Climate change

[mostonmike]

co2percapitaincchina.jpg (20.66 KiB) Viewed 425 times

Weirdly, the figures show both our countries doing well on CO2 emissions - not that you would know from the hype and hysteria. The US is back at pre WW1 levels and the UK is back to the same levels per capita as 1857 - although our population has increased from 30 million to 67 million in that time. How far back down that line must we go before they are satisfied? The aim apparently is zero.

I wonder if the planet increasing the number of global mouths to feed by about 70,000,000 per year has anything to do with this Climate Change thing? Its funny that its never mentioned. China dropped their one-child policy in 2015, allowing two children. Then during that thing that happened in 2021 - they seemed to have increased the child limit to three. That news passed me by while the world was banging on about jabs and shit. Anyway, I am sure that China's decision will help the CO2 emissions.

Interestingly, since they scrapped the limit - most couples in the country still settle for a single child as that is now their culture thereby seeing the country slide into population stagnation and decline in recent years. But China, in spite of all their other many faults, was the only government who recognised an issue as far back as 1979 and made attempts to deal with it - albeit really cruelly and sinisterly.

Forget the targets of CO2 emissions of reaching net zero - a population growth of net zero would not only help, but would probably make the world achieve it.

[gil]

Great graphic; thanks for posting. (And good job, United Kingdom, by the way!) Although I think I'm more concerned about CO2 emissions than many others on this forum, I don't know if the "zero emissions" goal has much scientific or practical basis. It's a clearer, simpler talking point than say "we desperately need to get to 5 t CO2 per capita." Therefore it gets attention.

I think the more relevant concern is the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, which has increased over time. Since CO2 "lingers" (i.e., much - but not all CO2 emitted - is absorbed by plants, the ocean, or soil - the rest stays in the atmosphere), the concentration will go up even if the current rate goes down, until the current rate reaches some critical amount (again, I don't believe this is zero).

That leads me to look at the area under the curves for each country. Arguably, the wealth of the industrial age was based on burning fossil fuels. The US and the United Kingdom are seeing economic transitions to being more efficient with using fossil fuels (as indicated by the decline in per capital CO2 emissions). But clearly, the US and the United Kingdom have created more emissions over time, in total, and I'd argue that reflects the basis of our wealth and prosperity. China is trying to catch up. It looks like their current emission per capita are about where the US and the United Kingdom were in 1900.

[Grandma Lynn]

I think we have some very intelligent people
on this site!!
With all that's going on now, the shootings
and etc. I do feel not only the weather is
changing!

[Walla Walla Dawg II]

Great graphic; thanks for posting. (And good job, United Kingdom, by the way!) Although I think I'm more concerned about CO2 emissions than many others on this forum, I don't know if the "zero emissions" goal has much scientific or practical basis. It's a clearer, simpler talking point than say "we desperately need to get to 5 t CO2 per capita." Therefore it gets attention.

the problem is that the "zero emissions" our government keeps talking about is for the planet....not man-made emissions.
-This is impossible-

[gil]

Great graphic; thanks for posting. (And good job, United Kingdom, by the way!) Although I think I'm more concerned about CO2 emissions than many others on this forum, I don't know if the "zero emissions" goal has much scientific or practical basis. It's a clearer, simpler talking point than say "we desperately need to get to 5 t CO2 per capita." Therefore it gets attention.

the problem is that the "zero emissions" our government keeps talking about is for the planet....not man-made emissions.
-This is impossible-

I agree completely. Carbon dioxide is a the waste product of respiration (you and me and the entire animal kingdom), and methane (a much more potent greenhouse gas) also occurs naturally.

But I didn't realize that zero emissions was being used that way ... accounting for nature as well as human activity. That seems ... "unnatural" comes to mind.

[Donn Beach]

It's "net zero" and it refers to man-made greenhouse gas producers. Carbon dioxide is more than the waste product of respiration it's what plants use to survive .You wouldn't want zero carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, nature would collapse . But it is a question of balance. It's man-made sources that throw things out of balance

Achieving net zero will require a two-part approach: First and foremost, human-caused emissions (such as those from fossil-fueled vehicles and factories) should be reduced as close to zero as possible. Any remaining emissions should then be balanced with an equivalent amount of carbon removal, which can happen through natural approaches like restoring forests or through technologies like direct air capture and storage (DACS), which scrubs carbon directly from the atmosphere.

https://www.wri.org/insights/net-zero-g ... s-answered

The administration's goal in terms of carbon dioxide.

Reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 50-52% below 2005 levels in 2030

[Donn Beach]

Humans are not considered to be adding carbon dioxide to the environment

In one day, the average person breathes out around 500 litres of the greenhouse gas CO2 – which amounts to around 1kg in mass. This doesn’t sound much until you take into account the fact that the world’s population is around 6.8 billion, collectively breathing out around 2500 million tonnes of the stuff each year – which is around 7 per cent of the annual CO2 tonnage churned out by the burning of fossil fuel around the world.

So, on the face of it, we humans are a significant contributor to global warming. But, in reality, the CO2 we’re breathing out is part of a natural cycle, by which our bodies convert carbohydrates from CO2-absorbing plants into energy, plus water and CO2. As such, we’re not adding any extra CO2. In contrast, burning fossil fuels like coal releases CO2 which has been locked up for millions of years, producing a net contribution to global warming

https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-ear ... ate-change

[Donn Beach]

Terms of the reduction in CO2, between, believe it's like 2005 to 2017 there was around a 15% reduction. This was attributed to various things, but mainly the switch from coal to natural gas. Then COVID created another pretty significant drop.

[Sibelius Hindemith]

I wonder how much debris got swept out to sea from the flooding around Beijing in northwestern China. Doubt we'll ever hear about the ecological impact from anyone over there, but it has to be huge. And then there's several imminent extinctions of endangered species due to the black market for Chinese medicine.

[Donn Beach]

Actually Philippines is the number one polluter

Based on a study by Science Advances in 2021, the Philippines is the leading country on the list of top 10 ocean plastic contributors – generating an estimated 356,371 MT of plastic waste in our ocean. This is followed by India (126,513 MT) Malaysia (73,098 MT), China (70,707 MT), Indonesia (56,333 MT), Myanmar (40,000 MT), Brazil (37,799 MT), Vietnam (28,221 MT), Bangladesh (24,640 MT), and Thailand (22,806 MT)2. The primary contributors to ocean plastic pollution are concentrated in developing Asian nations, with the exception of Brazil.