenter is not a native English speaker (or has recently read non-English texts mentioning it).
Not all nations are born alike. There are plenty of examples of wealthy nations in Europe and Asia with fractional carbon emissions footprint.
Before anyway throws the "they export their pollution" argument at me, you need to look at the stats on global GHG per capita.
Basically the US, Canada, Australia, and the Gulf Countries are disproportionately wasteful per capita.
This is largely due to how much people buy non-essential goods in those countries and how much energy is generated from Coal/Gas. Both of these can be changed without falling into medieval lifestyles.
To assume that nothing can be done about it is learned helplessness which absolutely plays into the interest of the hydrocarbon industry lobby.
edit: Gulf not Golf!