The usual thing is to point at China because China is a huge place with a huge population and so as it industrialized it uses a lot of power and emits lots of CO2.
This made plenty of sense ten years ago, when for a smaller country you could compare their entire CO2 footprint to China's annual growth and ask why bother. But increasingly while China is still huge these comparisons look worse for even medium-sized countries unless they're actually on a sensible path. China is growing more slowly and importantly mostly by using more renewables and electrifying, so the comparison looks more uncomfortable.
The comparison with China was never very good, as thinking in terms of emissions per country is useless. Per capita emissions would be much more relevant, and even then you'd have to take into account that Chinese factories produce their goods mainly for Western markets.
I think we all know how poor China was in the naughties. They needed foreign investments to enter their country. So now let's think about it: with strict regulations, would have those investors chosen China?
Or do you believe that the Chinese (the people not the government) deserve to live a poor life forever?
China was the 3rd largest economy in the world. Their middle class was fine. If they wanted to add some environmental regulation it wouldnt have halted growth.
Per captia data is not useful because they have so many people who live rural lives without tech. Their urban class was doing well and causing a ton of pollution just like the US does. They then scaled up even more in the least emission efficient ways complete disregard for the damage it would do.
Weighted means we should consider them differently. 1 tonne of CO2 produced when you have no idea what global warming is hits very different to 1 tonne of CO2 produced when you've known about global warming for 60 years and the entire world has come together and said lets start trying to reduce emissions.
If at that point you start slapping down 60 coal plants and moon shotting your co2 pollution then you should be blamed for global warming.
So whoever industrialises before there's scientific consensus on climate change gets to keep the benefits of their pollution and those who don't have to somehow skip that part of the tech tree and jump straight to renewables/nuclear?
I can see why the countries that were not first to industrialise are not on board with that idea.
So you're fine for every country to industrialize in the cheapest dirtiest way and destroy the world because other its "unfair". No one is saying they cant industrialize, only that they have to be cautious about their emissions and make an attempt to reduce them. For example, instead of operating a steel mill from the 60s and building a new one copying the old design use a new design that has less emissions.
Yes that is for the best. Countries like India and China are moving away from fossil fuels faster than previous developed countries did. Still not enough but surely something.
You can say that but fossil fuels are still a huge part of their energy grid and energy generation is only one part of industrializing. Even if they did it 100% renewably which they arent it would still be devastating to the world.
It doesnt matter if its right or not they will act in their own interest. But its pretty dumb that we sit around in the west arguing about the emissions from a few gas turbines when china is deploying 60 coal plants a year and burning rubbish.
The other biggest emitter is still barely decreasing its emissions, far less halting. A slight decrease in the rate per year does not save us from the point of no return.
You can look at the emissions growth of all the major emitters around 15 years ago and they're all slowing their growth and tapering off.. except china which is doing a hockey stick curve rushing to get as many coal plants down as they can.
Slowing the growth from a high level just means accelerating towards the point of no return, but moderating the acceleration.
It doesn't mean stopping before the point of no return. It means continuing towards the point of no return, and going faster, but not increasing the speed as much as before.
Give me the argument why China should be able to hockey stick their emissions graph after 2014 when the world had their climate accords. Now also apply that logic to india and africa.
What I'm saying is that we'd pass the point of no return independently of what China did, or India, or Africa. The countries that started emitting CO₂ earlier went on emitting, and that's enough for us to pass the point of no return. Everyone has to stop emitting CO₂. China's behaviour just changed the date a bit.
Changed the date both directions, I'd say — China's building all those coal plants shifted the date in one direction, and China's building all those solar panels shifted the date in the other. The world's biggest change for good is IMHO the Chinese solar panels.
Do you really think that middle man services have enough leverage to convince the government to degrade their services? That is hard to believe. Its more likely that the government process just sucks and these services sprung up to fill a need. At some point it will be improved and these services will disappear.
Marx's labour theory of value is only a theory of where profits come from and is largely rejected. Return on captial investment is not restricted to factory owners. All workers get a share of the surplus value and have the option to increase that by investing.
"Capital stands as one of the most influential and controversial books ever written. Its legacy is multifaceted, shaping intellectual discourse, political movements, and the historical trajectory of the 20th and 21st centuries."
My hypothesis is that if you go full socialism, you get stagnation, because no one is motivated to change anything. If you go full capitalism, you get Gilded Age, where wealth and political power is concentrated in the hands of few individuals, followed by Great Depression.
There are a lot of people on Mastodon who are genuinely as insane as X users. I recently opened up my account and saw people engaging with al quds brigade accounts.
Its a nice thought but copyright is dead in the age of AI. I wish it werent but it is. We're in a period where copyright is only enforced selectively and it will pass.
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