Originally posted by Roy
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But here's the main point:
Looking at the combined output of two countries (East and West Germany, or UK instead of England, Scotland, Wales) is just combining responsibility.
Looking at countries vs semi-autonomous regions (Texas, California, etc, or Shanxi, Qinghai, etc) within that country is also just combining/dividing responsibility. Sure, there are certain decisions made at the higher level, but most pollution-related decisions are not. And anyway, national decisions in many countries are made by elected representatives who are (supposedly) carrying out their elector's wishes.
Looking at states, provinces or territories instead of lower-level political divisions (counties, parishes etc) is also combining responsibility
You can look at the emissions at different levels, and because countries, states, provinces, counties, parishes etc are changeable and often historical accidents, get very different results regarding where to focus efforts.
For example, Brazil produces more CO2 than Australia, which would (if looking at total output rather than per capita) indicate focussing more on Brazil that on Australia for trying to reduce emissions. But because Brazil has 27 subdivisions and Australia only 8, Australian states and territories produce more CO2 than Brazillian ones, which would indicate the opposite.
There's also the problem that some nations have boundaries that aren't really amenable to this sort of areal analysis. Why lump Alaska with the rest of the USA? Why lump the Hawaiian islands with North America? Why associate Corsica with France, but Sardinia with Italy? Why would you combine Wallis Island with part of Northwest Europe?
Looking at national totals is combining responsibility based on historical happenstance. Why would you compare the output of 1.3 billion Asians with the output of 350 million North Americans and Pacific Islanders? That isn't likely to tell you anything other than 1.3 billion is bigger than 350 million, which you already know.* Better to compare the output of 100 million Asians to the output of 100 million Americans - that way you'll get a result based on pollution levels, not one based on arbitrary political lumping. Per capita measurements not only remove distortion due to differing size, they also allow meaningful comparisons regardless of scale (e.g. California vs the whole US).
That's why per capita measures are used by scientists, but national volumes are used by politicians.
*Though if you pick a different 1.3 billion Asians to compare to your 350 million NA&PIs, it tells you a lot.
Looking at the combined output of two countries (East and West Germany, or UK instead of England, Scotland, Wales) is just combining responsibility.
Looking at countries vs semi-autonomous regions (Texas, California, etc, or Shanxi, Qinghai, etc) within that country is also just combining/dividing responsibility. Sure, there are certain decisions made at the higher level, but most pollution-related decisions are not. And anyway, national decisions in many countries are made by elected representatives who are (supposedly) carrying out their elector's wishes.
Looking at states, provinces or territories instead of lower-level political divisions (counties, parishes etc) is also combining responsibility
You can look at the emissions at different levels, and because countries, states, provinces, counties, parishes etc are changeable and often historical accidents, get very different results regarding where to focus efforts.
For example, Brazil produces more CO2 than Australia, which would (if looking at total output rather than per capita) indicate focussing more on Brazil that on Australia for trying to reduce emissions. But because Brazil has 27 subdivisions and Australia only 8, Australian states and territories produce more CO2 than Brazillian ones, which would indicate the opposite.
There's also the problem that some nations have boundaries that aren't really amenable to this sort of areal analysis. Why lump Alaska with the rest of the USA? Why lump the Hawaiian islands with North America? Why associate Corsica with France, but Sardinia with Italy? Why would you combine Wallis Island with part of Northwest Europe?
Looking at national totals is combining responsibility based on historical happenstance. Why would you compare the output of 1.3 billion Asians with the output of 350 million North Americans and Pacific Islanders? That isn't likely to tell you anything other than 1.3 billion is bigger than 350 million, which you already know.* Better to compare the output of 100 million Asians to the output of 100 million Americans - that way you'll get a result based on pollution levels, not one based on arbitrary political lumping. Per capita measurements not only remove distortion due to differing size, they also allow meaningful comparisons regardless of scale (e.g. California vs the whole US).
That's why per capita measures are used by scientists, but national volumes are used by politicians.
*Though if you pick a different 1.3 billion Asians to compare to your 350 million NA&PIs, it tells you a lot.
Which is best - because your scientific use of per capita is skewed to heck and gone. What else does it tell us? It tells us who has the highest standards of living - in fact it's weighted toward them (this is why we include Alaska if we're working politically). Basically, it becomes 'let's punish people for having an advanced standard of living' AS IF they did nothing to mitigate the effects of that - which is totally bogus. And far more to the point for the assumption of anthropomorphic climate change - extremely politically dangerous.
Punishing people for affluence is beyond stupid - it has never worked and it has destroyed countries (hence socialism not working in practice). But that's not what's going south here at the moment - electorates throughout the West and the developed world are changing. They aren't willing to reduce their standards of living and are tired of being browbeaten when they are the ones paying untold trillions over the decades in development of a host of alternatives and other tech to mitigate - successfully in most ways - negative impacts.
Telling already irritated people it's all their fault never works out well. And we have similar issues with overall volume measures - it's cruel and unfair to expect other people to stay at lower standards of living or even reduce them. No one ever said politics wasn't messy. But if you want people to continue to support global efforts on ACC, might wanna tone down the blame game.
Just sayin' - my ball's in a different court.
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