Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In the run-up to the next-to-last big meeting of the UNFCCC (United Nations Frequent Climate Change Carnival) held in Copenhagen in 2009, I showed the following graph under the title “Why Copenhagen Will Achieve Nothing”
Figure 1. Carbon Emissions 1970-2006 by Region, and Global (red).
At that time it was clear that if the entire industrialized world cut back to 1980 emission levels, the climbing global emissions would scarcely change.
We are now coming up on the 17th UN Climate Change Carnival … so many clowns … so few circuses. This Carnival will be held in Durban, South Africa. How have CO2 emissions evolved since the Copenhagen Carnival? The latest figures are just in. Many electrons are being sacrificed in anguish about the numbers. “Record High 2010 Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Combustion and Cement Manufacture Posted on CDIAC Site” shouts the headline from … well, that’s actually the self-referential headline on the CDIAC page itself. The CDIAC site says that the CDIAC site says that the CDIAC site says that a record …
Our friends at the UK Guardian newspaper enthuse that “Greenhouse gases rise by record amount.” Elsewhere the hype rises roughly proportionally with the distance from understanding what the numbers actually mean.
So how did we set this new record for carbon emissions? Figure 2 shows the information from the CDIAC site.
Figure 2. Changes in emissions from 2008 to 2010.
Hmmm …
In interpreting these numbers, it is useful to remember that carbon emissions measure what is generally called “development” —access to all of the good things that energy brings to the citizens of the country. Medicine, and food, and shelter from the sun, and heat when its cold, and transportation, and communications, and refrigeration, and farm tractors … the list is long. It’s development, and it runs on and is synonymous with energy.
So when the developed world asks India and China and Brazil and Indonesia to cut back on carbon emissions, we’re asking them to cut back on developing their country’s health and well-being and infrastructure and manufacturing … good luck selling them that line of what my step-grandpa used to call “bull-dust” …
Remember that the Kyoto Protocol expires soon. The dream of the carbon alarmists is to extend Kyoto. They want to see a new set of global binding restrictions on the increase in carbon emissions. That is to say, they want to see binding restrictions on the increase in energy use in the developing world.
Me, I think that is one of the most inhumane proposals ever floated. The great masses of India and China and Brazil and the rest are finally clawing their way out of abject poverty, and the carbon alarmists want to put binding restrictions on their access to energy?!? Get real! The good news is, they will never, never agree to that. That carbon is what is fueling, quite literally, their rise out of the mire.
In addition, consider that agreements like Kyoto keep energy use from increasing. That approach sounds reasonable, at first blush. And for the developed countries, that’s not much problem, our use is plenty high already. But for China and India and the like? It means we’re saying they can’t ever catch up with us. I can assure you that they see the rank hypocrisy in that approach.
So if Kyoto is thankfully dead in a global sense, what does that leave? Well, I hate to be crass and crude about it but the bad news is that just leaves …
Money. Euros. Greenbacks. Simoleons. Follow the Benjamins.
What will happen in Durban is that the developing countries will pull out all of the stops to convince the developed world to give them money. We’ll hear endless heart-wrenching stories of climate refugees and dying reefs and ecological zones being uprooted and moved polewards without so much as a by-your-leave. And not forgetting, people in polar bear suits. Can’t have a UN Climate Change Carnival without polar bears.
And if history is any guide, in all probability, the carbon activists and quiche-eaters and Eurotrash we have representing the developed world will be unable to bear the guilt of actually being developed, and they will cave in to the demands and promise some money some time down the line … and then, thankfully, most countries likely won’t honor the promises, leading to diplomatic complaints and strongly worded protests.
(As an aside … Dear US Congress-Persons … can we stop funding the IPCC? They’re giving away the taxpayers’ money and getting nothing in return. That’s supposed to be your job, could you at least get rid of the competition? — TIA, willis.)
I leave it to the reader to consider further implications of these numbers. The sun is shining. I’m going outside to build something.
w.
Sorry, but Ron Paul is unelectable.
Ron Paul has an extremely naive, isolationist view of the world. If we closed all of our overseas bases, withdrew support from Israel, the nations that hate us now still aren’t going to like us. They aren’t going to leave us alone, but they’ll be emboldened. Ron Paul imagines that all the past transgressions (whether imagined or real) other nations hold against us will suddenly be forgiven if we do a complete 180. History shows otherwise.
I like many of his ideas. I’m a libertarian (little “l” libertarian) at heart, and I find Congressman Paul appealing on many issues. I have no doubt about his personal integrity, either. But he is unlikely to get the GOP nomination.
As to why Paul is unelectable as president — he’s too old, older even than Grandpa McCain. I think Paul looks healthier and more vigorous than McCain, but when it comes to spectacle and splash and style, Obama’s people are simply going to cream him.
At 7:35 AM on 9 November, More Soylent Green! parrots the “unelectable” yammering of the left-“Liberal” MSM, writing:
Yeah. And “History” also shows that if what you’re doing hasn’t worked, to continue doing it is really stupid.
The fallacy of reification involves the treatment of an abstraction – like “nations” – as if they were concrete entities.
The people of various foreign polities develop their enmities against the government of these United States (a tendency encouraged and exploited for the sake of political expediency by the kleptocrats running most of these “nations that hate us“) for undisputedly aggressively destructive foreign policy measures undertaken by the critters who misgovern our nation. In that (as I’ve heard Dr. Paul argue), those people are responding pretty reliably according to human nature.
Certainly damned few Americans (we’re not discussing the “Liberal” fascists here, are we?) would accept the imposition of “foreign aid” – government-to-government transfers of monetary wealth – specifically conditioned upon our own kakistocracy’s compliance with the wishes of politicians in Beijing or Tokyo or Brussels, would they?
Hell, we don’t need even to consider the issue of foreign military garrisons – maintaining their own “rules of engagement” indifferent to local, state, or federal criminal codes – in any part of these United States, do we?
If you construe as “naive” or “isolationist” Dr. Paul’s accurate assessment of the exacerbatory character of present and recent past U.S. foreign policies – particularly as they pertain to the conflict with the intrinsically insane Islamic world into which the military and economic support of Israel has led over the past half-century and more – then you are yourself demonstrating the genuine naïveté that makes of you the kind of perfect sucker our Boot-On-Your-Neck Party professional political prostitutes yearn for.
Hell, I’ve spent most of my life as an amateur student and writer of military history. For the better part of the past fifty years, I’ve been a more-or-less avid player, designer, and developer of “conflict simulations games” – board wargames, not the toy soldiers crap or the computer/video shoot-’em-ups. I’ve been through the whole “Napoleon, NATO, Nukes and Nazis” bit, and then some.
I take the same sort of pleasure in studying “Kill ’em all, and let God sort ’em out” guts-and-glory warfare that the average married (and sexually sated) guy does in sneaking out his old copies of Penthouse and Playboy.
But I know enough about warfare – and all foreign policy is aimed, in one way or another, about addressing the “fang-and-claw” nature of relations between political entities with the power to wage war – to realize that you are dead friggin’ wrong and Dr. Paul is the only adult in the whole Red Faction debate about American imperialism.
Despite your finger-crossing hope that “he is unlikely to get the GOP nomination” and your unfounded conclusion that “Paul is unelectable as president — he’s too old, older even than Grandpa McCain” (good old “Crash Test Johnnie,” the Republicans’ sh-t scraper guaranteed-to-lose 2008 candidate), too lacking in “spectacle and splash and style” to contest our Kenyan Keynesian, of just what the hell are you so afraid?
First and foremost, to the extent that our Mombasa Messiah (remember, it’s not so certain that his legal name actually is “Obama”) has to debate Dr. Paul, that “57 states” illiterate putz hasn’t got the proverbial nitrocellulose dog’s chance in hell of beating him.
Take away his TelePrompTer, and the stupid mamzer simply vapor-locks and crashes.
Second, have you seen anything for the so-called “front runners” on the Republican side even remotely resembling the enthusiasm that Ron Paul engenders among not only hard-line political and social conservatives but also the “independents”?
Next year, as in every national election we’ve seen for decades, it’s those “independent” voters – the ones who, when offered the survey options, skip over “Democrat” and “Republican” to mark “Pissed Off” – who’ll determine the name of the man taking the oath of office in January 2013.
If the Republican nominee isn’t Ron Paul, for the U.S. economy it won’t make a goddam bit of difference whether the guy up on that platform is Barry Soebarkah or not.
What you’re afraid of isn’t that Dr. Paul is “unelectable” but rather that, if he gets the nomination, he’s not only unbeatable but that he will do precisely what the hell he’s been saying should be done, both here at home and abroad in the world.
Fred H. Haynie says:
November 8, 2011 at 3:36 pm
…… It would be foolish to stop burning fossil fuels to save the world from an anticipated global average temperature rise of one or two degrees. We would destroy civilization in the process.
_______________________
That seems to be the main idea Fred.
From what I can figure out “They” want a return to a small Feudalistic Society that will preserve the earth’s resources for the ultra-wealthy leaders and their descendants instead of squandering those resources on the “Great Unwashed” This is their definition of “Socialism”
This is the real goal and the reason CAGW will not die. It is too good a wealth/power transfer mechanism.
The 1972 First Earth Summit introduced Global Warming and Pollution to the international scene. This set up the United Nations on the road to being seen by people as as major influence in their lives. The first step toward removing national sovereignty and establishing “Global Governance” by an unelected world wide group.
Meanwhile similar ideas were introduced onto University campuses. Obama’s chief science and technology adviser, Holdren along with Population Bomb author, Paul Ehrlich and wife Anne stated in their 1973 book Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.
In their 1977 book Ecoscience these same people go on to say:
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e41_1284655982&comments=1
These ideas are not new you can see they echo Fabian Socialist Leader, George Bernard Shaw. The other Fabians Leaders (Webbs) founded the London School of Economics where many of todays leaders are trained….
SEE: http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=7948
One of the core Fabian ideas is gradual change. The type of change we have seen.
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/009/cuddy/eugenics.htm
These are the types of ideas the last forty years worth of students have been brainwashed with. The idea that a land owner does not really “Own” his land has now established in US court.
The truly frightening thing is that the USDA funded the development of a spermicidal corn. Forty years ago this would have been unthinkable. The idea of “Rewilding of America” and “Restoring America’s Big, Wild Animals” (Pleistocene rewilding) is being pushed and laws are being passed. Heck Holdren wants to give TREES equal rights to humans under the law, thereby demoting humans to the level of “Things” completely “owned” by the government. “Chattel” (Cattle) if you will or serfs.
http://www.conservationmagazine.org/2008/07/where-the-wild-things-were/
http://resourceclearinghouse.blogspot.com/2010/11/wildlands-project-rewilding-america.html
LAWS and Proposed bills: http://www.klamathbucketbrigade.org/YNTKwildlandsproject_table.htm
. . . . .
So from our point of view Durban is nothing but a Circus but CAGW was never anything but a circus show to hide the true agenda. If we do not recognize what we are actually fighting and get diverted by the side skirmishes we will lose because we underestimate the “Enemy” who is actually a many headed hydra.
[Formatting fixed -w.]
Zac says:
November 8, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Why do all the bubbles originate from the bottom of a champagne flute glass full of fizzy wine? These bubbles are CO2 right, but why do they always form at the bottom and rise to the top?
______________________
Yeast
This is misleading. If the U.S., Japan, et al, weren’t buying so many products manufactured in China then China’s CO2 emissions would not be rising as rapidly.
Basically we in the US import the goods because they are inexpensive then export the blame for environmental consequences of their low-cost manufacture. This is essentially no different than buying sneakers made by exploited child laborers.
[Usual Springer nasty personal attack snipped -w.]
Latitude says:
November 8, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Willis: Latitude, the graph does not measure how developed they are. It measures the change in energy use, so it is measuring how fast they are developing, not how far they’ve gotten.
===================================================
Willis, that’s why I want you to look at the JAXA…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
ChiefIO, (E.M. Smith) has it up here
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/japanese-satellites-say-3rd-world-owes-co2-reparations-to-the-west/
Perhaps a hit to cross post….
Gail Combs says:
November 9, 2011 at 8:07 am
Zac says:
November 8, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Why do all the bubbles originate from the bottom of a champagne flute glass full of fizzy wine? These bubbles are CO2 right, but why do they always form at the bottom and rise to the top?
______________________
Yeast
_____________________________
No, not yeast. The flute has more nucleation sites on the bottom of the glass due the way it is made (stem separately). Higher quality beer glasses have purposely made imperfections at the bottom in order to get the same visual effect in the bubbles.
Tucci78 says:
November 9, 2011 at 7:34 am
…….Those taxes have already begun doing damage because business people and other entrepreneurs are planners who anticipate in order to adapt and thereby – hopefully – overcome adversities……
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Boy, have you got that right!
The mere THREAT of future legislation makes smart people think twice about starting or expanding a business or even hiring that new person they need. For larger companies it can be the reason for closing the doors and moving elsewhere if the return on the investment for moving is good.
The impact of laws, regulations and court decisions on business in general is HUGE!
80% of new businesses fail but only 10% of those failures are because of bankruptcy. One of the other reasons they close is because the level of income was too much work for their efforts. If you are earning $0.50/hr because you are wrestling with red tape, you might as well flip burgers. http://www.moyak.com/papers/small-business-statistics.html
Just google: Small business red tape growth
And see all the articles about how regulation and taxation are strangling growth.
More Soylent Green! says:
November 9, 2011 at 7:35 am
“Sorry, but Ron Paul is unelectable.”
Agreed.
Herman Cain is not electable either.
Newt Gingrich is the smartest and best qualified guy on that stage. I’m not sure if he’s electable anymore due to aversion people have to choices he made in his personal life along the same lines that sunk John Edwards as a potential POTUS.
In reality the contest is between Romney and Perry. No one else has the infrastructure and resources to mount a winning presidential campaign. Cain is a sideshow attraction and is probably the dumbest one on the stage after Michelle Bachmann but it’s a close contest with her.
When Cain said he was concerned about China’s ambition to acquire nuclear weapons he revealed a shocking level of ignorance for a man his age who grew up in the United States. China became the world’s fifth officially recognized nuclear power in 1964 and you couldn’t swing a dead cat in the U.S. at the time without reading about it. This was on a par with Michelle Bachmann implying that Gardasil caused a child be mentally retarded.
Perry is being punished for not changing his stance on two things.
1) Failing to toe the bar set by far right mania over illegal immigration and how to address it.
2) Calling social security a ponzi scheme
At the end of the day Republican primary voters will not vote for one of the unelectables in any large numbers. So when left with a choice between Perry and Romney, who do you think the Paul, Gingrich, and Cain supporters are going to choose? That contingent will select the Republican nominee. I sincerely doubt it will be Romney who’s essentially a perpetual candidate who just can’t break out of the also-ran category.
At 9:48 AM on 9 November, Dave Springer (who can’t get the whole “blockquote” mark-up idea, it seems) writes:
If Dr. Paul can’t use the powers of the U.S. presidency to “do what [he’s consistently said he] wants done,” why are you afraid of him?
Writer John Ringo put the role of the POTUS pretty accurately and succinctly a few years ago:
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Dave, but we’ve been in pretty much a permanent state of emergency since 8 December 1941 (which is the last time that the U.S. Congress was asked to declare the existence of a state of war).
Even before the “Global War on Terror” began (yet another politically progressive never-ending “moral equivalent of war;” just how the hell many of those have we had, anyway?), the government of these United States had committed U.S. military forces to combat on every continent but Australia and Antarctica without the utterance of a declaration of war.
If “War is the health of the state” (and it sure as hell looks to be, doesn’t it?), then this “permanent emergency” crap seems to be the perfect recipe for a presidency gone permanently and completely juramentado. This endows mercantilist kakistocrats like Dubbya and our foreign-born Fraudulence-in-Chief (who keeps proving himself to be – though I’d thought it impossible – even more haplessly stupid, inept, malignant, and corrupt than his predecessor) with enormous “power to totally screw things up.”
Which they’ve been doing for decades, including the past three decades, most of which Ron Paul has spent in the U.S. House of Representatives getting an extremely detailed view of how the past several presidents have been royally screwing things up.
What the heck gives you to think that Dr. Paul doesn’t know how to un-screw this pooch? You haven’t read his published observations recommendations?
Oh, hell. Of course you haven’t. Unlike our Hopenchangey Hoaxer (who can’t so much as open his academic records for fear of federal and state criminal charges), Ron Paul is very much the record. In spades.
Having had people with precisely no ideas – Dubbya again – and now suffering the unspeakable damage that’s being inflicted upon us by our “Obama Downgrade” Kenyan Keynesian, you’ve got absolutely no grounds for whining about Dr. Ron Paul’s indisputably strong and sound grasp of economic realities and his determination to restore to the U.S. Constitution the control of the Republic it was ratified to charter.
I can deal with the possibility of “ disillusionment” if Dr. Paul were to fail in this effort. He’s human, and there’s only so much that any human being can accomplish, especially when confronted with the residua of so many decades of corruption and political economic derangement.
But at least he’s determined to try.
Can you identify anybody else on either side of our permanent institutional Boot-On-Your-Neck Party incumbency who’s given even the least little hint that he’s willing to do that much?
Dave Springer says:
November 9, 2011 at 8:16 am
This is misleading. If the U.S., Japan, et al, weren’t buying so many products manufactured in China then China’s CO2 emissions would not be rising as rapidly…..
As is usual for Willis, this article is shallow and specious.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Then I sure as heck hope you are blaming President Clinton and V.P. Al Gore because THEY are the ones responsible.
You can trace the export of US and EU business to India, China and other third world countries (with no polution regs) directly to his door as well as the recent economic collapse.
Clinton/ Gore took campaign contributions from China. Once in office they ratified the World Trade Organization and then worked hard to get China into WTO. Clinton also signed significant banking laws.
Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994 (allows interstate mergers. )
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 repeals the Great Depression banking laws put in place to prevent another depression.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 Strengthened the FDIC and allowed it to borrow from the Treasury.
Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 and RTC Completion Act – bank loans to unqualified borrowers. Extends time period for lawsuits.
The real killer was the the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/campfin/background.htm
http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/important/index.html
http://www.realtytrac.com/content/news-and-opinion/how-the-aig-bailout-could-be-driving-more-foreclosures-4861
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/25/aig_and_the_big_takeover_matt
Obama is cozied up to the same Corporate/Banking movers and shakers : http://economyincrisis.org/content/change-looks-quite-familar
The “Progressives/Socialists” are hand and glove with the bankers and have been for years and years but the people like “Ocupy Wall Street” never ever see what is in front of their noses.
Dave Springer says:
November 9, 2011 at 8:44 am
Dave, it’s called “humor”, you should look it up sometimes, it’s a funny thing. See, saying “yeast” is humorous because a couple other people previously gave answers quite similar to the one you give above. The humor resides in the fact that although the nucleation sites are where the bubbles form, the CO2 is originally produced by … aw, never mind. It’s not funny if you have to explain it.
w.
Tucci78 says:
November 9, 2011 at 8:55 am
“What you’re afraid of isn’t that Dr. Paul is “unelectable” but rather that, if he gets the nomination, he’s not only unbeatable but that he will do precisely what the hell he’s been saying should be done, both here at home and abroad in the world.”
You have to be pretty naive to believe that a president can do what Paul wants done. His problem isn’t so much that what he proposes is unpalatable but that it’s politically impossible. That said I think his isolationist beliefs are naive. I’m as libertarian as the next guy but I’m also a realist. Idealists are behind Ron Paul. Realists are behind someone who isn’t making unrealistic promises about what they can get done if elected. The idealists who voted for Obama are certainly getting an object lesson in all this at the moment – their disillusionment is so thick you can cut it with a knife. So would yours be in 2015 if Paul managed to become POTUS.
Dave Springer says:
November 9, 2011 at 8:16 am
Gosh, Dave, you really should investigate math. It is an amazing thing.
For example, a quick google search shows that the value of the Chinese exports is about the same in 2010 as it was in 2008 … but Chinese exports went down as a percentage of GDP over that same time period. And through the magic of math, since the exports were stable in absolute terms and dropped in percentage of GDP terms, we can conclude that the increase in the Chinese economy was NOT from increased exports.
So contrary to your claim, the large rise in Chinese CO2 emissions, is NOT from “the U.S., Japan, et al, … buying so many products manufactured in China”.
Folks … let me strongly advise that you do things in this order— 1) do the Google search, 2) get the numbers, 3) do the math, and THEN 4) make your claim. If you try those in any other order, you may just end up doing a Springer, and that’s not pretty.
w.
@Willis
[Usual Springer nasty personal attack snipped -w.]
I called your post specious and shallow. That’s not a personal attack.
Now if I called you a thin skinned delicate little flower that would be a personal attack.
Got it? Write that down.
@willis
“So contrary to your claim, the large rise in Chinese CO2 emissions, is NOT from “the U.S., Japan, et al, … buying so many products manufactured in China”
Interesting. You cite the Chinese growth in carbon emissions from 2008 to 2010 and then point out that exports were flat during that time so I must be wrong.
Uh huh. Did it ever occur to you that projects such as coal burning power plants and massive dam building are planned more than a couple of years in advance of the date when they go into service?
This is a great example of shallow thinking. Thanks for hammering my point home.
Here’s a bit of advice for you: When you find you’ve dug yourself into a hole the first thing to do is stop digging.
Let’s see if the knee-jerk response is working as expected. The following will be largely contested because of where it is published rather than the merits of its argument.
Newsflash: just because an environmentalist whacko says it doesn’t mean it is untrue. Granted it increases the odds of it being untrue tremendously…
I’m no environmentalist whacko. Very far from it. I think we’re being stupid in exporting our carbon emissions to China. Their economy is growing by leaps and bounds at the expense of ours. I don’t give a fig about carbon emissions to begin with. It’s plant food and warming is better. We have a vibrant growing energy industry here in the states or we pay the price by allowing another country to grow theirs and reap the profits at our expense. Either way it’s still gonna get burned and the nature of CO2 emissions (well mixed atmosphere) means it doesn’t matter where it is being burned.
A Dirty Secret
China’s greatest import: Carbon emissions
Teaser snippage below from a much longer well researched (unlike the OP here) article.
Living in Texas and understanding the economy here provides one with a lot of insight.
Vote for Rick Perry for President. He alone among all those on the GOP primary stage understands that the way to fix our broken economy is to fix our broken energy policies. Everything else falls into place after that.
@Willis
In the memorable words of Samuel L. Jackson in the movie Coach Carter, “Here’s some stats fo yo ass”
http://www.earthmagazine.org/earth/article/3cc-7da-b-16
“To illustrate the growth in coal exports, U.S. coal exports grew more than 50 percent in the first half of 2010 compared with the first half of 2009, from 26 million short tons to 40 million short tons. That means the total exports for 2010 are on track to be 10 percent of total coal production — a relatively high level. And U.S. coal exports to China are more than 1,000 times higher in the first half of 2010 compared with the first half of 2009, representing incredible rates of growth. The message is clear: If we don’t burn our coal at home, we will send it to China to be used.”
So not only are we driving the industrial growth of China we’re also directly providing a growing amount of the dirty fuel they use to power it.
Isn’t that just precious?
Dave Springer says:
November 9, 2011 at 10:19 am
Sure. Did it ever occur to you that
a) you didn’t mention those projects, and
b) you didn’t say that those project were what was driving the increase?
You said it was exports. Not big projects. Exports.
Certainly big projects take time. But long lead-time projects are not what you said was driving the Chinese emissions through the roof. You said:
So then, I showed that there was no rise in exports during the 2008-2010 period, so that couldn’t have been the cause of the rise in CO2.
Funny how once I showed that, now you claim you really meant something totally different. Now your story is that you meant it wasn’t because the US and Japan were buying so many products. Perhaps it was some kind of Freudian slip, that when you said it was because the US and Japan were “buying so many products” you really didn’t mean it was because the US and Japan were buying so many products … your story now is you were actually trying to say it was because the Chinese are into “coal burning power plants and massive dam building”, and you slipped up in describing that?
Well, perhaps so. But it would be more believable if you had actually mentioned building “coal burning power plants and massive dam building” in passing, or even hinted that that was your true meaning, rather than saying it was because the US, Japan et al. were “buying so many products” from China.
See, I had actually assumed (foolishly, it seems) that you meant what you said. Won’t make that mistake again.
In any case, instead of waving your hands, how about you come back with the actual figures on what the Chinese spent 2008-2010 on building dams and power plants versus how much they spent say 2006-2008 on the same thing, so we can compare that to the export figures I cited earlier and see if your new, improved claim fares any better than your old claim. I doubt that the Chinese dam and power plant building went up by that much in 2008-2010, but I’m happy for you to surprise me. My guess? Total Chinese expenditures on dams and coal plants represent less than one percent of their GDP … but like I said, I’m happy to be proven wrong.
w.
PS—More to the point, Dave, none of your claims change how much CO2 China and India and the other developing countries produced. As a result, my points stand. Durban will not achieve a new Kyoto, it will just be a big scrabble for money. In addition, whatever the developed countries might do regarding emissions will make no difference at all. The increase in emissions from the developing world will wipe out anything the developed world might do.
@Tucci78 says:
November 9, 2011 at 8:55 am
Apparently we got off on the wrong foot, or you’re mistaking me for somebody else.
First of all, when I wrote Ron Paul was “unelectable,” I certainly wasn’t parroting anybody. If the media pundits agree with my assessment, well good for them.
Second, although I agree with Ron Paul on many, many things, the things I disagree with are deal breakers.
Third, when I wrote Ron Paul was “unelectable,” what I should have written was “Ron Paul will never, ever be elected president of the United States.” He’s been elected to Congress many times and obviously represents his district well, so he’s obviously electable. Ron Paul won’t get the Republican nomination because no matter how loyal and fanatic his following, his views are outside the mainstream of the GOP and the general electorate.
And forget about electing a third-party president in 2012. Ain’t gonna happen, no matter who the candidate is.
@willis
“Funny how once I showed that, now you claim you really meant something totally different. Now your story is that you meant it wasn’t because the US and Japan were buying so many products. You say it was some kind of Freudian slip, that when you said it was because the US and Japan were “buying so many products” you were really trying to say it was because the Chinese are into “coal burning power plants and massive dam building” … ”
So now you’re saying China doesn’t need infrastructure such as power and water for manufacturing? Or I’ve somehow changed the subject now?
I don’t think so.
China needs industry to produce exports. Industry requires power and water. Power and water require power plants and dams. Power plants in China are largely coal and the dams require the manufacture of huge amounts of cement. Both cement manufacture and coal power produces huge amounts of CO2.
I presumed you knew this and could make the connection between exports and CO2 without me painstakingly belaboring the causal chain as if speaking to a child. I still presume you know this. You’re a shallow reactionary insecure thinker but you’re not an imbecile. Therefore your insecurity is what’s driving you to dig a deeper and deeper hole for yourself IMO.
LOL
@willis
“The increase in emissions from the developing world will wipe out anything the developed world might do.”
See, you CAN get something right! Good for you!
And I have no problem acknowledging it!!!!
But this wasn’t what I argued. I argued that the blame for the rising CO2 emission is merely China doing what we want them to do and what we pay them to do – produce cheap goods for consumption by wealthy nations with an insatiable appetite for material goods.
Perhaps you agree and will take this opportunity to make clear you agree. If you do that I’ll really have nothing further to say in this thread other than the reason the U.S. never ratified Kyoto was precisely because it’s a sham that would simply shift industrial production out of the U.S. and over to exempted “developing” countries, China in particular. Even Bill Clinton knew that while he was office so you’re really just rehashing a political situation that’s going on 20 years old and boring (artfully decorated graphs notwithstanding).
Dave Springer says:
November 9, 2011 at 10:19 am
—————————————-
Huh?
So, you must agree with Willis and me that the growth in CO2 is not from exports but from massive LOCAL building.
My guess is this increase is providing jobs which is helping people improve their lives.
You know, little things like eating most days and sleeping indoors.
Slightly OT, but are you aware that President Barrack H. Obama never signed the Kyoto Protocol Treaty?
Dave Springer says:
November 9, 2011 at 10:58 am
Earth Magazine? Your citation is to Earth Magazine? Ah, well … they have provided percentage figures for the “first half of 2010”, which doesn’t impress me a bit. At year’s end the real figures come out.
In any case, the majority of the coal we export goes to Europe, not to China. So their claim, that “if we don’t burn our coal at home, we will send it to China”, is nonsense. What we don’t burn we send mostly to Europe, secondarily to Canada, and not mostly to China as your collection of idiots claims.
The EIA has good figures. They show, for example, that in 2010 we sent a total of 4.2 million tons of coking coal and 1.6 million tons of steam coal to China. That’s a total of 5.8 million tons, or a whopping 7% of our coal exports going to China. It’s also worth noting that the majority of the coal is being used to make steel, not electricity … we send more steam coal to Korea than to China.
But it gets better. China currently produces about 3,350 million tons of coal per year. So our 2010 exports to them (5.8 million tons) is about 0.2% of their domestic production.
Additionally, your so-called citation claims that in 2010 we would export 10% of our total coal production. Our 2010 production was 1,085 million tons … our exports were 81.7 million tons, or about 7% of the total. Bad math strikes again.
In short, your citation is as much a joke as your Samuel Jackson quote, just not as funny. They’re breathing hard and acting like it is important that we are adding 0.2% to the annual coal burnt in China, and you think they’re onto something … now that’s funny.
w.
Dave Springer says:
November 9, 2011 at 8:16 am
This is misleading. If the U.S., Japan, et al, weren’t buying so many products manufactured in China then China’s CO2 emissions would not be rising as rapidly.
Basically we in the US import the goods because they are inexpensive then export the blame for environmental consequences of their low-cost manufacture. This is essentially no different than buying sneakers made by exploited child laborers.
———————————————
Dave, the internet sure makes it hard to lie.
And please don’t get me started with child labor in developing countries which is mostly beneficial.
Dave Springer says:
November 9, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Certainly China needs infrastructure such as power and water for manufacturing. China’s GDP is about ten trillion dollars per year. They need the infrastructure to produce that ten trillion dollars worth of goods and services, you are absolutely correct.
But they only export about 14% of that ten trillion dollars of production. 86% of the manufacturing and the power and the water is for domestic use. Which likely means that around 86% of the CO2 is for domestic use. (It may be more than that, because an unknown but definitely large part of the increase in Chinese CO2 comes from their very rapidly increasing car and truck fleet. Globally, about half the new vehicles in 2010 went on the road in China. Only one was a Prius. Lots of SUVs. No effective smog regulations. Can you say “emissions”?)
So if you want to ascribe 14% of China’s increase in CO2 emissions to exports, I have no problem with that. It’s likely high because so much of the increase is emissions from the millions of new cars, but whether you say 14% or 10% or 7% due to exports, makes no difference.
But ascribing all of the CO2 increase to exports? Sorry, no can do. Exports are only 14% of the GDP.
w.