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The Age’s Kenneth Davidson plays with numbers:
Australia spews out about six times the pollution of China and 12 times that of India ...
We do? Really? Please continue, great Kenneth:
... on a per capita basis.
Easily solved; instead of cutting pollution, all we need do is increase our population!
The developed countries, including Australia, are responsible for 76 per cent of the greenhouse pollution now in the atmosphere.
Australia’s share of that total: just 1.4 per cent.
Australia even manages to contribute more than twice the level of emissions of countries such as Germany, Britain, Japan, Italy and France, which are all far more advanced industrially than Australia ...
Still with the per capita. But Kenneth may have helped us on the path to climate goodness here without realising it; what do all those countries (besides Italy) have in common?
If the population of Australia consisted of precisely one guy who didn’t do anything but burn old tires because he liked to watch the smoke, then Australia’s per capita contribution to pollution would still probably be higher than China’s, so I don’t think the “per capita” argument is particularly relevant. If half of China’s population lives in primaeval Gaia-phile purity, and the other half works in factories that belch enough smoke to be seen from Mars, what difference does “per capita” make? To me, the relevant data are the total pollution-output of a country (looked at in conjunction with total economic output) and the nature of its power-generating infrastructure - which Tim shrewdly touches on with his reference to nuclear power capacity in Europe.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” —Benjamin Disraeli, British politician.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 11 01 at 12:16 PM • permalinkWell, he should revisit the issue in 5, 10, 15 and 20 years to see how Australia’s per capita emissions are faring vs China/India. Good news story!
Posted by Nova Scotia Mike on 2007 11 01 at 12:23 PM • permalinkWhat do they have in common???
They’re all fucking small.
Instead of per capita, let’s look at per unit area
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 11 01 at 12:39 PM • permalink#9: Speaking of nuclear bombs, here’s a hair-raising story. I had never heard of this before.
(Via The Paragraph Farmer)
#12
Yeah, I remember hearing that story. I suspect that wasn’t the only time we have been really close and we just don’t know about it.
While were are at it let’s give a big thank you to Charles Sweeney and crew of Bock’s Car who dropped the second bomb at Nagasaki just a few days later.
They were 5,6 or 7 hours in the air knowing exactly what they were going to do and the destruction that they would cause. I have zero problems with what they did but I don’t know if I would have had the cajones to do it.
I just don’t get it. Is the West supposed to cut back greenhouse gas emissions (requiring a draconian reorganization of our industrial, commercial, and economic structure, to our severe detriment) and yet give China, India, and the rest of the developing world including the Asian Tigers a free pass until their per capita emissions catch up to the West’s? Since that won’t result in an overall net reduction in greenhouse gasses since those countries’ emissions will take their place, how will that help with global warming?
Is anyone thinking this stuff through?
Posted by wronwright on 2007 11 01 at 02:20 PM • permalinkRe #12, that was one brave and professional officer….especially in the Soviet Union. It’s good to know they had some smart people there. Even if the Soviet masters discouraged original thinking.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 11 01 at 02:23 PM • permalinkSome countries, like Germany and Spain, are committed to phasing out nuclear power; other, like Britain, are considering which way to proceed. Several others, including Ukraine and Finland, are building new power plants.
It’s like watching people decide whether or not they want to plunge themselves into a dark ages.
Reading about those instances of near-annihilation really brings home the importance of dialoguing with Iran. I’m sure we can trust them to show an equal sophistication and thoughtful restraint—as long as some jinn doesn’t come along and mess things up.
And (#16) wronwright, the answer is no. Thing is, the truth is slowly making its way out, as it eventually does with scams. Is anyone surprised that this particular scam is based at the U.N.? Like the Oil-for-Palaces and War scam, and the Peacekeeping scam, . . .
#17 RJ: One of the scary things about the old Soviet Union was that, contrary to the belief of many in the west - to wit, that nobody could ever win a nuclear war, therefore, nobody would ever start one - there actually were people in the Soviet hierarchy (including the military) who thought that such a war was winnable, so the possibility was always a bigger danger than people figured.
If the air and water were actually cleaner in China than they are in the US and Australia, perhaps we might have something to argue about. Does he really want the people of Australia to live the Hobbesian existence of most of those in China and India?
Posted by charles austin on 2007 11 01 at 03:59 PM • permalinkIdiots like Davidson drive me up the wall. It is totally irrelevant who put the current emissions there. If you believe in man-made CO2 driven climate change then it isn’t a matter of arguing over who did what first; not to include China and India in emissions caps will guarantee that anything you do in the developed world will be nigh on useless.
But the worst thing is - sceptics like me aren’t even arguing to cap India and China. Its people like Davidson who are so hot for mandatory emissions caps. We’re just making the obvious point as per my first paragraph.
What Davidson can’t stand is that the logic of his global warming argument is that you will have virtually to stall India and China at a certain developmental stage to achieve your aims - consigning hundreds of millions to remain in poverty. They can’t admit this publicly so crap on about how its the west who are responsible and if we could also just lower per capita emissions we’d be fine. Total crap.
I suppose he needn’t worry, you can give up on China being cooperative. Having talked to Chinese officials a few months ago I can tell you there is about 1.2 billion climate change sceptics not getting a lot of press.
#16, wronwright:
Actually, yes. It’s been thought through most very carefully.
The original idea behind what’s now going on as carbon credits was to have (primarily US) western industrial capacity dismantled. The capacity would then be converted into credits. Those credits would be distributed to favored “non-aligned states”. The west (primarily the US) would then be legally bound to financially supporting the conversion of those credits into actual industrial development.
Didn’t we go through this “we got to change or we’ll all die!!!” campaign in the 1970’s with nuclear power? As I recall, the left was very vocal and vociferous on that issue. That and unilateral nuclear disarmament.
But I haven’t heard anything from them lately on those issues. Have we all fixed those issues? Will we survive after all?
Posted by wronwright on 2007 11 01 at 04:18 PM • permalinkAustralia’s share of that total: just 1.4 per cent.
Tim - not true.
You can go to the UN’s own website and get the latest figures (I just cut and paste them into an Excel spreadsheet) and you will find that Australia accounts for a whopping…
1.2% of all global carbon dioxide!
Moreover, the total emissions from Australia in a year is two-fifths of the Chinese annual increase in emissions.
So what? So if every Australian was lined up aginst a wall and shot, and Australia cease to produce anything, China will take up the CO2 slack in about 6 months.
We’re all fools - and we’re all being screwed by the Environazis.
Posted by Apparatchik on 2007 11 01 at 04:50 PM • permalink#28, Grimmy:
Actually, yes. It’s been thought through most very carefully.
The original idea behind what’s now going on as carbon credits was to have (primarily US) western industrial capacity dismantled. The capacity would then be converted into credits. Those credits would be distributed to favored “non-aligned states”. The west (primarily the US) would then be legally bound to finanacially supporting the conversion of those credits into actual industrial development.
With all due respect, Grimmy (and you know I do respect you), if it were carefully thought out, someone might have asked just how the west (primarily the U.S.) was going to pay for supporting the conversion of credits into industrial development. How is the west to pay for anything, much less credits, once its entire economy has been dismantled? How are the developing countries to develop once the entire world economy has collapsed as a result of America’s collapse? Do the viros really want anyone to develop industries? All one need do to answer that question is look at the myriad barriers to development they’ve put up in Africa.
I stand by my answer. I submit they haven’t thought about anything beyond the next conference, their looted paychecks, and how to apply the force necessary to “sustain” their scam. They don’t want power over nature (a valid human endeavor), they want power over people.
Apparatchik:
There are plenty lessons on issues such as this in the last 100ish years of western history.
The Environazis will not be taken seriously as a threat, even after they get their will worked through the useful idiots in various legislations.
Even after the rules and laws are made that take away everything that makes our culture successful.
Even after the mandates are published and made law that set the quotas for how many must be made dead in each geographical area.
It will only be when they come to the individual home to take away those who must be made to sacrifice themselves that it will be taken seriously, and then, only by those individuals being taken.
Or, maybe we go the other way as is also shown in our history, and rid ourselves of these misanthropic tards before they start their culling.
#9 - Paul Tibbets, the Pilot of the Enola Gay, has just died at 92.
Tibbets actions saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of US and Commonwealth troops and millions of Japanese troops and civilians.
An invasion of Japan (Operations Olympic and Coronet) would have been an horrendous slaughter.
He was an honourable man who did an honourable thing, and nobody who actually served in the Pcific Theatre will tell you anything different. R.I.P.
Posted by Apparatchik on 2007 11 01 at 05:28 PM • permalinkOn the interesting subject of the U.S. military and global warming, Michael Goldfarb rips HuffPo the proverbial “new one”. And then graciously acknowledges the correction.
Australia is huge country, an island continent surrounded by vast oceans and occupied by around 21 million people.
And 110 million sheep (10% of the world’s population), around 28 million cattle (2% of the world’s population) and 50 million kangaroos (almost all the world’s population).
So I say kill the sheep, including those at The Age, and kill the kangaroos.
[Oops, kill. I’ve gone a little Left there.]
Of course percapanomics doesn’t take into account that China has 9 nuclear reactors and plans to generate twice as much nuclear power, and one imagines twice as much nuclear waste, as the United States by 2030.
Nor does it take into account India’s 16 reactors or that almost every nation in the developed world either generates nuclear power or buys it off their neighbours.
38 But… but think of all the nuclear accidents and core meltdowns that happen every year. The radiation mutants wandering the roads of France. The glowing frogs and such. And, and, building nuclear plants produces greenhouse gases; the concrete, you know.
Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2007 11 01 at 06:09 PM • permalinkOccasionally, in their rush to report bad news, the ABC lets slip a fact which doesn’t fit The Narrative: their report about the failed La Nina somehow mentioned:
“The La Nina conditions did develop in the Pacific, but this year, sea surface temperatures across northern Australia and the Indian Ocean were colder than normal.”link#2 Hi MareeS
If I hear “shows how out of touch the coalition is…” one more time, I’ll scream.
It’s used all the time to deride the government. Nicola Roxson should know better, she sounds like a bitch. And not a clever one, either.#5
And stats can always be ‘cooked’ to suit the argument.#18 & 19
Perhaps they all want us to live like the Stamper family.#29
I think it’s a bit like climate. It’s cyclical. We’ve had the nuclear scare, the New Ice Age scare, Peak Oil, The hole in the Ozone Layer (which seems to have dropped off the radar entirely), and I don’t know how many other scares, but they just keep digging them up. This CC one seems to be the most creative as it’s adaptable to any scenario - it gets hot, it’s climate change; it gets cold, it’s climate change; ice melts, it’s climate change; ice forms, it’s climate change; seas rise, it’s climate change; seas fall, it’s climate change; forest fires? Climate change. Drought? Climate change… I’m a bit concerned about this fad.NOTE: Italicised names above are trade marked and copyrighted and pat. pending.
Kenneth darling, why do you hate your country?
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 11 01 at 06:57 PM • permalinkAustralia has 20 million people in a country roughly three quarters the size of Europe (I mean the whole of Europe as well). This leads to some rather large transport issues amazingly enough since to get food and other goods around the place requires shall we say a little bit of driving.
Also these large distances offer additional problems in the provision of power, water and any other bloody thing you care to name. As a result the ultimate cost and energy to get all the necessities from point A to point B is always going to be much greater than Europe.
Also a significant portion of Australian industry consists of primary extraction processes - that is mining and refining. This requires considerable amounts of power and resources that in a lot of cases has to be delivered to remote locations since God has a sense of humour and puts every significant mineral deposit in the middle of bloody nowhere.
So putting these two major things together and shock horror you end up with this massive figure which makes us all look like a bunch of vandals. Now the solution offered is what? A few more piddly windmills, shutting down all the mines and huddling in Tasmania? Without a doubt if we did shut down every last mine which of course is Bob Brown’s wet dream, the world would just go elsewhere to get it’s resources which believe me would cost exactly the same amount of energy to extract and process - maybe more so since Australian industry is amongst the most cost effective in the world despite all these distance problems.
Ok I am feeling better now - but every time I read that emissions per capita twaddle it gets me steamed. Talk about unlevel playing field!
Australia produces 0.042 thousand metric tons of CO2 per km², whereas China produces 0.52 thousand metric tons of CO2 per km², an order of magnitude more.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 11 01 at 08:07 PM • permalink#31, saltydog:
The viro movement as it now exists was the creation of persons disenchanted with marxism during the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. For the founders of the new misanthropic and anti-western civilization brands of envirotardation, the old school marxists weren’t committed enough to their agenda of cultural destruction so they shifted platforms.
The “non-aligned states” was made up of all those who weren’t officially within the soviet fold but inherently anti-western inclined.
The entire project was aimed, and still largely is aimed, at the destruction of the US industrial/economic base, the eradication of capitalism and the demolition of US sovereignty.
So, yes, it was well thought out. It has been somewhat effective so far and the fat lady hasn’t even arrived at the theater yet. We won’t know how far the plan, or its various permutations, gets until one or the other of the competing factions is obliterated.
There are two mutually exclusive factions at war now. Those attempting to pull humanity into one form or another of the old “divine order” of medieval feudalism, and those working to universalize various concepts of liberty and meritocracy.
Both sides of this fight work, operate and/or hide under all sorts of names or slight variations of philosophical rhetoric.
I know how they can cut back, think there’ll be any takers?
78 percent !!!
I knew that France, (Vive La France!), got more than half of its power from nukes, but I must have been out of touch for awhile.
And I don’t hold it against them! Why would I?
What gets me is the fact that Europe in general, and France (Vive La France!) in particular are held up as the pinnacle of human-societal evolution for us hick-Americans who eat too much McDonalds, drink too much Starbucks, etc. But I don’t get it—if we eat the foie-gras, (Vive La France!), then can we have the nukes?
Meanwhile, we can’t drill for oil in ANWAR, despite the fact that it’s larger than some of our medium sized states, and the area they want to drill is about the size of Dulles National Airport.
These lefties drive me nuts. (Vive La France!)
Posted by zeppenwolf on 2007 11 01 at 10:56 PM • permalinkAustralia spews out about six times the pollution of China and 12 times that of India ... on a per capita basis.
I wonder if any of the blame can be placed on vegemite :-)
Posted by Alan K. Henderson on 2007 11 01 at 11:41 PM • permalinkWell, done, diggers, affronting Gaia out of all proportion to your size! Keep showing those lazy Hindoo and Chinaman how to do it like Christian gentlemen!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 11 02 at 01:10 AM • permalinkQuasimodo, Paco—You want REAL close, check out the real story of the K-219 sometime…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 11 02 at 01:12 AM • permalinkParasites such as Kenneth Davidson exist only because the country is wealthy enough to carry them. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid the average Age columnist is.
A large country with low population density will ALWAYS consume more energy per head that a small country with high population densities. It is basic stuff Ken.
When Davidson uses the term ‘greenhouse pollution’, doesn’t he mean carbon dioxide? Then why not say so?
Carbon dioxide occurs naturally. It’s not a pollutant. And though it’s a useful part of Earth’s ecosystem, it makes up a mere 0.035% of the atmosphere.
That’s 35 thousandths of one percent.
And he has cause-and-effect backwards.
Throughout the planet’s history, as the sun’s radiance goes through its various cycles, the oceans grow warmer and cooler. As oceans warm, they give up CO2. As they cool, they re-absorb it.
Increased carbon dioxide isn’t the cause of rising temperatures. It’s the result.I hereby pronounce the science of global warming settled.
It’s about time we adopted the emissions per unit of area approach. Stops rewarding countries for overpopulating.
But then there’s that other problem - that it is not really to do with carbon dioxide anyway!Who am I going to believe?
Sadly polarised journo Kenneth Davidson or distinguished science student and highly intelligent writer Michael Crichton?
Sorry about that, Ken.
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I never thought I’d say this, but for once the French are ahead of us… even with those all those reverse gears.