#7 Not Guilty, Your Honor!
When it comes to assigning responsibility for global warming, things can get very heated, and it’s not hard to find statistics that will help point the finger at someone else. Reliable researchers have poured through records and have arrived at remarkably accurate figures for carbon dioxide produced over the last 100 years, but the interpretation of these results can become confusing.
Emissions by country is easy. Let’s look at five countries that span the spectrum based on 2016 data from WorldOMeter, given in metric tons of carbon dioxide annually:
China 10,432,751,400
United States 5,011,686,600
Germany 775,752,190
France 331,533,320
Bangladesh 74,476,230
Makes China look pretty bad, right? But now lets look at per capita figures for the same counties, simply total emissions divided by population, again ranked top to bottom:
United States 15.52
Germany 9.44
China 7.38
France 5.13
Bangladesh .49
Now the tables have turned! The average American produced twice as much CO2 as the average Chinese, and 30 times as much as the average Bangladeshi! A Western European, with a living standard about the same as ours, typically produces 1/3 to 1/2 as much carbon as we do.
I know that some will want to dispute these figures, so some caveats:
* These figures are 5 years old, so things will have changed somewhat. On the other hand, using older data has the advantage of removing the noise of the Covid pandemic.
* There are lots of different criteria for counting emissions (whether to include methane, deforestation, agricultural sources) — these numbers represent one methodology. That said, every other reputable methodology gives similar results.
* I am not saying that we should embrace the standard of living of the average Bangladeshi, but neither should the Bangladeshis.
REGARDLESS, some uncomfortable conclusions must be made:
* The United States (in spite of having reduced it’s overall CO2 emissions by switching to natural gas for much of its electric generation) on a per capita basis is responsible for greater emissions than almost any other people on earth.
* Yes, China emits a lot, but the average Chinese emits much less, especially considering that their country is the acknowledged factory to the world.
* Many of the people around the globe who will suffer the most from climate change are the least responsible for causing it.
You will often hear the comment, “There is no point in us doing anything about climate change because China is the big problem!” This is childish reasoning — Americans have the one of the longest paths to a sustainable level of CO2 emissions, and China is already far ahead of us in installing technologies to address the problem.
SO FOLKS, lets stop pointing fingers and do what needs to be done!
Thank you for your consideration,
Doug Hylan Brooklin, Maine
“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope, but I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.” Greta Thurnberg