BBC News: China 'Now Top Carbon Polluter'

Per capita, though, I believe we're still way ahead of them.

And as much as now we see differently and we want to be greener and we want to pollute less... at this same time developing nations like China and across South America are going to be consuming hydrocarbons the same way we do now. It's not like we can really ask them to stop, now that we all have our cookie cutter existences all lined out. Especially when we buy such a good chunk of the stuff they are making in China. Our best hope is developing a replacement to oil, that will replace the hydrocarbons and hopefully divert the flow of monies from oil countries back this way. At least stem our negative trade balance that is from oil. If only.

"But there is no sense pointing a finger at the Chinese."

Of course not. It's all George Bush's fault right? The fact that the Chinese are going to keep right on burning coal and oil as fast as they can get their sooty hands on it means that it really doesn't matter if we were to cut our "carbon footprint" down to a little green baby booty. Global C02 emissions are heading up.

I like the way Jon Winsor interjects "Per capita, though, I believe we're still way ahead of them" to make sure we keep the finger pointed at us. Since they outnumber us by more than a factor of four I guess we will have to wait until they quadruple our C02 output before we can wave any digits in their direction.

Lance, if you were a Chinese person, would you turn your nose up at an automobile or television because you wanted to suppress CO2 output? You're confusing blaming individual Chinese (which you seem to have no problem doing) with blaming bad global policies and economic disincentives to reduce CO2 output (which are present because the nations with the cultural and economic influence to enact these policies are dropping the ball).

And "sooty hands"? Honestly?

Lance: I know you have a libertarian philosophy. What about us Chinese libertarians? Why can't we develop our economy too? Is industrial society only for the West?

And if you're so bent on us lowering our emissions, why can't you show some good faith and develop some low emissions technology to share with us? And how about cutting your own emissions? Why should we suddenly go on a crash diet if you people have been binging on industrial emissions for decades?

"But there is no sense pointing a finger at the Chinese. They are trying to pull people out of poverty and they clearly need help.

"The only solution is for a massive transfer of technology and wealth from the West."

Excuse me - what? The West does have higher per-capita emissions. Guess what? If our "solution" is a "massive transfer of technology and wealth from the West", all that will happen is that they will pollute on the same scale as we do per-capita. If we assume China produces as much pollution as us, and they have four times the population, it means they currently produce 1/4th the pollution per capita. How ridiculous to say that the "solution" is to transfer technology and wealth so that they can multiply their emissions by 4x. That sentence might make sense if we, as Americans, had lower emissions per-capita than third-world countries, but we absolutely do not. So, the increased wealth of China means that we'll have a few additional United-State's worth of pollution in the future.

On thing it does illuminate, however, is this: the cutting of American emissions is going to have virtually zero impact on global emissions when we have so many people climbing up to the technology, wealth, and (per-capita) pollution levels of the US. No, I'm not a GW denialist. I just think it's ridiculous for us to talk about cutting carbon emissions when huge portions of the earth's population are going to overwhelm any and all cuts we could possibly ever make. Yes, you can complain that we shouldn't put a burden on them, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. Unless you can come up with some new energy technology soon (which is cheap, better than existing technology, rapidly adopted, and environmentally friendly), then you have to make a choice between lowered carbon emissions and increased wealth around the world. Let's not pretend like we can have increased wealth around the world and lowered carbon emissions.

If you want to claim China should not be burdened with carbon-emission limits because "They are trying to pull people out of poverty and they clearly need help", then stop ignoring the obvious and clearly state the following: "We want to ditch the program for lowered carbon emissions because we prefer increased wealth around the world." Anything less is ignoring the facts.

Well, yeah, and that's just it. All of this coal is going to be burned one way or the other. Only the peaking of world coal production (probably around 2030), or a general collapse of industrial society, will initiate its decline.

Rebecca,

I wasn't blaming the Chinese for wanting a standard of living on par with ours. Quite the opposite, I was just pointing out the inconsistency of lambasting the US and the other industrialized countries CO2 emissions while looking the other way for China and India.

You seem to want to blame "...global policies and economic disincentives..." by "...nations with the cultural and economic influence to enact these policies" which would appear to be, again, the western industrialized democracies. So you also want to blame us while giving the Chinese a pass.

"Sooty hands" was just a colorful allusion to the way hands might appear if they were grabbing for coal and oil. You seem to be implying something more nefarious.

I am of the opinion that we face no serious consequences from this increased CO2 and it would be a better use of resources, and better for the millions of people living in poverty, if we concentrated our efforts on raising the standard of living for them by helping these countries develop.

Restrictions on energy will only serve to inhibit the development of these countries and stifle economic prosperity in the west.

Hi Libertarian Chinese Person. Glad to hear that there are libertarians in China (although you don't really sound like a libertarian or Chinese for that matter). I have absolutely no problem with you developing your economy. I believe it will lead to an informed populous that will demand their liberty from a totalitarian communist state.

While I welcome your rapid economic development I would encourage you to observe the rights of others by not dumping hazardous materials into the commonly held air and water. Fortunately CO2 is not going to cause any catastrophic heating so all this blather about carbon footprints is so much political drivel.

I am of the opinion that we face no serious consequences from this increased CO2

What.
This entire thread was thoughtful and interesting to read until you said that.
That's a pretty goofy opinion. Good thing we have science to contradict it.

John,

Where is the "science" that you think conclusively proves that we face "catastrophic heating" from CO2? Please be specific.

Lance wrote densley:
"John,

Where is the "science" that you think conclusively proves that we face "catastrophic heating" from CO2? Please be specific."

Lance,
You are obviously well educated so I will not call you stupid. The scientific method does not ever claim to prove anything. Hypotheses can be disproven, but never proved.
Please wise up. It is CLIMATE CHANGE, NOT GLOBAL WARMING!
CAL

Cal,

The climate is always changing. This mundane fact is not in dispute. I don't believe I used the words "global warming", although our host Chris Mooney frequently does, including the category for this thread, so perhaps you should take up your argument with him.

You are quite correct in pointing out that science doesn't "prove" theories only postulate hypotheses and then attempt to falsify them. I was using the common vernacular for a laymen level discussion of what scientific evidence had convinced John that my opinion, that there is no compelling evidence that we face catastrophic warming, was "goofy".

If you found my wording "dense" please accept my apologies. I hope this clarifies my question to John.

The climate is always changing. This mundane fact is not in dispute.

This is a perfect example of the fact that Lance is more interested in rhetoric than science. Um, there's the little matter of the rate of change that tends to matter to people whose neurons fire normally.

For instance, Australians don't care about rainfall patterns changing over millions of years. But recent droughts tend to make more of an impression. And this, in turn, brings certain worried interests to pay people like Lance good money to post comments on websites like this.

Jon,

I am not paid to comment here or anywhere else. I am very interested in science as that is my profession.

The rate of change of the climate is the crux of the issue. There is ample evidence that nothing unique to the climate history of the earth has occurred during the last century.