I know I will be downvoted for stating a fact but I agree with you.
The gist of the so called environmentalists is (factually, these really are their proposals when you look at their numbers): ok USA and EU, you have to urgently stop your emissions, even if that means total economic breakdown. China and specially India, it's ok you can continue your emissions, and increase then by even more than the all 1st world will cut theirs (even if they cut it to 0), that's just fine since your are entitled to it because you didn't do it in the past.
End result: a planet with even more emissions than today and a destroyed economy in the western world.
But somehow, this will save the planet according to people pushing this catastrophic scenario.
Sorry no, these people aren't pushing major climate action to save the planet, they are doing it because they think it's hip to push this idea that the Western way of life should be destroyed to give way to their political ideology.
You've broken the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) by downvote-baiting and by taking the thread further into ideological warfare. We've already had to ask you more than once about this. If you keep breaking the guidelines we're going to have to ban you.
Edit: actually, your recent history on HN consists of massive flamewar and abuse. That's extremely not ok, and I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
I think your issue is the similar to the problem I've been having, where the science of climate change seems to be ignored in favor of the politics of climate change, and questioning the later means you disbelieve the former. How strongly someone "believes" in climate change shouldn't be the metric by which we judge the value a person brings to the conversation, and the data/science should not take a backseat to political convenience.
I don't want perfect to get in the way of good when it comes to this issue, but this is a multifaceted, complicated topic, with far reaching implications, and it cannot be solved via an emotional battle royal of half formed politically oriented thoughts.
Semi-related, but I played a game forever ago called "Fate of the World", which attempted to put the player in charge of a global government to address climate change. It was almost viciously hard (The game designers may have been trying to make a point) but it was extremely interesting to see how you had to try and manage emissions from various regions, as well as political/social stability, ideally without destroying their economies (you need them to keep paying taxes to fund all this) all while trying to manage/reduce the damage caused by the shifting climates.
The more I hear environmentalists talk, the more skeptical I get to be about climate change. The fact that they’ve been predicting doom and gloom since I was a kid in the 80’s makes me kind of doubt their predictive ability, but I figure that if they’re right and we don’t do anything, that would really suck, so I tune in just long enough to listen to what they say. After a few hours of “I’ll hate you forever and never forgive you if you don’t do what I say”, eventually they get around to actually saying what they want me to do: and it’s always the same. Vote liberal. Even if I bought into the climate change alarmism, I’d still doubt their sincerity when they tell me the only thing I can do is elect liberal politicians: the Democrats had a super majority in the U.S. government for years and used it to do exactly nothing about climate change. I see no confirmation in their actions that they really believe what they’re saying.
If you think that the government under Obama didn't do anything for improving quality of air and water in the US, you are just trying not to see the facts. And if you haven't noticed, there is a whole oil lobby that has been pushing money into the GOP machine trying to discredit climate change for decades. US is (for the better) a federal structure, and nothing happens by fiat forever.
Could the democrats have done better? Definitely. Are they better than the republicans in responding better to these issues? You have to be obtuse on purpose to believe otherwise.
Neither of you have legitimate arguments, and are both in fact strawmanning your "opposition". I'd suggest actually reading the IPCC report if you haven't yet, as it's all of our future.
Climate action, measuring exactly this, has China as doing "OK" and India as doing "great" when their comulative projected ”increase" by 2030 will be similar than all present emissions by USA and EU.
And have you seen the per capita emissions of each of these countries? India's emissions per capita aren't even a drop in the bucket. (Numbers in metric tonnes CO2)
1 China 6.4
2 United States 15.0
3 India 1.6
2.5 times China and almost 10 times India. Countries that are already rich enough to invest heavily in pushing renewable energy and nuclear energy need to aid countries trying to get people out of poverty. You can't do that by providing direct energy cause that is not how energy works. So you do it by allowing emissions to these countries while reducing your own to fall given that you already use so much more per capita.
You want to see hypocrisy? How about the US's hypocrisy in stopping solar subsidies to build local solar industries? This discussions is not about who is entitled to more emissions. It is about a pragmatic approach to reducing emissions. While you dish out "facts", also care to read about policy and arguments.
This is why it's so important that wind and solar costs have plummeted to below the cost of coal. If it wasn't for the introduction of fracking, they'd be much cheaper than natural gas, too.
As developing nations build up the energy base, it'll be easier and cheaper to do it with renewables than with fossil fuels. That changes the equation tremendously.
You are just validating my point with that "per capita" narrative.
The point is simple: you want to pretend your are saving the planet by allowing China and India to increase their emissions, more than USA and EU will ever be able to cut them (even if they cut it to zero).
Explain how that can possible save the planet please.
India's total emissions are a fraction of US and China's. You are guilty of the same hyperbole you claim to be fighting from the other side.
"Per capita" is not a narrative. It is a measure of how much room there is to reduce emissions while maintaining quality of life. It's not like you can just go to war with India and China and clear this up. You can't bring them to the negotiation table claiming moral superiority.
What you are suggesting is not a strategy for efficiently negotiating our way out of this deep hole, but rather a dictatorial approach which can only be enforced by a dictatorial regime across the world.
> The gist of the so called environmentalists is (factually, these really are their proposals when you look at their numbers): ok USA and EU, you have to urgently stop your emissions, even if that means total economic breakdown. China and specially India, it's ok you can continue your emissions, and increase then by even more than the all 1st world will cut theirs (even if they cut it to 0), that's just fine since your are entitled to it because you didn't do it in the past.
I am also old enough to remember how the Ozone Layer would doom us all and that even if we stopped all CFC emission immediately, it would still take 4 centuries to recover.
Reality: Even with China still misbehaving about CFCs emissions, the Ozone Layer already recovered quite a bit and it's set to be fully healed by 2060.
But well, on the bright side, at least that time, ALL nations comited to stop using CFCs. This time, the idea is: stop all emissions in the western world, and allow Asia to keep increasing theirs.
And add the problem with plastics with the fact that this marketing stunt with pyramidal tea bags, occupies about 3x more volume and as such take 3x more resources to store and transport than traditional tea bags.
There is no going back about cleaning plastics by traditional methods now unfortunately.
The only real solution I see is if we bio-engineer some bacteria/microorganism capable of decomposing it and release it in the environment. It might be a danregous proposition, but (expect the even more advanced and potentially dangerous proposition of nanites) I can't see any other way of getting rid of all the plastic we already put into the environment even if we stop producing it.
I don't like Trump, he is mostly wrong, but pretending absolutely everything he says is wrong, is a dangerous proposition.
I still think these wind farms are vastly positive, but we should recognize the problem with bird populations, and find clever ways to mitigate it, instead of putting the question aside just because "the bad orange men" said this was happening.
When is enough just enough? Do the costumers really care about reducing a further 1mm from the thickness of a laptop sacrificing: keyboard usability, battery life and number of ports?
What Earth does care about, is when you decide that's a good idea to have on average more than 4 children per couple over the last 2 generations in India [1] instead of only 2 or even less children per couple like in USA or the EU [2].
Every country has a set of natural resources at its disposal. It should manage and cherish those resources and not overtax them. If a country decides it's a good idea to perpetually grow their population when all they have are the same set of natural resources available, then well, the onus is on them to figure out how to do it without destroying everything.
You're making my point. The US went through the same process, with the same birth rate interrupted only by the great depression until two generations ago.
There aren't countries, there are humans responding to the same conditions similarly. Economic development will slow their reproductive rate, like clockwork.
If you point to a family in the 60s in the US and a family in India today and find only one of them irresponsible, your thinking is flawed.
I assume you're following through with your convictions and will remain child free?
> I assume you're following through with your convictions and will remain child free?
No, I will remain with my child at replacement rate (a little below actually), like my parents and my grandparents did (and all parents and grandparents on average here), and I expect them to be entitled to a lot more resources than someone who lives in a country where (on average) their parents, grandparents and themselves didn't follow the same principle.
As a fact, India's CO2 emissions per unit area are almost the same as EU. We are using the same share of ecological resources (assuming roughly they are equivalent on average per area), so there is nothing to give or to take from both sides.
P.S.: A family in USA in the 60's, 1st: didn't had any idea that there was such thing as a catastrophic global warming incoming, 2nd: had a 4x smaller population density than India has today. But sure, go ahead and keep pretending that Earth's resources magically increase anytime someone decides to have a new child, so that you can tell yourself we are all entitles to the same amount of resources, no matter the size of our immediate family.
I have no ideological agenda other than not engaging in casual racism to construct a boogeyman to point at to absolve myself of the substantial impact I've made to the climate.
It's not your racism that has you stating that someone in a country with a very good track record when it comes to CO2 emissions (and a number of other environmental aspects) should stop having children, so that someone in a overly populated country, with an appalling record when it comes to all kinds of pollution can have even more children?
If it's not racism from your part that makes you ask for that, than you should clarify what it is. But one thing is for certain, it's not environmentalism for sure.
I'm not telling you not to have children, but it does make you a hypocrite.
I'm accusing you of casual racism for drawing a false distinction around the behavior of Indians. They are doing what everyone else has done in the same circumstance. Just because we have gotten our growth spurt and dirty economic development out the way doesn't entitle us to waggle our finger at those that took longer.
It's on the first world to fix things first. The wealthiest should have the lowest per capita emissions, not the highest. Shouting at the third world for their high population count isn't environmentalism, it won't work, and it doesn't give you the moral high ground.
> They are doing what everyone else has done in the same circumstance.
We already established those aren't the same circumstances at all:
- 1st: we didn't have even 1/4 of the Indian population density when we were having the same birthrates.
- 2nd: When global warming became clear and urgent action was needed, we started reducing our emissions while India during that time already increased them by 400%, and is going to increase them by another 100% in the next decade.
It's not by keep repeating the same lie that you are going to make it a reality.
We didn't establish anything. You grasped at the density straw in order to intellectually justify your prejudice.
The poor in India should increase their emissions, because otherwise they'll die. Life expectancy has risen from 40 to 68 years since the 60s. Would you halve your life expectancy to fix global warming? I don't think so.
In any case, the births have already happened, and India is now barely above replacement rates, which you've conveniently overlooked. You want them to die because of the choices their parents made.
If you excuse me, I'm going to go take a shower. I honestly can't believe I'm having this conversation on HN.
You crossed badly into flamewar in this thread, which breaks the site guidelines regardless of how right you are or feel. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do that on HN again; it's strictly destructive here, and someone else behaving badly is no justification.
I agree. The trouble is that we don't see everything that gets posted here; there's too much. So sometimes when there's a repeated pattern of abuse, it takes longer than we would like to notice it. Users can help by flagging comments (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html for how) and by emailing hn@ycombinator.com about egregious cases.
Ah, I specifically picked a comment that had been killed by repeated flagging. I assumed that there'd be a human reviewing by that stage.
I've been under the impression for a while that it takes quite a bit more to be banned these days than five years ago, but that might just be nostalgia.
Anyway, I know you're volunteers and it's not really appropriate for me to be complaining about the dress code after fighting in your bar. I'm sorry for causing trouble.
> The poor in India should increase their emissions, because otherwise they'll die. Life expectancy has risen from 40 to 68 years since the 60s.
So, you are saying that CO2 emissions are actually good for the population and the way forward is to actually increase them even more. Interesting turn of events from an environmentalist.
> You want them to die because of the choices their parents made.
Funny thing to say, since you want the West to pay for the choices our grandfathers made and descend into deprivation, so that the rest of the world can go on polluting even more.
Here is the thing, people with your discourse aren't interested in saving the planet but into forcing your ideological agenda - which is got nothing to do with environmentalism but with your personal concepts of morality - upon the rest of us under the threat of environmental catastrophe. And the worst part of it? It does nothing to tackle climate change.
P.S.: > If you excuse me, I'm going to go take a shower. I honestly can't believe I'm having this conversation on HN.
Go easy on that shower, it's a big toll on the environment and, after all, you just spent the last 24h telling us all how those resources actually should belong to be used by people in India and not selfishly by me or by you.
Well, this might actually be very good for the environment. Like the environmentalist keep repeating, the expectation of eternal economic growth is having a big toll on the environment and India was set to almost double their (already quite hight) CO2 emissions by 2030.
This might actually be a blessing for the environment.
Nationalistic flamewar is not welcome on HN, and you crossed into it egregiously in this thread. That is not allowed on HN, regardless of how badly someone else is behaving. Moreover, your account has been using HN primarily for this purpose; we ban accounts that do that, because it is destructive of the intellectual curiosity HN exists for. I've banned your account for this reason, but if you'd like to review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and email hn@ycombinator.com with reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future, we'll be happy to unban you.
You are right, what nature actually cares greatly, is about exponential population growth with no regard for future sustainability.
Maybe we should look at India's over-population before demanding other countries to sacrifice for India's (and many countries in South East Asia) shortsightedness.
> You are right, what nature actually cares greatly, is about exponential population growth with no regard for future sustainability.
Perfect, I was waiting for you to say this. Now I have the chance to educate you (which should have been done by your "superior western education" but anyway).
Read these articles and you will find that exponential growth is a myth. We are already close to replacement levels. The population is high in India and China only because of historic reasons - they are one of the most fertile lands on the planet.
We are at those levels for almost 50 years now in "the west". Guess you are conveniently disregarding the mess you created over this last half century(and long before when the growth in India was 6 children per couple while in the USA it was 3).
Here is a novel idea for you: you use the resources available by your territory as you see fit as long as you don't destroy the rest of the planet for us. If you choose to do it with double your population or half your population, is solely your sovereign choice and we have nothing to say about it. The same way you shouldn't have anything to say about how we use our resources with our - in check - population where people - for a very long time now - mostly think twice about if they can actually support a child with the resources available (natural or economic) before having it.
> We are at those levels for almost 50 years now in "the west".
Even with 1/4th of the population of India, and having access to latest technology, the US has emitted obscene levels of CO2 in the last 50 years [0] and has not shown much signs of improvement. And you are blaming a 70-year old country that was in post-colonial shambles 50 years ago. You should be ashamed of yourself.
> don't destroy the rest of the planet for us.
Peak arrogance. Isn't it you who is destroying the planet with your luxury lifestyle? Take a look at [0]. You expect poor people that barely have enough food on their plate to reduce their living standards? That's never going to happen - it is you who needs to do that. The people in India will continue to work towards improving their living standards, as they deserve to.
2. India will actually be one of the first countries to deeply suffer from an increase in temperature.
> Guess why that happened? Because of illiteracy due to poverty - because of your colonising ancestors.
Mugal empire reaps the territory for over 400 years, nobody bats an eye. British are there for 90 years... suddenly everything is their fault, even if India continues with their totally backward ways 70 years after the British left them to rule themselves as they see fit.
P.S.: I don't know why you continue to wave the anti USA flag. I have nothing to do with the USA (or UK for that matter). So sad.
Nope. India's rise was always going to happen. It's not their fault if they want to increase their living standards. Thus, India is not "dooming us all".
But if you are from a country that has high per-capita emissions (I'm assuming you are from one) then your country is much more responsible for the problem. So you are dooming us all, because you can do something about it but you choose not to (because of your selfish need to live luxuriously).
> India will actually be one of the first countries to deeply suffer from an increase in temperature.
That's the harsh reality, but we have to accept it. Because of the large population, many will still survive. And I hope they then get to have the same lifestyle enjoyed by others in the developed world. Being a massive country, India has a lot resources and will prevail even after such a disaster happens.
> Mugal empire reaps the territory for over 400 years, nobody bats an eye. British are there for 90 years... suddenly everything is their fault
Another chance to educate yourself :) Please read [1]. Unlike British, Mughals (not Mugals) stayed in India. So this did not really result in wealth flowing out of the country.
> But if you are from a country that has high per-capita emissions (I'm assuming you are from one) then your country is much more responsible for the problem.
It's interesting that you expect someone in a country that has 1 brother and 2 children and 4x times more natural resources per capita (our population density is 1/4 of a India's), to enjoy the same level of life of someone in India that has 4 brothers and 3 children.
The gist of the so called environmentalists is (factually, these really are their proposals when you look at their numbers): ok USA and EU, you have to urgently stop your emissions, even if that means total economic breakdown. China and specially India, it's ok you can continue your emissions, and increase then by even more than the all 1st world will cut theirs (even if they cut it to 0), that's just fine since your are entitled to it because you didn't do it in the past.
End result: a planet with even more emissions than today and a destroyed economy in the western world.
But somehow, this will save the planet according to people pushing this catastrophic scenario.
Sorry no, these people aren't pushing major climate action to save the planet, they are doing it because they think it's hip to push this idea that the Western way of life should be destroyed to give way to their political ideology.