Emissions hypocrisy

Burnsy2023 · 4 Jun 2007 at 12:05

Just reading this article on BBC news and I was really annoyed with China's stance on climate change:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6717671.stm

China has unveiled its first national plan for climate change, saying it is intent on tackling the problem but not at the expense of economic development.

But it also repeated Beijing's view that responsibility for climate change rests with rich westernised countries.

China may overtake the US as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases by the end of this year

Sounds very selfish to me, on a topic we can't ignore.

Burnsy

Bill101 · 4 Jun 2007 at 12:46

Their main argument is that they only produce something like half a ton of CO2 per person per year while the USA is around 4 tons per person per year. God help us all if they end up like the USA as they are already on the way to doubling the number of cars in the world in the next decade

Slinky1989 · 4 Jun 2007 at 12:58

To be fair to them, it's down to the sheer number of people.

population of china = 1 billion

population of USA = 350 million.

And as the above post says, china emits much less CO2 per person than the US.

But then I think that no country is going to really tackle this issue because no matter how you look at it, there is no fool proof way of doing anything comprehensively without having some kind of an impact on the economy.

Glaucus · 4 Jun 2007 at 12:59

it's not selfish at all, if they don't have cheap energy then there economy cant grow, simple really. thus if climate change is to be tackled, then it's down to richer nations to supply designs/technology for cheap power.

scorza · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:01

China is using climate change as an excuse for attempting to become the worlds number 1 dominant player.

Le_Petit_Lapin · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:02

Oh, so its ok for our country to pollute the earth for the last 150 years, but as soon as another country is going through a period of heavy economic development, its selfish?

scorza · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:03

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Oh, so its ok for our country to pollute the earth for the last 150 years, but as soon as another country is going through a period of heavy economic development, its selfish?

If ever there was a case of two wrongs not making a right this was it.

Glaucus · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:04

scorza said:
If ever there was a case of two wrongs not making a right this was it.

so you want to keep 3rd world countries as a third world country then?

scorza · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:06

AcidHell2 said:
so you want to keep 3rd world countries as a third world country then?

No, I want developing countries to learn from our mistakes.

Do you want Britain to become a third world country?

Glaucus · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:07

scorza said:
No, I want developing countries to learn from our mistakes.

Do you want Britain to become a third world country?

How would we become a third world country?

with out cheap power 3rd world country's can't improve themselves. clean energy is far far from cheap.

Van_Dammesque · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:09

Maybe the Chinese have watched the great global warming swindle!

p4radox · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:12

Van_Dammesque said:
Maybe the Chinese have watched the great global warming swindle!

And fell for that complete BS like so many other viewers.

Bear · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:23

I really wish people would pull their heads out of their backsides and stop believing what the press would like them to think.

The west is demonising China because they are fighting for resources end of story. There is a direct correlation with how rich a country is and how much energy it uses. All the rich western countries uses a shed load of energy and has done for ages and do say a certain country is selfish because it want to be a part of the rich like western countries is moronic.

If there is such a problem with global warming, its that we, in the west made it so. To think that we ****** the world up and are now telling other countries not to get industialised while we try to maintain our position is complete BS.

scorza · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:25

AcidHell2 said:
How would we become a third world country?

with out cheap power 3rd world country's can't improve themselves. clean energy is far far from cheap.

In many ways you just have to say "tough luck for missing the boat". We have to start reducing the amount of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere. The way to do that is for everybody to reduce their emissions, not increase them so that exactly the same amount is being emitted by every single person on the planet.

Glaucus · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:28

scorza said:
In many ways you just have to say "tough luck for missing the boat". We have to start reducing the amount of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere. The way to do that is for everybody to reduce their emissions, not increase them so that exactly the same amount is being emitted by every single person on the planet.

Great view to have :rolleyes:

we dont need to reduce co2, the chances are it'll have little affect and the changes it does have we will be able to live with. After all where humans, did you think tribes went oh where using to many plants we better cut down, no we invented farming. I wish people had more believe in the human race and stop scaremongering everyone.

Bear · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:30

scorza said:
No, I want developing countries to learn from our mistakes.

No what most people want is for places like China to stop polluting while we can sit in front of our computers that have been made 1000s of miles away wasting energy arguing about pointless topics on a forum, drive our cars that put out loads of pollutants to get to the shops that has imported food from the other side of the world so we can get fat in our centrally heated houses.

Thats whats selfish and is complete BS

scorza · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:32

Bear said:
I really wish people would pull their heads out of their backsides and stop believing what the press would like them to think.

The west is demonising China because they are fighting for resources end of story. There is a direct correlation with how rich a country is and how much energy it uses. All the rich western countries uses a shed load of energy and has done for ages and do say a certain country is selfish because it want to be a part of the rich like western countries is moronic.

No, the western media is demonising China because they are a totalitarian regime with an appalling human rights record who are actively engaged in supporting a genocide in Darfur and ethnically cleansing Tibet. If the press want to demonise anyone over carbon emissions it is the USA, and rightly so.

Bear said:
If there is such a problem with global warming, its that we, in the west made it so. To think that we ****** the world up and are now telling other countries not to get industialised while we try to maintain our position is complete BS.

Wait, I thought the whole point of Kyoto was to trying and lessen the impact of global warming, not to punish the west for stuff we've emitted in the past :confused:

scorza · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:34

AcidHell2 said:
Great view to have

we dont need to reduce co2, the chances are it'll have little affect and the changes it does have we will be able to live with. After all where humans, did you think tribes went oh where using to many plants we better cut down, no we invented farming. I wish people had more believe in the human race and stop scaremongering everyone.

Ah right now we get to the crux of the matter - you believe the great global warming swindle.

scorza · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:37

Bear said:
No what most people want is for places like China to stop polluting while we can sit in front of our computers that have been made 1000s of miles away wasting energy arguing about pointless topics on a forum, drive our cars that put out loads of pollutants to get to the shops that has imported food from the other side of the world so we can get fat in our centrally heated houses.

Thats whats selfish and is complete BS

Source?

I think that our government has been putting plenty of effort into getting people to use their cars less and I've even heard that packaging is going to display the carbon footprint of the product, so that consumers can choose whether they want to buy something made locally or imported from across the world. So no offence, but I think you're talking crap.

Van_Dammesque · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:37

scorza said:
Ah right now we get to the crux of the matter - you believe the great global warming swindle.

It is scientifically more convincing than al gore's results! (and no i do not work for an oil company!) Another reason: from an American program, was the temperatures measured are at ground level, as we know temp levels are always higher in cities than countryside. So measured temps. are always going to increase if they measure temp. in more productive cities that are constantly expanding/using more energy. One of the people on global warming swindle has launched a weather satellite to measure the temp in the atmosphere, at the moment he sees no increase to the temp in the atmosphere.

To neglect the sun in all of the models for global warming is quite frankly amateur hour!

EDIT: the program is called "Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off"