The US Is the Biggest Carbon Polluter in History (nytimes.com) 465
Justin Gillis, and Nadja Popovich, writing for The New York Times: The United States, with its love of big cars, big houses and blasting air-conditioners, has contributed more than any other country to the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is scorching the planet. "In cumulative terms, we certainly own this problem more than anybody else does," said David G. Victor, a longtime scholar of climate politics at the University of California, San Diego. Many argue that this obligates the United States to take ambitious action to slow global warming. Against that backdrop, factions in the Trump administration are engaged in a heated debate over whether to remain a party to the 195-nation agreement on climate change reached in Paris in 2015. President Trump promised on Wednesday to announce his decision at 3 p.m Thursday in the White House Rose Garden. A decision to walk away from the accord would be a momentous setback, in practical and political terms, for the effort to address climate change. Several news outlets, citing people in the administration, reported on Wednesday that the US is likely to pull out of the agreement.
And who is currently the largest polluter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And who is currently the largest polluter? (Score:4, Insightful)
So big countries with high per capita production have high per capita carbon emissions? I guess carbon emissions must be related to production and living standards then, with lower carbon emissions correlated to lower standards of living.
Do you think this is why there might be some resistance to schemes to reduce carbon emissions at any cost?
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Not me. I'm not a religious environmentalist, so my energy use isn't a sin.
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I have a friend who is a vegan for environmental and ethical reasons, yet she has a dog that eats meat and has the same carbon footprint as an SUV. Everyone justifies their shit. At the end of the day there is a limited amount you can do locally. Keep your own neighborhood clean and pollutant free. Large, strategic changes need to come at the societal level. We've had fantastic success with market-driven pollutant credit systems. Not sure where the sudden opposition to these comes from just because it is ca
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Or, you could shut down your coal-powered power stations and replace them with wind, solar and, yes, natural gas; which the USA is doing already.
We don't need (or even want) to get down to zero carbon emissions.
Re:And who is currently the largest polluter? (Score:4, Insightful)
By this logic, the top 3 most productive and best countries to live in on Earth [wikipedia.org] are Qatar, Trinidad & Tobago, and the Netherlands Antilles. Sweden at #74 and France at #65 must be poverty-ridden hellholes.
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Australia (per capita), a country that faces a similar geographic situation.
Uh, no, it isn't. And no, it doesn't. Unless you mean "largest, geographically", and I'm guessing that'd be either Russia or China, depending on which territories they're claiming this week.
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You Chose This (Score:2, Insightful)
The Trump administration made clear months ago that it would abandon the emissions targets set by Obama, walk away from pledges of money to help poor countries battle global warming, and seek to cut research budgets aimed at finding solutions to climate change.
Fuck yeah! (Score:2)
USA #1 Fuck Yeah We're #1!! We're #1! Eat it yuropoors!
And the USA is also one of the worst per capita (Score:3)
So it's not only because the USA has a large population that it is the worst polluter.
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persian gulf countries such as Qatar do worse per capita
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And it is not surprising, since air conditioning is always on, hence if the air conditioning is inside a car or a truck, the engine might even be even left on overnight because gas is so cheap, they don't even advertise the prices at the gas station. The cars are also either very old and inefficient (that would be the cars of all the guest workers from india and thailand) or really large (at least from European perspective). Desalination is also a very energy hungry way to get water. All that leads to the a
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"one" of the worst??? I understood that per capita, it was *the* worst. There are worse countries overall, but they have a greater population than the USA.
No, they're not the worst on a per capita basis. If you look this page [wikipedia.org] you'll see there are a few others ahead of the US. The top three are Qatar, UAE and Kuwait, since they have so much oil. However, given their small populations (they total about 12 million), their contribution is less important than that of the US.
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Perhaps the only way to get the USA to fight global warming is to tell them they can invade Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait to punish the top polluters.
Re:And the USA is also one of the worst per capita (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA has a unique mix of:
High Population.
High Population dispersal. (Low population density means higher per capita).
Prosperous Economy.
Combination of Hot Summers and Cold Winters/ continental effect across much of the country (not much off-time for in-building climate regulation).
So yes, the US has a high per capita carbon pollution, but it's because the people living their are uncaring polluting jerks (although some clearly are), it's because of the unique situation the US is in.
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Air conditioning takes almost no energy compared to heating. Even if it's 30 C all summer, it's much cheaper to cool than it would be to heat from -20 C. Add to that that AC uses a heat pump instead of inefficient resistive (or fuel burning) heating, and AC costs can almost be considered a rounding error.
Nordic countries have low population density, harsh winters, prosperous economy and pollute far less per capita (around half I think). But they don't drive pick-up trucks or large SUV 45 minutes each way to
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exactly that's why we need a carbon tax, so that insulation becomes profitable
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Low population density isn't an issue if 99% of your population lives in cities with high population density, and the rest of your country is open space. The USA is rural, nordic countries aren't.
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The USA is 82% urban, 78% for Norway, 84% for Finland and 86% for Sweden.
Pretty much equal if you ask me.
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Nordic countries have low population density, harsh winters, prosperous economy and pollute far less per capita (around half I think).
Because they can gear up their insulated houses and buildings for winter and hardly ever run the AC, if it even exists. This actually contradicts your opening statement. Norway also has a fairly mild climate in the places that people tend to live. Look at the averages for Oslo [holiday-weather.com]. The coldest average lows are -7 in Jan-Feb. The warmest average high is 22 in July.
If you are happy with 21 degrees inside, than you don't need to install AC at all. Your heat in the worst month is only going to need to make up for a
Re:And the USA is also one of the worst per capita (Score:5, Informative)
Those are factors, but for example lots of European countries have fairly big temperature swings over the year but still use a lot less energy because their homes and buildings are well designed and insulated. In fact many European governments had some kind of scheme,either tax or industry funded, to get homes properly insulated at little or no cost to the owner.
Europe also has requires appliances to be much more efficient. That really helps combat the "bigger = better" mentality that consumers have, e.g. vacuum cleaners with 3000W motors that generate a lot of heat but don't clean any better.
All that and several EU countries have higher standards of living and quality of life compared to America, so it's not an either/or choice.
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it's because of the unique situation the US is in.
Yeah. The unique situation is that energy is cheap so you have no qualms about spewing it into the air for nothing. Seriously your emissions could be reduced a lot by a change in energy consumption practices. Like WTF is it with cooling buildings to the point you need to take a jacket to work in summer? Are you guys too cool for polo shirts? Mind you I do kind of understand that if you a 400hp car to get you to the shopping centre you can spare a few horses to turn on the AC while stuck in traffic.
Blaming t
"Scorching the Planet" (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying it's "Scorching the Planet" is inflammatory and highly unrelatable to 99% of the people of the Earth, having likely only seen nearly undetectable average temperature increases.
I'm from the U.S., and you probably wouldn't even have to cite me any sources for me to believe we have generated the most cumulative CO2 of any other country. That doesn't seem like it should be news to anyone..
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I'm from the U.S., and you probably wouldn't even have to cite me any sources for me to believe we have generated the most cumulative CO2 of any other country. That doesn't seem like it should be news to anyone.
I'm sure the Europeans will stop using all the outputs of American research and industry any day now, to be ethically consistent.
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They will probably do that the moment the Americans stop using the outputs of European research and industry, which will never happen, since the US wouldn't be able to produce or consume anything anymore if they did.
Show me the Americans complaining about European carbon pollution. We know about all the German coal and that giant natural gas pipeline from Russia, but we're not hypocrites.
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Many reasonable people have said the same, that hyperbole has caused much damage to research and political progress in this area.
They all got lynched by the far left wing nitwits who are the ones using the hyperbole in the first place.
Why don't moderates speak out against terrorists? Because they don't want to become targets themselves.
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As an American the most frustrating thing to me is that our political agendas are being set more by big businesses than the public. (This applies to both parties) Loads of people here in the states are intelligent and do care about the world. I have yet to meet someone who actually believes climate change isn't a thing. I live in Republican Utah. I have meet people who think it's not as bad as "they" say or that companies shouldn't be restricted because we can't compete with China because of those restricti
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So what percentage of the current climate shift is natural versus induced by man?
It's about 110% caused by man, and -10% by nature. You can find the details in the latest IPCC report.
Better still, if we shut down all Petroleum Production and usage today, what would the economic impact be and how many people would die because of it?
That has nothing to do with AGW science.
Re:Going further (Score:5, Insightful)
The American people are the most generous in the world, with the most concern for other nations in the world. While we don't always take the "right" actions, the intent from the public is never "screw them other guys".
Strange that the rest of the world has a different picture of you.
And your history must be lacking ... /me looking to south america where the USA destroyed legitimated elected regimes and put up dictatorships
In my eyes the US did not do anything great after the Marshall Plan.
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You can pat yourself on the back as much as you want and wollow in the comfort of your flag draped echo chamber. The rest of the world thinks you're a bunch of selfish arseholes, and your desire to expend incredible amounts of cheap energy is not bias, it's just observation backed with numbers. Hell the fuel economy of an American car combined with the energy consumption of an American household is an international joke.
Call me a biased moron if you want, but that's just because you're completely ignorant o
Bullshit propaganda (Score:4, Interesting)
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We'll see if Trump is in the pocket of Big Solar or Big Oil in a few hours.
Why does a person have to be in some group or another's pocket to make a decision? I guess it is too much to ask for a person to look at their understanding of a situation and make a decision based on their own rational mind.
Re:Bullshit propaganda (Score:4, Informative)
Why does a person have to be in some group or another's pocket to make a decision?
Because groupthinkers can't imagine anyone deciding anything independently.
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It probably is too much to ask Trump to make a decision based on his own 'rational mind'.
He appears to have the intellectual capacity of an Etch a Sketch.
Re:Bullshit propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
He appears to have the intellectual capacity of an Etch a Sketch.
And yet he is worth several billion dollars and is the most powerful person on the planet. Think about it for a moment. He is the first person in history to beat the Clinton-MSM team in open combat. I am going with "he is way smarter than people realize."
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They said the same thing about GWB, it is what is in their playbook. Its all they know.
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And yet he is worth several billion dollars ... I am going with "he is way smarter than people realize."
I think that should be "he is able to pay people way smarter than he is."
Re:Bullshit propaganda (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact that ONE MAN can join (Obama) or unjoin (Trump) a treaty should concern everyone. But hey, Fuck the Constitution requiring the Senate to approve treaties when we can hyperbole tyranny into acceptance!
Re:Bullshit propaganda (Score:5, Informative)
And the first country to have a jackoff in the White House who turned the EPA into the enforcement arm of the fossil fuel industry and prohibit it from performing its core function.
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China has a horrible pollution problem but they're working really hard to establish renewables and clean up their act. They've a way to go but they're working in the right direction.
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Smog in LA has nothing to do with CO2 emissions.
If you are going to post about something, please do try to get a clue first.
We earned it (Score:2, Insightful)
We saved the world from Hitler and the Soviets and created air conditioning, internet, mobile phones, air travel, and thousands of other critical inventions. The rest of the world hasn't done much to thank us or help us out in any way.
So I see no need to feel bad about some CO2. Especially since US emissions are falling faster than other countries due to cheap natural gas from fracking - another great US invention.
Clearly the author doesn't get out much (Score:3, Insightful)
As in most Asian metro centres. Such as Beijing, Shanghai, any of China's tier 1 to 3 cities, plus Siberia, pretty much anywhere in India, and the list goes on. Not to mention large parts of Africa and South America.
Their rate of pollution in any sense is staggering and increasing, while the USA has been better than any of them for 20 odd years if not longer.
Adding insult to injury the level of ground water pollution, let alone carbon, in those places is staggering.
Global Warming campaigners driving big trucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Current levels are different than past levels (Score:2)
While there might be something to your argument that past pollutants were high in the US, it does not translate into the current pollution levels in the US. I've been to major cities all around the world, and in most cases, I would gladly choose to breath U.S. big city air over most other places. Visit Asia much? How about South America?
I know Slashdot has a long tradition of weekly inflammatory hit pieces on their pet issues, but this is disingenuous. You need to gauge current action and current levels i
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While true, that says nothing about CO2 and it is CO2 that is the subject of the Paris treaty.
But that won't last long... (Score:2)
It may be true that the US has been the largest contributor to long term CO2 emissions, however since 2005, China has been emitting more CO2 than the US [worldbank.org], and much more.
Be careful to not just look at CO2 from energy - CO2 from cement production is also important (though typically smaller than energy-related emissions).
Treaties (Score:2)
This is why you have treaties instead of "agreements", so some halfwit doesn't bail because it doesn't fit his agenda.
We'll be in good company (Score:2)
If the con artist does withdraw from the accord we'll be cozy neighbors with Nicaragua and Syria, both of whom are not parties to the accord.
How wonderful is that? We'll be at the same level as a Muslim dictator. At least Nicaragua had a reason not to agree: they didn't feel the accord went far enough.
This is textbook product liability ... (Score:3)
... in framework:
- Scientists: Tobacco kills
- Tobacco: Jobs
- Courts: Tobacco kills
- Tobacco: Jobs
--
- Scientists: Reduce carbon
- Americans: Jobs
- Planet: Reduce carbon
- Americans: jobs
Re:Begging the question (Score:4, Insightful)
This is assuming that carbon is a "pollutant".
It fits the definitions found in the dictionaries that I looked in.
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Which other pollutants are essential for all life on earth?
Sulfur.
Re: Begging the question (Score:5, Insightful)
Without nitrates, nitrites and ammonia plants would die off, and animals would follow, yet they are definitely pollutants for animals.
Metals such as copper, iron, and magnesium are highly toxic in high concentrations to most life forms, yet are essential for most life.
Pollutants might be beneficial for life in small doses, but too much IS a pollutant even if it is needed for life.
Heck, if the earth was buried 3 feet deep in pizza. Pizza would be considered a pollutant. Being needed for life does not mean it isn't a pollutant.
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Posting to undo an accidental mod down.
Re: Begging the question (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, if the earth was buried 3 feet deep in pizza. Pizza would be considered a pollutant.
Yeah, but it would a totally *awesome* pollutant.
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Which other pollutants are essential for all life on earth?
We all die of oxidative damage, man (excepting the RUD incidents).
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Which other pollutants are essential for all life on earth?
Plenty -- because dose makes the poison. Nutrients such as nitrates or phosphorous are limiting factors in many ecosystems -- which is why we put them in fertilizers. But fertilizer runoff can have catastrophic consequences for ecosystems. [scientificamerican.com]
Ever go swimming in a natural body of water? I've got news for you fish shit in the water. In fact waste products are an important resource in ecosystems, which recycle them. Does that mean you're OK with swimming in shit?
CENSORED: US DoD World's Greatest Carbon Polluter (Score:2, Informative)
Winner of Project Consored top 25 articles for 2009 - 2010 news stories: Pentagon's role in global catastrophe [iacenter.org]
By Sara Flounders
In evaluating the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen -- with more
than 15,000 participants from 192 countries, including more than 100 heads of
state, as well as 100,000 demonstrators in the streets -- it is important to
ask: How is it possible that the worst polluter of carbon dioxide and other
toxic emissions on the planet is not a focus of any conference discussio
Climate Politics (Score:2, Interesting)
"...longtime scholar of climate politics..."
And there's yer problem right there.
Climate Science is subsumed by politics.
The "science" is tainted by politics.
The "solutions" are tainted by politics.
Oh, and BTW, Thanks mostly to less coal use at power plants, emissions in the first half of 2016 were lowest since 1991 [scientificamerican.com]
To clear that up...cheaper Gas, enabled by Fracking, has been replacing coal.
To make it even more clear, Fracking has happened mostly on Private Land despite widespread opposition from the Greenie
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"...longtime scholar of climate politics..."
If you hadn't noticed, most countries don't act purely based on what science tells them. They have political concerns as well, hence the need for political solutions to the problem.
Fracking has happened mostly on Private Land
Does pollution respects property boundaries?
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So basically anyone who isn't a scientist with published, peer reviewed papers to back up their position is just making an appeal to authority. That's stupid.
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The point is that pointing to an authority on the subject is not automatically a bad thing. To be an appeal to authority logical fallacy, the authority has to lack credibility or standing in the matter. In this case, climate science is both credible and relevant.
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Huh?
What does the USA export, exactly? Even the USA buys most of its "stuff" from China.
Check out your balance of trade, it's never been positive, ever:
https://tradingeconomics.com/u... [tradingeconomics.com]
The USA does not buy most of its stuff from China.
The USA imported is about $480 billion of goods from China and sold about $116 billion to China.. The USA's GDP is about $18,000 billion. Trade with China is about 2.5% of the USA GDP.
Most of what the USA buys is made in the USA.
Re: Begging the question (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's remove all of it from the atmosphere then. Life will then be great.
Re: Begging the question (Score:4, Insightful)
Better than purposefully misunderstanding all problems?
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"President Trump promised on Wednesday to announce his decision at 3 p.m Thursday in the White House Rose Garden."
Any guesses what Trump will announce?
I'm guessing his supporters will cheer on his ignorance even though the only thing they get from it is watching their chosen bully beat up on all those commie intellectuals.
Re: Begging the question (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope he pulls out. It will be a GOOD THING to have denialism firmly endorsed by a man that most of the world (and much of America) views as an idiot. This will give political cover to other leaders around the world to take stronger action on climate change.
In practical terms, the agreement means almost nothing, since it requires almost no actions, and has no penalties for violations.
The solutions to global warming will come from us nerds (scientists and engineers) not politicians. We need better solar panels, better wind turbines, geothermal, carbon sequestration, etc.
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The fact that the agreement left it to individual nations to determine how much they were willing to do to reach that temperature target, allowing them to come to Paris with commitments that collectively put us on a disastrous course towards more than 3 degrees of warming, was lobbied for and won by the Uni
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The move to renewables is going to happen no matter what the politicos do. Most Americans know that it wouldn't take much for gas prices to go through the roof, especially if Iran decides to mine the Strait of Hormuz again. Even the board members with Exxon-Mobil want something better, just because even with fracking and oil expansion, they know the handwriting is on the wall there, especially with Russia and China's ever expanding claims of territory.
As for coal, we have long since passed peak coal. Mos
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With Trump's bold policies on science, industry, business and the environment, the USA will be ready to confidently stride into the 13th Century before you know it!
MAGA!!!!!!
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They'll spend $10 to pollute half as much and then spend $9,999,990 marketing that fact.
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Only the Sith deal in absolutes.
Re: Begging the question (Score:5, Insightful)
If you removed all CO2 from the atmosphere, the earth would have a stable temperature of about 3-deg Kelvin. It's the greenhouse effect from those trace amounts of CO2 that has kept us cozy and warm for the last few billion years.
Did you get that nugget knowledge from another Trump supporter on the Internet?
Clue: Mars isn't at 3 degrees Kelvin, not even fucking Pluto is at 3 degrees Kelvin.
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^of
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Did you get that nugget knowledge from another Trump supporter on the Internet?
Actually that "nugget" is a frequent feature of Elon Musk's rhetoric. Apparently he's off a bit... but the the overall point still holds. Anything less than about 273-deg Kelvin would be inhospitable to life as we know it. (Not to mention that plants could not live without CO2...)
Did you get that nugget knowledge from another Trump supporter on the Internet?
Hmm... you seem to have me confused with someone else. I'm a Bernie-crat who held his nose and voted for HRC last November.
The point here is not the CO2 is either "good" or "bad"... the point is that the precise amount of CO2 turns
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"But he's still 1000 times better than HRC"
Don't be a moron, unless it's too late.
HRC is uninspiring but at least competent & fully understands trade & foreign policy.
"Pure evil??" Why? For strangling Vince Foster with her bare hands and eating his kidneys?
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To add to the sib post.
CO2 account for a tiny % of the total greenhouse gas effect on Earth. It's mostly water vapor.
For CO2 to be problem the models pull a CO2/H2O vapor positive feedback coefficient from a dark place. That coefficient is what accounts for the range of warmth predictions.
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I looked for some but I don't see any. Where does it usually hide? If I see some I'll try breathing it and report back.
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Go take a few breaths of water and tell us if it is a pollutant.
Oh, you're a moron, aren't you?
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I do for 8-9 hours a day - the usual concentration is 300-1000 ppm.
Te rest of the time the concentrations are much less. But then I'm always getting a lot of nitrogen, around 780000 ppm typically. And 9000 ppm of argon, which isn't good for me either.
Your point was not lost on me, but your criteria for defining a substance as a pollutant was...
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Neither is sugar. But try eating 200 pounds at one siting and see how well it turns out.
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It is scary that some of us here have not made it past the 16h Century intellectually.
Paracelsus [slashdot.org] - 'Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison'
Kinda surprised we don't see more about the 'four humors' and the benefits of bleeding.
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Sorry for the bad link. Insufficient caffeine (and Slashdot's rather 'minimalist' approach to linking).
Paracelsus [wikipedia.org].
Re:Did you mean graphite or diamonds? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LOL more fake news from the NY Times (Score:5, Informative)
The Sun's activity is actually down, while temperatures have soared.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/pl... [woodfortrees.org]
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So...if New Orleans were to sink beneath the waves or, more likely, be washed out due to another hurricane with higher sea levels, then you will have been proud to not pay any additional taxes.
And if other nations sink beneath the waves, then that's okay with you as long as you stay cool. And if other nations lose the ability to feed themselves or enough land mass to support their populations, then you'd be more than happy to accept them graciously into your home as refugees. But you won't be paying more in
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Sure. Even breathing emits carbon dioxide.
But chances are you emitting carbon dioxide in ways that aren't even useful to you. For example, if you're air conditioning a room heated by a big picture window all day while you are out, that's emitting carbon that's doing you no actual good. Draw the curtains and put the AC on a timer and you'll be just as cool and save money too.
There's lots of things like this where you're actually paying to pollute for no benefit to yourself. Like not keeping your tires i
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Because there is no cost for insuring that they can handle peak demand? The power company has to provide the power when the sun is not shining so it needs to maintain enough total generating capacity that's a lot of idle expensive hardware that needs to be paid for. Many states have or had electricity buyback from solar at retail rates, not the pittance that PV goes for wholesale again everybody else is forced to subsidize.
AC = Fake News (Score:2)
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There are certainly pollutants that have a worse immediate or local effect than CO2, but they are usually also quicker to clean up. If we reduce the particulates, the air will start to clear up right away. If we reduce CO2, it will linger in the atmosphere for centuries. It makes sense to start reducing CO2 well before we experience problems.
And, obviously, we can fight multiple pollutants at the same time.