A new look on global warming

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The more we lower our emissions the lower we can demand that the Chinese, Indians and others emit per capita. As it is they emit vastly less per capita than we in the west especially the US and before we can demand anything from them we need to clean up our own act. Pointing at people who pollute way less than ourselves as the problem with this issue is incredibly hypocritical. Or it is ok to just lump those people as a whole and they are happy tilling the earth right? They have no need for all the stuff we have, running water, electricity, cars, television nah, lets point to them as the reason why we shouldn't care.

 

Wow, do you actually believe the Chinese, Russians, and Indians will do what the "West" demands?

A quick Google search came up with these numbers for CO2 emmissions

These figures were from 2003. Anyone want to bet that China, Russia, and India are closing fast?

 

There are more than three times as many people in China or India than in the US. The US is both the biggest polluter in total and per capita (well there might be some lilliputland that is worse but you get the drift). My point was that how can we demand anything from China or India while they are emitting way less than us? To ever be able to expect anything at all from them we must at least start lowering our own emissions. If China and India started emitting as much per capita as the US then I sure hope global warming is the vast elaborate hoax you and others claim.

The Chinese and especially the Indians are actually well aware of environmental issues, China are suffering already and India are quite determined to not go into the pitfalls we have. They take this seriously but it is quite reasonable for them to not stifle themselves and let their people stay poor in an effort to cut emissions that are already way below per capita than what we put out.

You gotta clean up your own yard before you complain about your neighbours.

 

I like that analogy, Joacqin. I'm all for cleaner living. What gets under my skin is the idea that we should sanitize our yards with toothbrushes. The demands of the eco-fascists are just too drastic and damaging to be taken seriously by regular people. And as I said, even if Canada were to totally shut down everything, it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference.

I'm gonna use an analogy of my own. Little Tina needs an operation. The pastor at the local church asks for donations to pay the 5 million dollar fee to save her life. He comes to me and says "Keldin, I want you to sell your house, car, computer, phone, and all your clothes and personal possessions. I want you to completely eff over your entire financial plan, and kiss any chance of sending your kids to college goodbye. That should give us about $60,000." So I say, sure, and go and ruin myself and become a beggar on the street. Three weeks later, I see Pastor Dick and ask him how the operation is going. "Oh, Keldin, nice pattern of filth on those rags you're wearing. yeah, a couple of other people donated some money, and we got a million bucks. But we were 4 million short, so little Tina died. Good effort on your part, though! I hear the boxes outside of Best Buy make great shelter!" and then he goes home to his 3 million dollar house.

All that sacrifice and effort made by me and my family? Utterly bloody useless.
Now, I'm exaggerating to make a point. I'm willing to make a sizeable contribution (based upon my income) to help little Tina. I'm not an uncompassionate individual. I'd even make some painful sacrifices. But the policies and programs that the activists propose are just too much like selling everything for a result that is still no good.

 

From 2002
# 1 United States: 5,762,050
# 2 China: 3,473,600
# 3 Russia: 1,540,360
# 4 Japan: 1,224,740
# 5 India: 1,007,980
# 6 Germany: 837,425
# 7 United Kingdom: 558,225
# 8 Canada: 521,404
# 9 Italy: 446,596
# 10 Mexico: 385,075

From 2004 link
#1 United States: 6,049,435
#2 China: 5,010,170
European Union: 4,001,222
#3 Russia: 1,524,993
#4 India: 1,342,962
#5 Japan: 1,257,963
#6 Germany: 860,522
#7 Canada: 639,403
#8 United Kingdom: 587,261
#9 South Korea: 465,643
#10 Italy: 449,948

From 2006 link
1. China: 6,017,690
2. United States: 5,902,750
3. Russia: 1,704,360
4. India: 1,293,170
5. Japan: 1,246,760
6. Germany: 857,600
7. Canada: 614,330
8. United Kingdom: 585,710
9. South Korea: 514,530
10. Iran: 471,480

So joacqin, No we aren't the biggest polluter, so get off the "hate usa" horse that drives so much of what you and ragusa say.
Next time look up the facts before spewing your . Okay?

 

LKD, if you really think this, then you are either talking about a really tiny group of extremists or you've never really bothered to look at the actual suggestions coming out of groups like the IPCC. Transitioning away from our dwindling fossil fuel resources isn't extreme...it's a good idea -- even if anthropogenic climate change were found to be not quite as bad as once thought. Since our species is going to live on this planet for more than just another 100 years, we're going to want our fossil fuel resources to last. Visit LA or Beijing and you'll probably understand a little better why those "eco-fascists" recommend reducing our emissions and our reliance on fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels causes more than just the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. They also cause smog. Smog, sir, does a lot more than just stink -- it's bad for your health.

How about letting us see the full chart, Martaug?

1. China................6017.69.......4.58
2. United States.....5902.75.......19.78
3. Russia...............1704.36.......12.00
4. India.................1293.17.......1.16
5. Japan................1246.76.......9.78
6. Germany............857.60........10.40
7. Canada..............614.33.......18.81
8. United Kingdom...585.71........9.66
9. South Korea.......514.53........10.53
10. Iran..................471.48........7.25
11. Italy.................468.19........8.05
12. South Africa.......443.58........10.04
13. Mexico..............435.60........4.05
14. Saudi Arabia.......424.08........15.70
15. France..............417.75........6.60
16. Australia............417.06........20.58
17. Brazil.................377.24........2.01
18. Spain................372.61........9.22
19. Ukraine..............328.72........7.05
20. Poland...............303.42........7.87
The first Column is self explanatory, the second is total emissions measured in million metric tons of CO2, and the third column is per capita. If we go solely on CO2 emissions, our worst polluter is China. If we measure by per capita emissions, that dubious honor goes to Australia. If we use a method incorporating both sides of the equation, the grand prize winner is the United States. With less than a quarter of China's population, we are second only to China's emissions, almost matching them, and our per capita emissions are second only to Australia. Canada, with it's 18.81 metric tons per capita, isn't much better.

 

Spring 2008: Climate Solutions
Who’s Responsible? 100 Years of CO2

 

One thing to remember is that per capita doesn't really matter much here. It doesn't matter how many people put the CO2 into the air, but just how much is there (if that matters at all).

The other thing is that those numbers are likely to change drastically over the next decade or so, especially if China continues it's current growth and India follows it.

 

NOG, the bar graph just served to illustrate where the responsibility lies. It's a total calculation of the amount of CO2 produced in the entire industrial age. For a lot of the production in the past, the damage has already been done, so there's no use crying over spilt milk. It's true that many countries still have to experience their own industrial expansion, so more environmental damage can be expected from them. But the western world started this process, and it stands to reason that we should be the ones who come up with a solution. The rest of the world is under a tremendous amount of financial pressure, so we're the only ones who even have the leeway.

Hey, cool. This thread is the most viewed on the AoDA!

 

I don't think even we have a lot of leeway, not unless you consider a regression to pre-industrial standards of living and medicine to be acceptable (and some extremists actually advocate this). The truth is, while our industrial revolution may be over, we're far from out of the industrial age.

Of course, there is one very viable technology that really could turn this around, for the US at least, and is in large part responsable for the lower levels of CO2 emissions of much of Europe: Nuclear Power!

 

The States are already on the path of working towards conserving their resources; just look at the latest 'drive' towards fuel-efficient cars and hybrids... And I'm definitely not advocating a regression to pre-industrial society; it would be unworkable with current population levels. Fortunately, most efforts towards cleaner and more efficient energy use, are also advantageous to the countries in question. So it's self-serving.

I approve of it as a transitional alternative, in the road towards clean renewable energy. But it's far from pollution-free; depleted uranium remains highly toxic for thousands of years. But it would certainly give the States more of that leeway, which you claim to not have.

 

Well, considering leeway:

1.) Energy needs are not likely to be dramatically reduced any time soon, not even with moderate conservation of energy usage.
2.) If hydrogen fuel cell technology becomes viable (I really hope it does), energy needs are going to skyrocket.
3.) Hydroelectric stations are already at the point of causing potential and real ecological damage in the US.
4.) Geothermal energy is severly limited in locations.
5.) Wind energy technology, though promising, is still insufficient for serious power generation, and also limited in locations, though not as much as geothermal. Also, it's raising some ecological concerns lately.
6.) Solar power technology is even more limited than Wind energy technology at the moment, and needs MASSIVE tracts of land to be viable (not to mention a little pricey).
7.) There are other ideas on the table, like thermal induction in the ocean, wave action generators, etc. but they're all still fiction at the moment.
8.) Nuclear energy has all kinds of bad press, both deserved and undeserved, not to mention the huge stigma. Plus, it is a limited resource.

At the moment, and probably for at least a decade yet, nuclear energy is the only technology that can really compete with fossil fuels for electrical production, which is the real devil in terms of just about all forms of polution.

 

Agreed on number one and number 2, but I don't think fuel cells are the way of the future, anyway. We have already successfully built and tested an electric car that can go more than 300 miles without a charge and plug-in hybrids can go more than 100 before they need to start using gas.

#3 isn't quite accurate, since hydroelectric technology has already cause irreversible ecological damage in many places.

Wind and solar can already compete with fossil fuels over the long-term. They have much higher start-up costs, but their maintenance costs are a fraction of what gets paid out for fossil fuels. Taken out 20-30 years, green energy is actually cheaper than fossil fuels...especially since fossil fuels become more expensive (and finite) with each passing year.

Where applicable, Georthermal energy is great, and wind is a lot less limited than you seem to think. While we may not have gobs of land to spare, off-shore wind turbines are quite impressive.

While it isn't viable as a primary energy source in most areas of the country, Solar energy can do more to lower our energy needs than pretty much any other energy source for one simple reason -- it's portable. My in-laws have 2 Solar panels on their roof, and they live in a suburb of Seattle. Even there, with constant cloud cover, their solar panels are able to provide them with with about 95% of their energy. Their energy bills come out to about $21 a year, thanks to those solar panels. They sound expensive, but pay for themselves within 3-5 years.

 

Drew, the problem with wind and solar is the shear numbers needed to compete with fossil fuel. Even here on the East Coast, where wind energy is plentiful, it'd take a massive number of turbines to equal one or two coal plants, not to mention the trouble they'd cause in a hurricane.

The solar pannels on rooftops is a good point, but I'm curious as to how much mainenance they require. Seriously, please fill us in if you have any info. If those became more standard (I understand they frequently require re-enforcing the roof for the weight, but that's doable), then it could cut our power needs substantially. Moving away from a centralized power structure would do wonders for our infrastructure reliability, as well.

 

This is true, but a single turbine takes up a lot less space than a coal plant and all the coal mines needed to keep that plant running. Space isn't really much of a problem since we have plenty of it off-shore. Regarding hurricanes...well... they aren't a major problem everywhere. The northeastern United States, for example, has little to worry about in that regard. That said, I'm not convinced that hurricanes are really all that big an impediment.

Plug and play, really. The only part of a solar panel that has any moving parts requiring maintenance is the pump. While earlier versions of solar panels were relatively fragile, solar panels are now constructed from strong unbreakable materials, so a solar panel itself requires minimal maintenance to continue doing its job. Essentially the only breakable part of a solar panel is the glass covering. Maintaining a solar panel is very straightforward, since all you really need to do is periodically clean it (a dirty panel works well below peak efficiency).

 

I call major Bull Crap on this.
As even the websites of the solar panel companies admit:

Avg for seattle area is 1073 KwH/month, that works out to 35.277 KwH per day.
The seattle area is listed at 4.5 sun hrs according to solar insolation data. Link
Using 2 224Watt panels would provide 2.016 KwH per day
At that rate you would need 35 panels to provide all of your energy used per day.

And that is being generous as this site lists seattle at 3.53 hrs per day on average

So drew, unless your in-laws have some super secret super efficient solar panels, B.S. pure and simple.

 

Perhaps they make an effort not to use as much electricity as the average joe. Certainly that's the kind of minor lifestyle change that I think would be beneficial for not only the individual but also for the populace as a whole and the environment to boot.

 

That's about the rhe right of it. They don't have a computer, are on well water with a septic system, and have a gas stove. I don't know how their energy bills got so low, but they are.

 

Ok, lets figure that they use half the energy that a standard home does. That works out to 17.638 KwH per day. Even if the had 2 1Kw system arrays they would still be 8.638 Kw short per day. Thats 3152.8 Kw bought from the power company per year. at the current 7.64 cents/KwH* thats $240.88 or $20.07 per month, not a year as drew claimed.
And remember that number is based on 2 1Kw arrays which cost $8,500 - 10,000 each.

If they have just the 2 224 watt panels ther power bill goes up to over $36 a month.

* - this is the 2nd cheapest energy rate in the us, only idaho at an average of 7.31 is cheaper. US average is 11.38 with highs of 21.59(hawaii) & 20.09(connecticut)

 

Sigh. I don't have all the specs on their panels, but I know that they generate at least 250 KWH. If you look around, you'll see that there are several packages in about the $10,000 range that can do this with an average of 3.5-4 sun hours per day. That said, when I say 2 panels, what I mean to say is that they have two separate panel-looking thingies. I saw them, but I haven't climbed on the roof to examine them up close, and the things are pretty damn big. Since multiple panels are run together with no clear line of demarcation between them, it is perfectly possible that they either have 2 very large panels, or that their "2" panels are actually 4,6, 8, or 10. I have no ***ing clue as to which because I didn't buy the damn things, I didn't install them, and it isn't my house. As to how quickly such panels pay for themselves, you need to factor in what you already would have been paying for energy in the first place along with any tax-breaks or credits you earn for installing them. As with all things, the speed at which you reap the benefits is entirely dependent on how you do your math.