This is the sort of political image of CO2 emissions that you usually see presented. The Big Bad USA and Australia get most of the blame for CO2 emissions.
Image above from myclimatechange.net. Note that the artist could not have picked a worse image to portray the message since CO2 is heavier than air and in the real world, none of those balloons would float. Most people learn this in grade school. Even so, lighter than air CO2 balloons seem to be a recurring theme in warmland.
I ran across this interesting tidbit on CO2 emissions per capita which I found interesting. While many warmist organizations concentrate on pushing lifestyle changes related to CO2 emissions, we usually see that framed in reference to total CO2 emissions per country. When you look at the per capita values, an entirely different picture emerges.
LIST OF COUNTRIES RANKED BY 2006 TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS FROM FOSSIL-FUEL
DATA : Marland, G., T.A. Boden, and R. J. Andres. 2008. Global, Regional, and National CO2 Emissions.
In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/overview.html
(UNIT : Tons of CO2 per capita)
COUNTRY TONS OF CO2 PER CAPITA
Qatar 49.26
Kuwait 34.22
United-Arab-Emirates 32.94
Bahrain 28.62
Luxembourg 23.89
USA 18.95
Australia 17.93
Canada 16.65
Oman 16.03
Saudi-Arabia 16.03
Estonia 13.02
Finland 12.62
Kazakhstan 12.62
Singapore 12.51
Taiwan 11.93
Czech-Republic 11.16
Russia 10.94
Ireland 10.32
Netherlands 10.28
Japan 10.24
Belgium 10.17
Greenland 9.99
Israel 9.99
Denmark 9.91
South-Korea 9.8
Germany 9.77
Nor-ssb 9.59
United-Kingdom 9.04
South-Africa 8.74
Austria 8.67
Greece 8.63
Norway 8.6
Libya 8.27
Spain 7.97
Italy 7.72
New-Zealand 7.28
Iceland 7.24
Bosnia 7.13
Belarus 7.06
Malaysia 7.02
Slovakia 6.91
Ukraine 6.8
Iran 6.62
Venezuela 6.33
Bulgaria 6.22
France 6.18
Hungary 5.7
Portugal 5.67
Sweden 5.59
Switzerland 5.56
Croatia 5.3
Macedonia 5.3
China 4.64
Romania 4.53
Argentina 4.42
Uzbekistan 4.28
Lithuania 4.17
Thailand 4.17
Azerbaijan 4.13
Mexico 4.13
Lebanon 3.76
Jordan 3.69
Turkey 3.69
Chile 3.66
Mongolia 3.66
Syria 3.66
North-Korea 3.58
Latvia 3.25
Iraq 3.22
Botswana 2.78
Belize 2.67
Cuba 2.63
Egypt 2.26
Tunisia 2.26
Moldova 2.19
Uruguay 2.04
Brazil 1.86
Indonesia 1.5
Morocco 1.5
Namibia 1.39
Peru 1.39
Armenia 1.35
Columbia 1.35
India 1.35
Georgia 1.24
Vietnam 1.24
Bolivia 1.17
Kyrgyzstan 1.06
Yemen 1.02
Honduras 0.98
Guatemala 0.91
Pakistan 0.91
Angola 0.87
Swaziland 0.87
Western-Sahara 0.87
Zimbabwe 0.84
Palestine 0.76
Polen 0.76
Phillippines 0.76
Nigeria 0.69
Paraguay 0.65
Bhutan 0.58
Sri-Lanka 0.58
Congo 0.4
Ghana 0.4
Senegal 0.4
Benin 0.36
Kenya 0.32
Bangladesh 0.29
Cambodia 0.29
Sudan 0.29
Laos 0.25
Liberia 0.21
Zambia 0.21
Cameroon 0.18
Madagascar 0.14
Tanganyika 0.14
Tanzania 0.14
Eritrea 0.1
Mozambique 0.1
Nepal 0.1
Burkina-Faso 0.07
Ethiopia 0.07
Faroe-Islands 0.07
Rwanda 0.07
Burundi 0.03
Chad 0.03
Mali 0.03
(DATA : Marland, G., T.A. Boden, and R. J. Andres. 2008. Global, Regional, and National CO2 Emissions.
In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/overview.html)
Anthony, “The Big Bad USA and the UK get most of the blame for CO2 emissions.”
Actually I think you will see that Australia is villain number two – there is a white star on the balloon!
Regards
REPLY: Correct you are, didn’t notice that star. Fixed, thanks for pointing it out. – A
Considering the amount of hot air you put on this, I’m sure the updraft will let them go up. It’s that similar question to occasionally show up: How come CO2 gets to the stratosphere when it’s heavier than the other gases? Further, you do not know how warm the CO2 in the balloons is. It’s all about the ratios of displacement. Lastly, are these balloon held on a rope or on a stick ;?
REPLY:Rob, It’s called atmospheric mixing. CFC’s are also much heavier that air, and eventually migrate into the upper atmosphere.
Even if the balloon was filled with heated CO2, it won’t have any significant effect on buoyancy. It will still stay earthbound. If the atmosphere was made of sulfur hexaflouride, a CO2 filled balloon would indeed float.
As for your other comments, they are irrelevant and mostly just to satisfy your need to poke silly jabs. Talk about “hot air”.- Anthony
Per Capita is a false metric and is useless in determining CO2 emissions or reductions. Here is why.
If canda wanted a 85% reduction in CO2 Emissions we could simple immigrate 300 Million Chinese and Indian subsistence farmers and give them the same conditions that they have now. No power, little aid and only small bit of land to live off of.
Nothing would need to be different for anyone else, and our per Capita number would be one of the lowest and China and India’s would hardly register the change.
If a country has 60% of its population in subsistence living conditions they could effectively pollute 10 times worse than an industrialized country like Canada with the 12th largest economy and only 33 Million people on the 2nd largest area. Without regional factors such as cooling and heating requirements due to climate (actual natural climate), travel distances, HDI ranking, percentage of poverty and Economic output and trade activity factored in the per capita number is useless and misleading.
I am sorry but this metric has always driven me up the wall, it is such a ridiculous way to look at the real world.
We should just make everyone happy and live like they do in Mali. We’re such awful people for wanting to live longer than 33 years.
Of course C02 is lighter than air! You can see the filthy, evil, dangerous stuff pouring out of smokestacks and out of car tailpipes rising up into the atmosphere. Sarc/off
All things are possible in warmland. The laws of physics do not apply there. Nor do little things like truth, honesty or integrity.
I think someone needs to add an ‘n’ or take out an ‘e’ in the word ‘tones’ in the graph.
Unless they got the noise pollution graph crossed up with the CO2 graph. Easy to do.
Probably because if they go over there to protest, they’d be tossed in one of their nasty, not so nice, prisons.
What the hell is “equivalent carbon”? Some major games are being played here.
My question though is…what is the difference between the above list and another list linked on the same page? Maybe I’m stupid, but why the big difference?
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/top2006.tot
Ranking of the world’s countries by 2006 total CO2 emissions
from fossil-fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring.
Emissions (CO2_TOT) are expressed in thousand metric tons of
carbon (not CO2).
Source: Tom Boden, Gregg Marland, and Bob Andres
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
RANK NATION CO2_TOT
1 CHINA (MAINLAND) 1664589
2 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1568806
3 RUSSIAN FEDERATION 426728
4 INDIA 411914
5 JAPAN 352748
6 GERMANY 219570
7 UNITED KINGDOM 155051
8 CANADA 148549
9 REPUBLIC OF KOREA 129613
10 ITALY (INCLUDING SAN MARINO) 129313
11 ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN 127357
12 MEXICO 118950
13 SOUTH AFRICA 113086
14 FRANCE (INCLUDING MONACO) 104495
15 SAUDI ARABIA 104063
16 AUSTRALIA 101458
17 BRAZIL 96143
18 SPAIN 96064
19 INDONESIA 90950
20 UKRAINE 87043
I’ve had this exact argument with various Green Euro Trash types.
Show us the Tons CO2 versus GDP.
Admittedly that’s going to vary strongly over time with the value of the currency in which the output is measured, but the real issue for Greens SHOULD be the EFFICIENCY of the use of fossil fuels.
The fact that it isn’t is proof of their Malthusian prejudices.
To borrow a little from George Orwell, Two Legs Bad.
Oh, and I found the per capita list interesting, too.
Now if only the U.S. could be more like Burundi, Chad, and Mali, all at 0.03… yeah, right.
The image is also deceptive, because the balloons are three-dimensional objects with volume proportional to the cube of height. This makes the US “tons per capita” look much, much bigger relative to the other nations than it actually is. Also the balloons start at the “1” mark rather than at the “0” mark, which makes the difference even more disproportionate.
For example, eyeballing the heights, the US is 6.6 and Belgium is 4.3, which means that Americans use about 1 and a half times as much as Belgians. But going by the balloons as objects with volume which start at the “1” mark, the US is (5.6)^3 (about 176), and Belgium is (3.3)^3 (about 36). The ratio of these is about 5, making it look as though Americans are using 5 times as much as Belgians.
So the graphic, deliberately or not, effectively lies, turning a ratio of 1.5 into a ratio of 5.
No wonder China and India have said they’ll only join in on a per capita basis.
By the way, that’s the Australian flag right beside the U.S. in the per country balloon cartoon, not the UK.
Actually, the most disingenuous part of this graph is they that are using ‘balloons’ to indicate amount
– this subjectively give a larger impression for increasing values – since volume depends R^3 (radius cubed)
– so that although the USA balloon is (about) 6x taller than India’s, it’s value is actually about 216 times
– so it *seems* much larger than the numbers actually indicate…..
If the volumes of the balloons were proportional to the volume of CO2 emitted, then the USA balloon would be about 80% taller than Indias (6^0.3)
Where do I get my balloon from ?
Can we see it listed as CO2 per unit of economic output? Say CO2 divided by GDP? I think when measured in that way, the US has a pretty efficient economy. Energy use is directly related of GDP. You can not produce something without expending energy to do it. If you double your apple production, you have to make twice as many runs to cold storage. If you add a second shift at your plant, you need to run your machines longer.
Energy consumption is generally directly proportional to GDP so all this diagram really shows is per capita GDP with a multiplier for energy efficiency.
In fact, Anthony had a graph here a few days ago that showed CO2 emissions dropping with the economic slump. The connection is very well known and was first written about, that I saw, in the 1970’s. I can’t remember who wrote it but basically the notion was that simply per capita energy consumption is not a valid comparison for efficiency. If a person is more productive, they must use more energy. The correct measurement is energy consumption per unit of economic output. The lower that number, the more efficient an economy is in its energy use,
Re: Sekerob’s comments.
Are you for real? How come?
Not got the idea yet? Only the West can be guilty of all the heinous crimes in the world, while everyone else is entirely innocent. That’s just the way things are, self-hatred is so de rigueur.
The lesson for next week is the adoption of the ritual abasement of Ashura:
http://www.factsofisrael.com/en/images/articles/lebanon-muslims.jpg
Just keep lashing until you are truly sorry for being guilty – not for anything in particular, but for everything.
This is Original Sin MkII, a key foundation of every religion. You cannot be controlled unless you are guilty (sinners) and in a state of abject contrition – only then can the great deity intervene and save you (control you).
.
Also, this notion of comparison is extremely dangerous. It implies that it would be a good idea to get a country’s per capita consumption down. That means they believe that it is a good idea to deflate the economies of certain countries and inflate the economies of others. Basically they are using CO2 emissions, again, to justify a global “redistribution of wealth” by hamstringing economic expansion in some places while placing no such limits on others.
Yes, if we plowed fields with water buffalo, took crops to market with donkey and ox carts, and had an automobile adoption rate like that of Burma, our per capita CO2 would be lower. But at the same time, our production would be minimal and a good number of people in this world would starve as a result.
>>>I think someone needs to add an ‘n’ or take out an ‘e’
>>>in the word ‘tones’ in the graph.
European spelling, chum. We speak proper ‘ere, Yankee-boy, especially with all those Froggy influences.
.
Bruce Cobb:
Hot gases rise, and diffuse into the surrounding gas volume. Thus, the hot CO2 and water vapor from an exhaust stack on a power plant do indeed rise.
Plume modeling of gases is a well-known activity. Temperature of the exhaust stack is one key variable, also exit velocity, composition of the exhaust, height of the stack above ground, wind direction and velocity, and perhaps a few others.
This graph is in my eys not rellevant to the debate. It’s not the amount that matters but the effect. And i place my questionmarks at the effect of Co2. Considering the argument that Co2 is good for food.
This is a classic lying with statistics image. As Constant points out the ballon icon is 3 or 2-dimensonal and the relative sizes should be adjusted accordingly or the image should be changed to a bar or line. It is also an essentially meaningless graph if the idea is to show that we are in some sense wasteful in our production of Carbon. For example, if we had the same Hydro-electric resources and population concentration as Sweden what would our C production be? Australia looks particularly bad because they have little Hydro capacity and a relatively low population density compared to most developed countries. Now Belgium, home of all those Eurocrats, looks like a great C sinner!
Mark (09:41:25) : Per capita. As in, divide those numbers by the number of people. So the US for instance, divide by 300 million. And China, divide by something like 1.5 billion.
What would be much more informative is the ratios of emissions to GDP. Considering our productivity, our high emissions make sense.
This is, of course, the goal of One Worlders, like Obama and Blair. In order to institute a One World Government, the rich countries have to be brought down to the economic level of the poorer nations.
It sounds like a pipe-dream, and it probably is, but in order to get there they will have to make you, me and our children MUCH poorer. Sorry, I don’t subscribe to that philosophy.
Take your pick, there are lots of books out there on this topic.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0978252659
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/COURSES/GENS4008/book.html
.
Here we go, CO2 to GDP:
The US is more efficient than Sweden or Iceland. In fact, the US is way down the list.
(((((((America))))))))
Bugger! we’re 36th!!!! come on new zealand, start pulling yah A game, we can do better than that! We cant let Australia beat us at this!
If the UN gets their way, everybody will have equitable global per-capita CO2 emissions by 2100.
A problem with GDP is that it is based on even dodgier maths than climate science.
On the ‘tone’ thing- I go with tonne for the metric version although I’d prefer a tun as in 3 firkins.
When will Greenpeace lead the way by adopting the lifestyle in Mali?
Sheesh! Here we go again!
When does the U.S. get credit for allowing so much of our land to grow fallow and revert to forests? Near as I can remember (based on a Science article, IIRC), the total amount of carbon sequesteration into our forests equals about 25-40% of our total anthropogenic carbon generation. Whether we do it by intent or not, we deserve that credit since our decision to leave land fallow is an American cultural decision. So, knock down our net carbon generation by 37,000 to 64,000 thousand metric tons per year (thanks to Oak Ridge on the numbers). (As an aside, based on this metric, could Canada approach carbon-neutral status today? As an American, just wondering if our northern neighbors have factored this into their calcs). Anyway, that puts our per capita net carbon production at 11.2-14.2 tons per capita. So, China, starting to sweat over your 4.64 tons per capita rate which is rapidly increasing relative to the West? Particularly since your carbon growth is on the order of 10% greater than ours on a per capita basis since 2006.
crosspatch (10:32:22) :
uhhh… I think you may be reading that chart backwards, patch. The chart shows dollars produced per ton, not tons produced per dollar. I think it shows Sweden and Iceland to be much more efficient than the U.S. – the U.S. is producing less GDP per ton than all the countries above it.
Looks to me like about 50 – 60 China balloons could fit inside that big American balloon, maybe more. This is another version of a Mann hockey stick.
China’s population is a little over four times that of the U.S. — and China’s gross CO2 emissions are already significantly higher than America’s. So you can see the graphic is pure propaganda [in addition to the plain fact that CO2 is beneficial plant food, and otherwise completely benign].
The per capita argument is also bunkum. There is only one atmosphere, so the only honest way to show emissions is by a per country comparison.
‘Per capita’ has nothing to do with atmospheric emissions; it is a statistical trick. A poor country won’t have any pollution abatement controls on its wood and charcoal cooking fires that millions burn multiple times every day of the year. So on the whole, the poor country emits massive amounts of per capita particulates compared with developed countries.
Keep in mind that there is only one atmosphere. Countries are run by national governments. Those governments could reduce their atmospheric emissions. But there is no way that China, India, Russia, and a hundred smaller parasitic UN countries are going to reduce their CO2 emissions. Privately, they are screaming with laughter at the fools in the U.S. who believe that CO2 is a problem, as they watch treacherous climate alarmists within try to cause as much industrial self-destruction as possible, based on the deluded notion that carbon dioxide is anything but beneficial.
And it should also be kept in mind that a large part of the U.S.’s emissions are a direct result of international demand for U.S. products. The U.S. is an exporting country. When a company in another country orders, for example, a CNC lathe from a U.S. company, or a shipload of wheat from U.S. farms, all of the emissions resulting from building or growing that export item are blamed on the U.S., even though the demand came from over seas.
It is really getting tedious listening to the anti-U.S. propaganda constantly being emitted by the loathsome Left in this country.
This CO2 first world stupidity is really wearysome. Let´s pledge God to freeze all GWrs. in the next winter and bury them for ever under a mile of ice!
Constant (09:49:09) : re: graphic lies
Does make me wonder if the folks doing these things use Huff’s “How to Lie with Statistics” as a reference.
Here is one that’s even better. Income vs. CO2 emissions … The life expectancy vs. CO2 emissions is also interesting.
http://tinyurl.com/l2skkc
Per Capita… What a meaningless metric………. This is a better way of stating the facts of CO2…. The higher the life expectancy and the better the standard of living the more CO2 a caring country produces…….. See, CO2 means longer life!!!
crosspatch (10:32:22) : Thanks. Chad is really bizarre. That’s insane “efficiency” right there. A GDP to Emissions ratio of 35.368? Holy moly!
crosspatch (10:32:22) :
You’ve inverted the results. Its GDP / emissions, making the US less efficient than Europe. Switzerland is the most efficient industrialized country, maybe due to its heavy weighting in financials rather than manufacturing. My country, Canada, is way down the list.
Its interesting that so many of the oil producing Middle East nations are way down the list. Why don’t the CAGW alarmists target those nations? Rhetorical question.
MikeE (10:43:53) :
Relax, Kiwi… you’re 3.093 beats the Aussies’ 1.957 hands down. Heck, you guys could easily build a bunch of coal fired plants and still be ahead!
It is interesting to note that both Sweden and France rank higher in the chart crosspatch referenced, indicating a greater ratio of GDP produced per ton of emissions, and both those countries have a much greater percentage of their power produced by nuclear plants (42% for Sweden, 76.2% for France) than does the United States (19.7%).
ref: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html
All of the comparisons we’ve seen comparing CO2 to ________ (fill in your choice) are inadequate because they are partial pictures and in a sense compare apples to pineapples. Some countries, like Chad, have a high GDP to CO2 production ratio because they have a very low GDP and an even smaller CO2 production rate. Chad isn’t “efficient”… it is simply poor. God save us from Chadian levels of CO2 efficiency.
Hilarious, Qatar is top because it has a tiny population yet has the highest economic activity on the planet putting in facilities to keep the Gulf and half the world in energy for the next 50 years with its gas reserves. Is there no limit to warmist stupidity apart from CO2 balloons? Any ideas why Australia is so high supplying the world with natural resources as it does.
Constant (09:49:09) : — re misleading 3 dimensional figure.
That trick of using 3 dimensional figures is an old trick. The first time I saw a discussion of that was in the 1954 book “How to Lie with Statistics”.
2 times the linear dimension means 8 times the volume. So it makes a doubling subconsciously look like multiplying by a factor of 8.
Use of such a figure should set off alarm bells of potential bias.
oakgeo (11:25:51) : France is interesting too, surely due in part to their extensive use of nuclear power.
Bernie (10:26:48)
We, Sweden, has a lot of nuclear too, I believe it’s about as much as hydro.
Can anyone tell me where to find that country Italia?
Uhm, yeah, looks like I did.
Still, we are more efficient than Canada, Russia, China, Mexico, Turkey, South Korea, And if went massively nuclear like France and Japan, we could do much better.
Does everyone in Mali have a “green job”?
As well as all the other caveats mentioned above, the question of climate is also important. Canada is only habitable because we have the ability to heat our houses, our shops, our workplaces and our cars.
BTW, how do the compilers of these statistics take into account the burning of animal dung in Mongolia (et al) to provide winter heat? Do they count the pieces? Is it turty tree and a turd (french Canadian answer to 100 divided by 3).
alaskabill:
Perhaps so. Or, possibly, nobody has a job. Yup, that sounds like Van Jones’ game plan.
So, the solution is to have less GDP. Back to the caves!. Who are behind all this CO2 conspiracy?, it is worst than Al-Qaida and deserve an equal treatment.
alaskabill (11:44:07) :
Does everyone in Mali have a “green job”?
If you consider herding and subsistence farming to be “green jobs”, then yes, 80% of the people in Mali are benefitting from the Green Economy. I suspect the Greenies are planning to turn us all into subsistence farmers.
timetochooseagain (11:37:01) :
I would think so, too. Plus all the arrogant hot air emanating from their politicans probably generates a few megawatts.
crosspatch (11:38:52) :
Don’t feel bad… you get caught out here far less often than I do and you post far more often. It seems obvious, though, that most of the comparisons of CO2 emissions to other figures are terribly inadequate and misleading. Many of the more “efficient” countries are abysmally poor or have a much different energy generation mix than we or the Aussies do. A lot of American CO2 production is the result of consumption, not production, and the result of our consumption is both a longer and healthier life span and better quality of life.
rephelan (11:56:32) :
LOL! Goat herding is a green job! Now all we have to worry about is PETA…
The bottom virtuos 80 countries (or so) below Switzerland have the same rank as they do in terms of prosperity, productivity, longevity….
Crosspatch, thanks for the GDP/CO2 link. Let’s condense it a bit, ignoring all of the tiny or unindustrialized countries (arbitrarily, those with a GDP < $100 Billion). This leaves 41 countries. Here is a sampling (higher values are better, i.e., more efficient):
1. Switzerland: 8.9
2. Sweden: 6.6
3. France: 5.4
14. United Kingdom: 3.7
22. United States: 1.9
39. China: 0.45
40. Russia: 0.39
41. Iran: 0.37
Despite what some posters assumed, the efficiency value for the USA is nothing to get excited about.
I always walk around with a balloon full of CO2 mounted on a stick //ahem
bradley13 (12:21:21) : That seems to (roughly) correlate with the level of manufacturing in said states. Also the bottom two are oil producers.
“oakgeo (11:25:51) :
Switzerland is the most efficient industrialized country, maybe due to its heavy weighting in financials rather than manufacturing.”
Some other reasons: Practically all electricity from water and nuclear, no coal. Houses with good windows and good insulation. Dense population, hence good public transport. Main industry: machines, chemicals. Small country, short travel. Not much farming, but lots of forests. No leftist majority in governement ever.
And there is a Swiss translation of Darrell Huff’s book from 1956.
Producing watches and concealing money must be pretty efficient.
crosspatch
“But at the same time, our production would be minimal and a good number of people in this world would starve as a result.”
Some greens wouldn’t mind that at all. See Paul Kingsnorth for example
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/aug/17/environment-climate-change.
I recall a very old Peanuts cartoon where, Linus I think, says “I love mankind its people I can’t stand”.
Frankly, I’m more interested in a higher level of income than a higher level of efficiency, not that anything is wrong with efficiency. Properly applied, efficiency can increase my income 🙂
I am also interested in cheap energy. For example, burn oil, nat gas, and coal while we (the USA) build out nuclear power. Take the coal ash and extract the uranium and thorium from it. Remove the toxic metals using the cheap energy and use the rest for cement.
Per Capita is a false metric and is useless in determining CO2 emissions or reductions. Here is why.
If canda wanted a 85% reduction in CO2 Emissions we could simple immigrate 300 Million Chinese and Indian subsistence farmers and give them the same conditions that they have now. No power, little aid and only small bit of land to live off of.
Nothing would need to be different for anyone else, and our per Capita number would be one of the lowest and China and India’s would hardly register the change.
That’s because in your example per capita CO2 emissions haven’t changed.
What has changed is the average per capita emissions of 2 countries. The alternative to using national average per capita is to measure each persons emissions individually, or measure the average of selected sub-national populations.
You then go on to list factors which you claim need to be taken into account and every single example you give is one that specifically should not be taken into account if the objective is to reduce CO2 emisssions, which presumably it is.
For example, you cite travel distances. If you wish to produce the most CO2 emission reductions then any allowance for distance would increase CO2 emissions relative to no allowance. Ditto for all the other examples.
Your post is typical of the garbled nonsense that comes out of the AGW camp and Climate Heretic is clearly a name you use here in order to mislead people.
Roger Sowell (10:17:28) :
Hot gases rise, and diffuse into the surrounding gas volume. Thus, the hot CO2 and water vapor from an exhaust stack on a power plant do indeed rise.
Plume modeling of gases is a well-known activity. Temperature of the exhaust stack is one key variable, also exit velocity, composition of the exhaust, height of the stack above ground, wind direction and velocity, and perhaps a few others.
True enough, but I was more referring to the warmists’ bogus emotionalizing of the C02 non-issue by showing “scary” photos of plumes of “C02 pollution” rising out of smokestacks and car tailpipes, and even smog.
timetochooseagain (09:40:20) wrote:
“What the hell is “equivalent carbon”? Some major games are being played here.”
I suspect that’s because nuclear power is counted as emitting carbon even though it doesn’t, because the greenies don’t want countries to use nuclear as a way to reduce CO2 emissions.
To answer the title question: Because Qatar wouldn’t put up their s#!+, that’s why.
We should be extracting far Northern oil as fast as we possibly can because if we get a repeat of something like the LIA, it is going to be very difficult to extract that oil.
Leave the tropical oil alone and go for polar oil. We aren’t going to be able to reach it when we really need it.
the answer to this question
– because they would end up in an ugly prison for an indefinite time.
– because these countries also have the highest birth rates disproving their assumed causation of exponental population growth by poverty. at least for them and comparable cultural societies.
This puts the whole agenda of transferring money, labour and power from the west to everybody else into question.
The chart is colorful, but wrong. The balloons are two-dimensional so they imply that the way to compare tonnage is by comparing areas of the balloons. But if you look at the numbers themselves you can see that’s not the case. It’s pi * r^2, right? You shouldn’t be comparing the areas of the balloon, it’s the diameter that matters.
However, a 1D chart verses a 2D wouldn’t have the same impact.
Either that, or the warming hysterics can’t do math. 😉
Does anyone have the data for CO2 production by wood/manure cooking and heating? Perhaps Mali is not so far behind in their production of life sustaining CO2 after all.
What country is “Nor-ssb”?
And this list for 2006 has different values (by a factor of 3 to 4 lower):
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/top2006.cap
Ranking of the world’s countries by 2006 per capita
fossil-fuel CO2 emission rates. National per capita
estimates (CO2_CAP) are expressed in metric tons of carbon.
Source: Tom Boden, Gregg Marland, and Bob Andres
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
doi 10.3334/CDIAC/00001
RANK NATION CO2_CAP
1 QATAR 13.46
2 KUWAIT 9.35
3 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 9.00
4 BAHRAIN 7.82
5 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 6.90
6 LUXEMBOURG 6.53
7 NETHERLAND ANTILLES 6.21
8 ARUBA 6.12
9 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 5.18
10 AUSTRALIA 4.90
11 FALKLAND ISLANDS (MALVINAS) 4.60
12 CANADA 4.55
13 OMAN 4.38
14 SAUDI ARABIA 4.38
15 BRUNEI (DARUSSALAM) 4.21
16 FAEROE ISLANDS 3.83
17 GIBRALTAR 3.65
18 ESTONIA 3.56
19 FINLAND 3.45
“I wonder why Greenpeace never protests in Qatar?”
Because nobody protest the Arabs.
When you protest the Arabs nowadays, they get angry, they call out a Jihad and blow up your boat.
They will say “Hey you Green Piece of Shit” what the hell do you want…!
And they have Sharia Law.
They will cut of a hand, an arm or even a head when they think your messing with them
That’s why.
Yes, you have to give it to them. Those Greenpeace guys are clever.
They only want to bring down the civilized world.
I don’t see too much value to the per capita CO2 emissions. It doesn’t tell us much.
Just an example: Brazil’s per capita emissions are 1.86 tons, while Argentina’s are 4.42. Then we Argentineans are contrbuting to AGW more than Brazil, right?
The problem is Brazil has 180 million people and it emits 1.86 x 180 M = 334.8 M tons, while Artentina: 4.42 x 40 M = 176.8 M tons, that is about half the Brazilian production.
Perhaps we are eating too much beef per capita? Wrong. Brazil has more beef production and consumption than we have! Even tiny Uruguay is exporting more beef than we are…
bradley13, Your list illustrates that if we are serious about reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuels then we need to start with the profligate energy consumers first. Russia and the Gulf states are notorious for their wasteful use of fossil fuels. China is also wasteful in energy consumption in comparison to developed countries.
Interestingly, a couple of days ago Obama presented a proposal for countries to remove fuel subsidies and make fuel pricing transparent. An eminently sensible suggestion if your real objective is to reduce CO2 emissions. Since it would reduce profligate use of energy, and hence the world’s CO2 emissions, far more effectively than Cap and Trade.
Almost everyone including the UN hated the proposal.
Proving, if proof were needed, that the objective isn’t the reduction of CO2 emissions.
ralph (10:09:58) :
Actually ton = Imperial/American (Not sure if they are different as with gallons)
Tonne = metric ton (1000kg)
As for anything else.
Socialism is a philosophy of envy. Its effect are invariably to drag everyone down to the same level rather than attempt to raise everyones level.
There are of course exceptions. (Some people [pigs] are more equal than others).
DaveE.
Roger Knights (13:08:03) :
That’s exactly right. I’ve mentioned several times that France is registered as a high carbon polluter by the politburo in Brussels because of this carbon equivalence, despite their use of nuclear power.
DaveE.
Yes metric tonne is 1000 kg, Imperial or long ton 2240 lbs, so almost the same, and the US short ton is 2000 lbs.
Kindest regards.
Kiaora MikeE! We in Oz will make a deal with you. How about you can be ahead of us on whatever CO2 scale you like… and you give us the Bledisloe Cup? Deal? Send it to the ARU tomorrow and we’ll adjust the figures on the graphs accordingly 😉 Cheers!
This article seems to be based on the premise that the Greenhouse Effect is directly proportional to the amount of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere.
For me, it seems more reasonable to assume that there would be law of diminishing effect, once the atmosphere contains enough of this gas to block all radiation from earth’s surface to outer space at CO2 characteristic absorption wavelengths. David Archibald has presented data suggesting that our current CO2 concentration may be more than 300% beyond that point.
It is my understanding that carbon-dioxide only blocks transmission a few narrow wavelength bands as a result of molecular resonances. Each band is the result of a particular mode or method that the bonded oxygen and carbon atoms have to move or jiggle with respect to one another.
CO2 is lighter than air — here’s proof:
Jim (11:13:34)
Jim that is a spectacular website for graphical display of statistical information!
See: http://www.gapminder.org/
I wonder why they dont also relate it to the area of the planet that is the responsibility of the country in question–given that most,if not all of the A-C02 woud have been absorbed into the biomass of that country, including the territorial waters thereof-particularly if the country is big.
Oh no— we couldnt do that– because the Europeans would come out looking like crap–shocking even– and the arabian states even worse.
Where is the IPCC based again?
Where did all this nonsense start from?
No lets all pick on the anglo sphere where the industrial revolution started from, and most of the benefits of modern life that these cretins enjoy originated.
Philip_B (12:59:37) :
Perhaps I should have added footnotes because you simply did not get the point of the example which was why using per Capita is useless… Nothing Changed Except the per Capita number! That was the point.
“The alternative to using national average per capita is to measure each persons emissions individually, or measure the average of selected sub-national populations.” — No it is not. Again is meanless without context of what you are getting for your emissions in real economic and social terms.
“You then go on to list factors which you claim need to be taken into account and every single example you give is one that specifically should not be taken into account if the objective is to reduce CO2 emisssions, which presumably it is.” — Well like climate models your presumptions are false so hence your post started on the wrong foot and ended in the wrong result, to be clear I was only looking to provide a correctly weighted accounting of emissions versus several economic and social factors so that having a huge population does not give you a pass on emission accounting.
I think you believe me to be an AGWer because I used the term pollution, which was used as a generality because all environmental studies are based on the same per capita flawed logic and was not as a statement of CO2 is pollution.
So just for the record I have been speaking out against AGW on an economic and scientific basis for nearly a decade and my alias Climate Heretic has been mine proudly for all that time, perhaps a visit to my site would help.
I think you better re-read my comment and rethink yours.
a jones (15:48:03) :
I’m guessing that means a US hundredweight, (Can’t remember the abbreviation but think it’s cwt,) is 100lbs
But is a US lb the same as an imperial lb?
DaveE
From my experience in the Middle East, there are three classes of people.
1: The local Arabs – they are all rich and drive SUV’s, all week and at the weekends in the desert. (Some also drive that other well known CO2 producer, the camel.) They don’t seem to particularly care about environmentalism. Especially when you see the amount of rubbish they leave lying around the desert during weekend trips in their SUV’s. (I worked in Sharjah recently in the desert. I used to go for a walk every day through the sand dunes and started to pick up all the plastic and glass bottles, food wrappers, oil cans, etc. etc. I gave up as there was simply too much of it.)
2: The professional expat – they are all trying to get as rich as possible and enjoying their tax free expat lifestyles. Some drive SUV’s, especially in the desert at the weekends. They usually take their rubbish home with them
3: The expat Indians, Bangladeshis and Phillipino labourers. They are treated as the lowest of the low and are too busy working and too poor to care about environmentalism. They don’t drive SUV’s – they get old diesel smoke belching buses everywhere. They don’t go to the desert at the weekends – they’re too busy working.
Another reason that Greenpeace haven’t taken hold in the Middle East is that there are no Universities full of rich middle class white folks.
Talking of trying to reduce GDP, I found a lovely little fun game to scare our kids on the ABC site:
http://www.carbonclimate.info/2009/03/planet-slayer-horror-for-kiddies.html
Basically after putting all my data in, even after flying around the world TWICE in one year (no apologies, either) I was not a real CO2 hog. After putting in my spending for the year of AU$100k, I was a MASSIVE hog.
Lesson? Spending money is BAAAADDDDD!!!!
This is a lesson our kids should be learning? To be actually scared into not spending money? Where does our economy go then? Oh yes…. south…..
Canada has no balloons.
correct. In both the Imperial system and US system there are twenty hundredweight to the ton. In both systems the pound is the same weight.
So in the Imperial system the hundredweight [cwt] is 112 pounds or 4 quarters of 28 lbs each or 8 stone of 14 lbs each.
As aforesaid at 2240 pounds the Imperial ton is very close to the metric tonne of 1000 kg with a kilogram being a little more than 2.2 pounds.
In the US system the hundredweight, often called a Cental where either Metric or Imperial units are more commonly used, is 100 pounds.
The US short ton is chiefly used in the US and Canada, where the Cental is still called a hundredweight and the same abbreviation, cwt, is used.
Likewise the Imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces but the US pint only 16 fluid ounces, but the fluid ounce is the same in both systems.
Confusing ain’t it?
Kindest Regards
a jones (18:39:33),
Thank you for that sterling [Oops! Forgot about guineas, shillings…] example of why the UK and the US are #1 in the world. No one else can understand us.
We’re Number One!
We’re Number One!…
Because it doesn’t flow with my favourite metric – The Hockey Stick ____/ (apologies for ascii art) and it also turns out that Greenland(ers) are about 10% more “polluting” than the green, efficient and, of course, pleasant UK. Suck on that Greenpeace.
These figures demonstrate the futility of cap and trade and trans-national wealth redistribution. The first act of a person in a poor country, on receiving a handout, would be to spend monry on activities that produce more GHG. It is very hard to spend more money without increasing GHG unless you do suspicious things like build nuclear plants.
It’s the same inside a country. If there is a carbon tax within the USA, the money will go to someone who will want to use more energy and so increase GHG emissions. The whole concept is a circular churn with the government making unearned profits on the side through transaction costs and penalties.
Is the atmosphere homogenous at all altitudes? What is the % of CO2 and CFCs at sea level versus troposhere or stratosphere?
Lastly, is there a difference in the effect of CO2 emissions at sea level from cars versus C02 emissions in the stratosphere from airplanes?
Inquiring minds want to know.
So, due to lack of proofreading for a simple graphic, we don’t know which they mean, tons or tonnes. The result would be different.
Geoff Sherington (20:58:02) :
“These figures demonstrate the futility of cap and trade and trans-national wealth redistribution.”
This reminds me of the Monty Python sketch about the highwayman Dennis Moore, a straight-up parody of Robin Hood. By the end of the skit Moore, played by John Cleese, has stolen and transfered all of the wealth from the (formerly) rich household to the (no longer) poor family. Unfortunately the newly the rich are not appreciative and are demanding more and better, but the source of the loot is now destitute.
In classic Python style, Cleese pauses in thought along the empty road and muses out loud, “This redistribution of the wealth is trickier than I thought.”
Fascinating. Almost a direct line from rich to poor, from productive to primitive.
oakgeo (22:51:08) :
Re Robin Hood. Here in Australia we are mutteringthat the Government is proposing Robin Hood economics with a variation. They take from the rich, then keep it.
I love the Python sketch, saw it long ago.
Can someone answer two simple questions for me.
1. What is wrong with the metric of dividing the total emissions of a country by its surface area including territorial waters,and coming up with a ranking of who is doing the most harm. ?
2. Isnt it the case, that if it is the western countries are ones that are going to be penalised the most for lowering total emmissions (and subsidise all the others), why isnt that paying for these industrial developments twice. But the new users eg china and india, are only paying once.
Isnt this in effect rewarding China and India for being backwards for so long.?
I suspect that the protestors have the following problems about Qatar:
1. It’s too damn HOT!
2. Women might be singled out for punishment as most female greenies would rail at dress with modest decorum.
3. A quiet word to all the Governments back home about the price of oil might lead to hounding back home of the protestors on the MI5 scale of things, which isn’t very nice, is it?
4. Why increase your carbon footprint to get there when you can switch the lights off in your own country by cycling to Kingsnorth?
5. Berating the Australians about their mining and the Canadians about their aluminium may reduce their desire to send troops to Afghanistan.
6. LNG supplies from Qatar to Milford Haven might go missing.
7. The Qataris won’t invest in a bankrupt English football team if we go after their green credentials.
IMHO.
Paul R (18:34:19) :
Canada has no balloons.
Absolutely not true. I spent a few summer weeks in Edmonton a few decades ago where the sun did not set until after ten PM and the sky was full of wonderful hot-air balloons. My hosts had lots of winter-horror stories, but Edmonton in the summer, and its balloons, are a cherished memory.
If anyone here is interested in exploring the complex relationships between various statistical categories for nations throughout the world I will repeat a recommendation I have made here several times that you check out Gapminder.org at http://www.gapminder.org/. They have vast amounts of statistical data in over 150 indicators covering most of the world with some of the data going back to 1800 or further back. Their software allows you to easily create animated graphs charting any indicator against any other with a few clicks. Individual countries can be highlighted and tracked and for those who want to explore deeper there are numerous other capabilities embedded in the system. The main site has quite a number of videos available which demonstrate the possibilities of the software.
Geoff Sherington (00:37:50) :
Here in Australia we are mutteringthat the Government is proposing Robin Hood economics with a variation. They take from the rich, then keep it.
“Blimey mate, at least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask!”
Consumption of electricity in the USA is falling. Bad economy, job losses, no money. I think they outsourced to the tipping point. There isn’t anything left to rebuild with. The Globalists own it all.
“Geoff Sherington (00:37:50) :
oakgeo (22:51:08) :
Re Robin Hood. Here in Australia we are mutteringthat the Government is proposing Robin Hood economics with a variation. They take from the rich, then keep it.
I love the Python sketch, saw it long ago.”
Errrr…..they do that already, how else can they afford their gilt edge pension funds after only one term “in service”, while the “rest of us” have to wait until 65. Oh hang on, “they” just changed that to 67. Thanks Australian politicians.
If you mean CO2 emissions, it is wrong because CO2 does no measurable harm.
On the OP, the “balloon” analogy is just so lame, trouble is, politicians are milking it all the way to the bank, and, it seems in Australia at least, most are happy to be shafted.
How can 20mil people’s “emissions” be just behind 300mil? Are American’s, somehow, 15 times more efficient in consumption/emission?
Thanks to everyone who ‘weighed in’ on tons vs tonnes. I’ll just have to admit to being ‘tone’ deaf.
Dave Wendt (02:38:10) :
“If anyone here is interested in exploring the complex relationships between various statistical categories for nations throughout the world I will repeat a recommendation I have made here several times that you check out Gapminder.org at http://www.gapminder.org/.”
I checked it out and it’s every bit as good as you said. I now have a shortcut to that site. I have a visual handicap that makes it hard to view graphs (and just about everything else), but they have some options that allow one to compare stats by selecting other types of visuals that are easier for me to see. I LIKE it!
“Roger Sowell (10:17:28) :
Hot gases rise, and diffuse into the surrounding gas volume. Thus, the hot CO2 and water vapor from an exhaust stack on a power plant do indeed rise.”
…You missed out the bit about when the C02 cools it falls to earth.
The Earth has been likened to a giant carbon dioxide sponge because so many life forms need it for their survival. A carbon dioxide molecule can’t survive in the atmosphere longer than about 14 months before being absorbed into the sea or the Earth’s biomass, and most C02 molecules disappear from the air much sooner than that. The Earth’s carbon-based life forms need about 207 billion tons of C02 per year just to survive.
Soda cans maybe a better graphic!
I like Euro Trash and Trailer Trash – often funny and occasionally better educated than most of the snobs out there.
>>>To answer the title question (Greenpeace and Qatar):
>>>Because Qatar wouldn’t put up their s#!+, that’s why.
These were the last four Greenpeacenicks to make a complaint to Iran. Apparently, canceling their return flights saved 14 tonnes of CO2, so all’s well that ends well.
.
>>>To answer the title question (Greenpeace and Qatar):
>>>Because Qatar wouldn’t put up their s#!+, that’s why.
These were the last four Greenpeacenicks to make a complaint to Iran.
http://irantoday.co.kr/photo/2007/09/23/iran_execution-thumb-510×446.jpg
Apparently, canceling their return flights saved 14 tonnes of CO2, so all’s well that ends well.
.
Here’s a compilation of Monty Python’s ‘Dennis Moore’ sketches. I don’t remember having seen any of these before. I don’t think that they would show Monty Python on Quatari TV…
>>When does the U.S. get credit for allowing so much of
>>>our land to grow fallow and revert to forests?
And how many Carbon Credits does the US get for exporting so much grain to the rest of the world?
http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/baseline/gallery/gallery2002/CoarseExports.gif
All those fields could be converted to forest, to gain Carbon Credits, so continuing to grow grain should earn Virtual Carbon Credits as an offset. If the US does not get any VCCs for grain, they should stop growing the grain and let the Third World starve. The rest of the world would then have to chop down their own forests to grow grain and loose their CCs.
Confused?
.
Greenpeace is actually a predatory extortion organization. As such, and like all predators in every food chain, they only try to approach weak targets which won’t fight back. The Western world fits that description. No moral fiber for fighting back against extortionists.
A Greenpeace action in Qatar would end up in a very ugly jail sentence. And they know it. So they keep their mouths shut.
The Balloon picture tells it all.
If we control Co2, we control humanity so finally we have found a way to establish a long lasting basis for a Global Marxist Society, read Fascist Society.
As it has become clear that Obama’s shadow government of Czars make no secret of their Marxist Revolutionary backgrounds we now know exactly where we are up to.
The cold war has started again.
If the Revolutionaries win, this will be our future:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/2796/ALERT-German-Climate-Advisor-proposes-creation-of-a-CO2-budget-for-every-person-on-planet
Our best bet for a sustainable, clean, healthy, and free society is to provide energy within our own soils and not be beholden to any one group of nations. Our next president, if truly focused on his/her constituents, will begin the process of responsibly mining for all sources of energy and investing in building the refineries for these mining products. With cheap and efficient energy, we can competitively manufacture the products sought the world over while maintaining family wages.
In the meantime, the president should develop an energy research facility that funds the R&D necessary to produce alternative liquid energy that can be easily transported and used safely. The country that produces its own energy more cheaply will be in a better position to care for its oceans and lands.
More Climate Alarmism:
This time “Tectonic Armageddon”
http://volcanism.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/climate-change-scientists-warn-of-tectonic-volcanic-geo-apocalyptic-mega-mayhem/
Ron de Haan (10:45:39) :
Wow, my pickup might cause earthquakes. Awesome!
Is there no end to this? My God, Monty Python never ended… it just morphed into climate science.
Pamela Gray (10:39:31) :
“In the meantime, the president should develop an energy research facility that funds the R&D necessary to produce alternative liquid energy that can be easily transported and used safely. The country that produces its own energy more cheaply will be in a better position to care for its oceans and lands”.
Right, that why the use of coal to generate electricity is on the rise.
Anthony, the link you gave in answer to Sekerob (09:23:40) seems to be about CO2 distribution horizontally, close to the surface.
I’ve asked the same question on other sites about vertical distribution of CO2 particularly above the tropopause. I’ve never had a real, measured, widely sampled answer about this.
Do we assume that in a 1 g gravity field acting over 30km or so molecules 50% heavier than the other constituents of air don’t have a concentration gradient, particularly as above the tropopause there isn’t the massive convective mixing present in the troposphere?
All I’ve ever had in answer to this is vague arm waving about “molecular diffusion”. No hard data. It is wise to sometimes check assumptions against real world measurements. Anybody know of any? Alternatively does anybody know enough about molecular diffusion to do the calculation for CO2 in air or point to somewhere that has done this?
CO2 emissions appear to be a function of
1) wealth
2) cheapness of fossil fuels (oil states have higher emissions)
3) nuclear power (france has really low emissions)
4) climate (Scandanavia and canada stung here)
5) Hydro-electric power availability
So-called “green” technologies are irrelevant.
As an Aussie, proud to be #2 on the deciever’s chart. Means the nation must be doing something right. Viva la carbon!
The fixation of CO2-e emmissions is misleading and dangerous. First let us assume that:
a) AGW is occurring *cough*;
b) black CO2-filled balloons float; and
c) It is those black balloons that are causing the AGW.
I think I have that about right so far… Hookay, so Australia is a large CO2-e (black balloon) emmitter per capita. This is true. Australia is also:
a) a net exporter of energy ; and
b) a net exporter of energy intensive products (e.g. aluminium).
Some of these exports return to Australia in other forms such as automobiles, plant and machinery, but the bulk is destined for other nations such as the USA, Eurotrashland*, Canada and so on.
Should Australia therefore be penalised for producing black balloons for a tonne of aluminium that ends up in Toyota cars (for example) that end up in the Italian market? No, clearly this is preposterous and any unilateral ETS in Australia would lead to energy-intensive industries moving overseas where no such regime is enforced.
This also applies to the Australian LNG industry (and Qatari one for that matter). LNG is a “cleaner” fossil fuel than coal, but we (Australia and Qatar) are to be penalised for producing it and exporting it overseas to offset foreign black balloon emmissions.
Any agreement in Copenhagen will tilt the economic playing field disastrously unless the agreements are global (to the major economies/emmitters) such that there is no relative disadvantage to energy intensive-exporters such as Australia.
* Being half Dutch I am entitled to say this /nod
Re data and reliability:
Polen = Rzeczpospolita Polska = Poland
Wonder why the hard-to-identify name for non-German speakers?
Perhaps because the estimate for CO2 consumption is absurdly low?
No, let us not impute low motives to those Sorelians that have no connection, none whatsoever, to nobel lies.
Japan is heading down the emission cuts plan too;
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/japans-next-pm-to-announce-emissions-cuts-cabinet-20090907-fdzi.html
“The agency would carry out aggressive budget reviews and shift funds to pay for the DPJ’s campaign promises — including expanding child care subsidies, free high school fees, and abolishing highway tolls.”
How will this be paid for? Carbon taxes of course.
“But is a US lb the same as an imperial lb?”
Yes, except it’s “avoirdupois” not imperial or US. Hah you avoid using that fancy French metric system and then someone tells you that the French invented the old system too! Well ok not quite; the original French tonne was a sensible 2000 livres but Britain unsimplified it to a baffling 2240 livres, which equal 20 hundredweights (huh?) – and then they added sixteenths, fourteenths and quarters to complete the screw-up.
The French, by the way, have now formalised their carbon tax. About 3 centimes a litre. That’s a 3% surcharge on top of the existing pump price. big deal! Nothing compared to the commodity trader surcharge that the New York and London oil traders wrought upon the world last year. I suppose, in choosing a simple transparent tax, the French had noticed that the cap and trade idea came from these same New York and London geniuses that brought us that oil price spike along with the rest of the [snip]- and who still resist going sensibly metric like the rest of the world.
You know… the thing about that study being historical estimates makes me think. Lets go through this a step at a time.
The study appears to be trying to caclulate how much CO2 in total has been released from each country over the years, then dividing that by the population.
Sure, I may be wrong about that, but that irks me… something doesn’t sound right about it. So I decided to have a look for some other numbers… like these ones:
“World Per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Consumption and Flaring of Fossil Fuels, 1980-2006”
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:QhUl0a_6bpQJ:www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1cco2.xls
Note that the source is the US DOE…
So what do THOSE numbers say (for 2006)?
United States – 19.78
Qatar – 61.19
Hmm wierd. Differnt numbers, still seemingly supporting Mr Watt’s contention, but different.
What ARE these numbers, anyway?
“Data in this table are calculated by dividing the data on total carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels in million metric tons of carbon dioxide units for each country and year from Table H.1co2 by the population in millions for each country and year from Table B.1”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/Notes%20for%20Table%20H_1cco2.html
Ah so we need to see those numbers too. Here is Table H.1co2 (2006 numbers):
United States – 5,902.75
Qatar – 54.17
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:VCcNf5p2cbQJ:www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls
And Table B.1 (2006 numbers):
United States – 298.44
Qatar – 0.89
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:NF4GeeyiTcQJ:www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableb1.xls
So now it all makes sense. Qatar is a tiny country with a population of only 890 thousand – but it produces a huge amount of export petroleum and natural gas. So when you divide their fairly small amount of CO2 they produce making that export fuel by their tiny population, you get a much larger number than when you divide the US’ HUGE amount of CO2 by their much larger population!
Take note, the US produces over a HUNDRED TIMES as much CO2 per year as Qatar – its just that the US has more than a hundred times as many people!
Basically what you are talking about is a country that exports as much fossil fuels as Califronia produces… but with a population less than that of Delaware.
OF COURSE the numbers are going to make Qatar look terrible!
The reason Greenpeace does not protest against Qatar is political rather than an idealogical desire to protect the environment. The former leader of Greenpeace left them as they became an engine of politics, most especially infused with radical socialism. The “green” scene is actually secondary, a tool for bringing about socialism to the whole world. Since Qatar does not impede socialism, they are “non-essential” to the fight. A minor blip on the political screen, even if they put out more CO2 than we do.
The original reason for Greenpeace was to protect certain species of animal, such as whales, from being over-hunted. Now, it’s a political org hanging it’s hat on AGW.
Tiny, tiny Luxembourg figures quite prominently, that’s interesting… an interesting way, that is, to show what a load of BS the per-capita metric is.
Luxembourg has 400.000-ish inhabitants, who, it seems, use gigantic quantities of hydrocarbons. They don’t. They SELL gigantic quantities of hydrocarbons because they are a lot cheaper than in neighboring Germany, France or Belgium. In fact, about 60% of all hydrocarbons sold in Luxembourg go to these countries, mostly in the form of gasoline and diesel. Take these out of the per-capita calculation and the real number looks a lot better.
Incidentally, this is also why the average Luxembourger seems to statistically consume epic quantities of coffee, alcohol and tobacco, which just so happen to also be on sale at gas stations… Honi soit qui mal y pense.
This, of course, puts the local government in a bit of a bind. On the one hand, they wouldn’t want to be the CO2 pigs that the statistics imply. On the other hand, the hydrocarbon sales across the border (remember, this is purely retail, no wholesale involved) flush a handsome amount of assorted taxes into the state coffers (620 million euros in 2005). So even among the green party there is much wringing of hands when statistics such as this one are rubbed under their noses. What to do, what to do… 🙂
Well isnt that intersting…
I see you deleted my post showing how you were using phony figures…
Funny that,.
REPLY: 200% wrong you are.
1) You’ve jumped to conclusion without facts in evidence. Your post appears at 4:02AM. (PST, where I live)
2) You made no allowance for moderation delay. It is a holiday here in the USA, “Labor Day”, so there’s no expectation that posts will be approved immediately.
– A
In adition to Tons CO2 versus GDP, it should be noted that one should take GDP corrected for purchasing power. This to compensate for e.g. dollar-euro and other fluctuations. I don’t know whether this was done here. It should reduce US levels a lot in relative means compared to euro countries.
The US will still not do too well there. America isn’t so efficient as Americas like to believe. Sorry guys, I love your country, but as an immigrant from Europe to the US, I see there is lots of improvement possible. However, as energy will become more expensive that will go by itself. No government needed IMHO, so don’t take it as an insult 😉
But even with that the US will probably use more CO2 per capita than some other countries. But that is also because US has many coal. Some countries are lucky to have much hydro, others not. And again others use nuclear. Without starting a good-bad-nuclear debate, but I thing if the US would massively shift to that the greens would object too. 😉 France does relatively well because of manu nuclear plans build in the past. However their current ‘progress’ isn’t too great. And of course it is easy to tell a country, you can not use your natural resources. Holland uses its gas, Norway its oil and the US and China its coal.
Also GDP doesn’t scale. The first 100 dollars GDP is not the same as the last and not the same as the middle. People will first buy a fridge, then later an AC but the latter will use more energy than the first. Most Europeans even in the western countries there don’t have an A/C in their house. If they start adding them, this will add to GDP but also to CO2 and probably not in a lineair way.
I believe Pielke once posted numbers on CO2 progress in terms of change per GDP change. The US was doing on par there with other western countries.
The other aspect that no one considers in the warmist “debate” is that the industrialising countries could simply be lying. After all where are the statistics sourced from?
>>> Imperial pounds and tons
>>>and then they added sixteenths, fourteenths and quarters
>>>to complete the screw-up.
Not really. If you want to work in fractions, as everyone used to do prior to the computer age, then working in base sixteen is eminently sensible. It sub-divides nicely.
Oh, and you will find that the linear Imperial system is based upon Pi (base 22).
5.5 yds = rod
22 yds = chain
220 yds = furlong
1760 yds = mile.
All perfectly logical.
.
A rod, pole or perch please.
And by the way in England you can only have square rods or square poles but not, for some reason, square perches: it is not a legal measure.
And of course an acre is one chain by one furlong.
Wonderful stuff.
Kindest Regards
I was long ago convinced that the Imperial System of measures involved picking an integer not previously used as the basis for a new measure. For a while I thought they had skipped 7, but then I realised there are 7,000 grains in a pound.
The bit I struggle with is this… the somewhat eccentric Brits came up with the crazy system in the first place. They abadoned it for, of all things, a French system (and we all know those two countries have a bit of history).
In the US you are clinging onto the Imperial System (or a slightly twisted version of it) despite having chased the Poms off a few years ago because of some issue with tea and taxes.
All very confuddling….
” wef (21:06:10) :
Re data and reliability:
Polen = Rzeczpospolita Polska = Poland”
What is the problem with Poland ?
They do not mind if you cannot pronounce Swietokrzyska, as long as you walk it.
And they can teach the people of Santa Monica and Ephraim Goldberg how to build an attractive shopping mall.
Well that lead balloon cartoon is a fraud; because it doesn’t include any “carbon removal per capita” information.
And if it did, then the USA would come out as the only good kid on the block, since we are the worlds only sizeable land mass that is a net carbon SINK.
With all our forests and agriculture we remove more than our industrial activities emit.
And out Aussie Mates deserve special dispensation, since nothing green grows in Australia, so they have no compensation for their industrial emissions of life giving CO2. Australia has a second handicap, in that water is completely unknown in Australia, but Coal is plentiful, so their electric power generation is heavily coal based; they even have a Newcastle in Australia in honor of their coal stocks.
Considering their total land area; Australia is NOT a significant emitter of CO2, although they are a net emitter.
And if you factor in the goods and services produced for net carbon emissions, or even for total energy consumption; then that begs the question; why doesn’t the USA consume even more of the world’s energy; since we use it so effectively.
But that is all academic anyway; since CO2 is not the big bad bogey man it is made out to be.
New Zealand is also carbon negative I believe also because of its efficient agriculture, and forestry; but then being only the size of Oregon; it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in terms of carbon.
And I’m doing my fair share for the carbon cycle, by planting acorns while the squirrels aren’t watching me; and for $5 per acorn, I’ll take care of any of my co-workers who drives an SUV to work.
Good on ya –George Smith.
That was exactly the point that I was making awhile back on this thread, but it seemed to have missed the mark.
Australia may be a per capita high emitter, but we are only 20m people on a land and sea area of the planet that dwarfs the whole of Europe, a few times over. Certainly dear old UK is only as big as Victoria and that is one of the small states.
I agree with you, that if the nongs doing the numbers had half a brain and where being honest they would have to include a measure for the surface area and natural absorbability, to arrive a truthful net effect per person– and net effect on the planet.
But no the IPCC shonks based mainly in Europe wouldnt let that happen.
Not the picture they want portrayed–heh
Who says they whole stupid game isnt political.
This just in.. the Aussies have pipped the US to be the biggest black balloon per capita generators:
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/the-worlds-worst-polluters-20090910-fjdt.html
Do we get a medal?
and Yes Bulldust did you notice the complete non sequitor in Penny Wongs comment.
WTF has the fact that the continent may be the hottest and driest on earth ( so she claims) got to do with a per capita figure.
It is still the case that a more sensible measure would be per capita related to area governed. But thats a bit hard for the poor dears,and it wouldnt suit the Europeans like the pommy authers of the report
We should get a medal for gullibility.