I was with you up to this. I don't think this really makes much sense. The "abstraction" is taking individuals as a whole, that the US and China are separate entities. That's our interpretation. The facts are that we are all polluting individuals living on Earth, and we all have a footprint, mostly dictated by politics in the area.

Imagine you and 3 friends got on a plane with slightly too heavy bags, and a Chinese guy with 5 friends got on a plane with slightly under-weight bags, and the plane can't take off. It makes no sense to say "only the total weight matters, your 6 bags are heavier than our 4, one of you leave your bags behind." Or am i missing something here?

Don't get me wrong, i'm not defending Chinese pollution or manipulation of figures. But if most of the world lived in a particular place, you'd expect most of the world's pollution from that place. "The climate doesn't care" in fact supports the opposite point that you're making, i think - the climate doesn't care that you're two countries, you're all just individual people supplying small amounts of pollution which makes up the whole. Surely producing less pollution per person is a good thing for the environment and it is upon those who produce more individually to curb their use?

I don't support our pulling out of the Paris Accord. I think it was the wrong thing to do. And I don't mind GDP growth for other nations, even China. What I do mind is the notion that the world's greatest polluter can increase its amount of Co2 emitted and still be touted as successfully contributing to reduced Co2 emissions worldwide.

"Telling China to limit their total CO2 emission to pre 2005 values is like telling a teenager in the middle of puberty to limit their food consumption to the same amount as when they were 9 years old. It's just not an option."

Who's telling China to do that? I only suggested that China's pledge to reduce their Co2 emissions to 60-65% of their 2005 levels as a ratio of GDP isn't all that it's made out to be. Your analogy is faulty because food consumption is necessary for life, but spending billions on destroying coral reefs while making artificial islands in the South China Sea is not. The CCP certainly has the funds necessary to effect a bigger, better and faster transition to green energy. Put another way, I believe that China has the potential to benefit both their people through economic growth and simultaneously do more in combating global climate change. I simply don't trust their current government to do it. I've been living in China now for over 19 years...and one thing that strikes me is the prevalence of appearance over substance. Perhaps you simply give them more credence in the latter, while my own perception seems to verify the former.

"But their total emissions is still increasing! This is just a farce and they're doing nothing!"

The second half of your statement is a strawman. They are doing something, just not enough, imho. And China's emissions have yet to plateau, therefore it's not an achievement yet.

"Now you may say "China's not putting funds towards green energy!" Well, that's also not true. China already surpassed the US, in spending on renewable energy. In fact, China spent $103 billion on renewable energy in 2015, far more than the US, which only spent $44 billion. Also, they will continue to pour enormous amounts of resources into renewable energy, far more than any other country."

This is also misleading. What I'm suggesting is that China could do more. It's certainly a matter of opinion on whether the Chinese government is properly funding green initiatives. For example, both your article and the amounts you cite ignore the fact that those numbers include Chinese government loans, tax credits, and R&D for Chinese manufacturers of solar panels...both for domestic use AND especially for export. The government has invested heavily into making solar panels a "strategic industry" for the nation. Their cheaper manufacturing methods, while polluting the land and rivers with polysilicon and cadmium, have created a glut of cheap panels...with a majority of the panels they manufacture being exported to Japan, the US and Europe. It's also forced many "cleaner" manufacturers of solar panels in the US and Europe out of business. China continues to overproduce these panels, and thus have "installed" much of the excess as a show of green energy "leadership." But what you don't hear about much is curtailment, that is the fact that huge percentages of this green energy never makes its way to the grid. It's lost, wasted...and yet we're supposed to give them credit for it? So...while you appear to want to give them full credit for their forward-looking investments, I will continue to look deeper and keep a skeptical eye on a government that has certainly earned our skepticism.

""But China is building more coal plants!" Well that's not really true either. China just scrapped over 100 coal power projects with a combined power capacity of 100 GW . Instead, the aforementioned investments will add over 130GW in renewable energy. Overall, Chinese coal consumption may have already peaked back in in 2013."

Well, yes, it really is true. China announcing the scrapping of 103 coal power projects on January 14th this year was a step in the right direction, and certainly very well timed politically. But you're assuming that that's the entirety of what China has recently completed, is currently building, and even plans to build. If you look past that sensationalist story, you'll see that they continue to add coal power at an accelerating pace. As to China's coal consumption already having peaked...lol...well, if you think they'd never underreport and then quietly revise their numbers upwards a couple of years later, then you should more carefully review the literature.

"So in the world of reality, how is China doing in terms of combating global warming? It's doing a decent job. So no "@Diogenes", China is NOT the single biggest factor in our future success/failure, because it is already on track to meeting its targets."

Well, your own link states:

"We rate China’s Paris agreement - as we did its 2020 targets - “medium.” The “medium“ rating indicates that China’s targets are at the last ambitious end of what would be a fair contribution. This means they are not consistent with limiting warming to below 2°C, let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit, unless other countries make much deeper reductions and comparably greater effort."

And if the greatest emitter of Co2 isn't the biggest factor, then what is? I'm not saying that China bears all the responsibility or even blame. I'm far more upset with my own country and government. But to suggest that China adding the most Co2 of any nation on earth (almost double what the US emits) isn't the largest single factor that influences AGW...I'm having trouble processing your rationale for saying so. Even if we don't question if they're on track to meet their targets, they'll still be the largest emitter of Co2...unless India somehow catches up to them.

To restate my position:
The US shouldn't have withdrawn from Paris.
China is not a global leader in fighting climate change.
To combat climate change, every nation needs to pull together.
China is not "pulling" at their weight, which means that other nations must take up more of the slack.
Surging forward, while "developed" nations stagnate will weaken the CCP's enemies...and make no mistake, they view most of us as their enemies.
The former is part of the CCP's long-term strategy for challenging the current geopolitical status quo.
I believe that the Chinese Communist Party is expending massive amounts of resources abroad and militarily, when the bulk of those funds would better serve their own people, environment and combating the global crisis of climate change.

@Diogenes they're all very good points, but you say yourself that the environment doesn't give a damn about abstractions. This isn't a kickstarter where we only get the payoff if we hit the target, it's more like a charity where every reduction we make saves lives.

Is the US pulling out going to cause China to rethink their gaming of the system [edit: if that's indeed what they're doing]? I think it's more likely to have the opposite effect, where other counties can now make the kind of argument you're making: "if China's cheating and the US are out , what's the point in us sticking to our targets."

Trump's right that this kind of thing makes the rest of the world stop laughing at him. Even the leaders have gone from "what a clown" to "what an asshole" [adjectives and expletives removed].

I'm torn by our pulling out of Paris. I think it's critical that we all cooperate to reduce our Co2 emissions. But I also understand that at least what China offered (not) to do is the single biggest factor in our future success (failure).

Their "reductions" are tied to points of GDP compared to 2005 levels, meaning that they can either reduce their emissions, or grow their economy faster than their emissions grow. The latter is what is happening.

Their contribution is to try to have their reliance on coal "peak" by or prior to 2030. At the moment, they are emitting over 30% of the world's Co2, with the US at about 17%. But even when and if China's Co2 emissions peak, they almost certainly won't fall...they will plateau. As we speak, China is building dozens of new coal-fired power plants...and these new plants, along with those already built, have life spans of at least 50 years. So when you hear talk of China's already reducing their emissions, they aren't speaking of real reductions, rather lowered percentages as a ratio of growing GDP. For example, China emitted over 5,800,000 kilotons of Co2 in 2005, and 10,600,000 kilotons in 2015. Yet China's nominal GDP was only US$2.3 trillion in 2005, and a whopping US$11.1 trillion in 2015. So as a ratio of GDP, China's emissions appear to have decreased. The opposite is true, and they'll continue this farce for as long as possible. Now, some will answer with things such as:

A. But America pollutes more per capita!
B. But China deserves to have a per capita GDP that rivals that of the US!
C. You should be comparing GDP per capita or PPP!

To which I answer...our planet's climate and environments don't give a damn about these abstractions. What matters is the TOTAL amount of greenhouse gases being emitted.

So, I guess we won't keep warming under two degrees Celsius. Because it's more important that China's per capita GDP of about US$8,000 grows to match the US$56,000 of the US. In effect, if populations stayed the same, and the US economy stagnated...we'd need to wait for China's nominal GDP to grow to US$77.7 trillion compared to the US's $17 trillion.

Let me just add that if China were allowed to grow that powerful, polluting all the while, then the free nations of our planet would have graver problems than climate change.

You may think that China is a poor country without the current means to effect a major transition. To which I'll answer that their government and state-run corporations could stop buying foreign businesses and real estate, as well as not building more missiles, planes, rockets, blue-water navies, and man-made islands...and perhaps put those funds toward an honest shift toward green energy.

My biggest complaints about Covenant:

1. David killed ALL the engineers? How? Why would that be the only city on that planet? Makes no sense though I guess it can be implied that all life was *eventually* killed by the black spores.

2. The chestbuster morphing into a mini-xenomorph so quickly was retarded and looked so out of place. Also the gestation period was ridiculously fast.

3. No hazard/bio-suits when landing on an unknown planet with almost your entire bridge/command crew? Come on...

4. The stupid back/throat-bursters. I almost laughed when the first back-burster was revealed. Why even introduce them at all? More time could have been spent with David getting someone impregnated by a facehugger.

5. The whole premise of Alien is that no one really knows what the hell it is or where it came from. That mystery and uncertainty lends more weight to the terror of the xenomorph. Why do movies always have to try and explain every detail - leaving it up to the viewer's imagination can be so much more effective (e.g. see explanation of "The Force"...f.u. George Lucas lol...)

6. David creating the xenomorphs just doesn't make sense either. Why would he create something that requires a host when there is no life remaining on the planet and he couldn't have known that a ship would arrive carrying people to impregnate?

7. Having the xenos walk around in bright lighting doesn't make them appear very menacing. Alien and Aliens were all about claustrophobic environments, dim lighting, and surprise attacks.

8. Yes, let's do exactly what the clearly scheming android told us to do and walk right up to that slimy egg that just opened. You would think that these people should be smart, right? They are the custodians of over 1000 colonists, starship pilots, and scientists and clearly hold high ranking positions yet frequently make some of the WORST choices possible. Ripley might have just been a lieutenant of a simple cargo hauler but the idiots of the Covenant make her look like a genius.

The first third or so of Far Cry 3 was brilliant. Far Cry 4 was probably technically a better game, but it was nearly exactly the same game and I'd had enough of it by then.

Maybe if they change it up enough it will be good. What made the first part of Far Cry 3 so good was how novel and threatening the environment was. You'd be making your way carefully through the jungle, paranoid about tigers and stuff and then you'd hear a car coming and you'd scamper off into a ditch to hide until it passed. It was awesome. But after a bit, you figured it out and had lots of guns and bullets and you didn't have to care anymore. You just picked an icon on your map and walked directly towards it, machine-gunning anything that got in your way.

If they could somehow distill the essence of playing Far Cry 3 for the first two or three hours into the whole of Far Cry 5, they might have something. I don't think it's possible though.

Very well executed, and should be effective (even short term).

Really don't understand why any pedestrian would think it's more important to look at the phone the few seconds it takes to cross an intersection. Priorities, people!

Besides, people/cars/scenery are interesting to look at too, spend some time to look at the environment all around you!

(Mea culpa: While I do look at my cellphone while I walk, I do look up most of the time, and I stop if I need to type. And never look at the phone near intersections, it's just principle.)

Truth is truth....and this is not truth, or is at least intentionally misleading.
As mentioned above, the parties totally switched positions with the Republican Southern strategy. She's either ignorant, or intentionally misleading.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

What rich earn their money with "hard" work? Few if any, they more often make it by paying hard workers less than they are due, often by contract. (At least that's certainly true for many, including Trump)
Killing babies, nope. Embryos aren't babies. Babies can live outside a womb. >99.999% of abortions don't meet that requirement, and the few that do are only allowed to save the mother's life.
Oppressing business owners, nope, just stopping them from abusing their workers, customers, and environment. That only oppresses oppressors, and I'm more than fine with that considering how they act when unrestrained.
Allowing illegal immigrants in....nope, but offering far more work visas, absolutely. "Proper vetting" is meaningless, unless you agree to use the term as intended by the intelligence community, in which case democrats are totally on board...but not with a Muslim ban until Trump can figure something out, that's never....and totally unconstitutional.
Get rid of capitalism....did you see their candidate? Even Sanders didn't want that, but he was too hostile to unfettered capitalism for democrats....just duh.

Why do you see people mentioning the switch? Because you, and this woman, are trying to pretend it didn't happen....but it clearly, unequivocally, undeniably did. Take some American history and you'll learn.

Edit: what's funny is, had there been no southern strategy and swap of ideals as she and you imply, democrats would be your party, supporting all the right wing strategies you support.

You say that like those are bad things.

Taking money from the rich? Fuck yes. In case you missed it, they've been taking money from you for decades.

Killing babies? Well, most people would call it "allowing a woman to decide what happens to her body", but either way, there are too many damn people on the planet, so anything that lowers the birth rate is good.

Oppressing business owners? How exactly? Making them pay their employees a fair wage? Not allowing them to discriminate against people? Making sure they don't fuck up the environment? Zero problems with any of that.

Allowing illegal immigrants to enter? Leaving aside the fact that that is completely untrue, immigrants commit less crime, work harder and contribute to your economy. Get rid of the immigrants and watch your country fall apart in a week.

Get rid of capitalism? The fucking DEMOCRATS? Seriously, you think the democrats are socialist? You seriously need to see the rest of the world. In most other developed countries the democrats would be the right wing party.

But capitalism is ultimately on borrowed time anyway. Not in the short to medium term, but in 30-50 years, capitalism won't be sustainable. You can't have a capitalist system if the majority of the populace is unemployable (see automation, AI, etc).

*quality

I'm currently reading "Superintelligence" by Nick Bostrom and it's pretty *fear inducing.

If we ever do hit the singularity... it doesn't really matter what we do.

First up, if it's an AGI is to be any use, it needs to be at least as smart as us. Which means, by definition, it will be capable of writing its own AGI.

There are any number of nightmare scenarios where even a seemly benevolent goal might be disastrous for humanity.

"Multivac, fix the environment!"
"Ok, what's the major issue with the environment?"
/wipes out humanity

"Multivac, solve the Riemann hypothesis!"
"Ok, but I'll need a lot of processing power"
/converts entire planet to a giant cpu

Even if, by some miracle, we end up developing a benevolent AI that understands our needs and is aligned with them, (e.g. the Culture Minds), we are no longer in control.

We might be along for the ride, but we're certainly not driving.

The other thing that's interesting is a question of scale. We tend to think of intelligence in human terms, like this.

infants..... children.....mentally impaired..Sarah Palin.....normal people.....Neil deGrasse Tyson.....Feynman, Einstein, Newton, etc.

But that ignores all the lower intelligences:

bacteria...Trump......insects.....sheep.....dogs...chimps, dolphins, etc............................... dumb human..smart human.

But from a superintelligence's point of view, the scale looks more like this
bacteria.. humanity ... Tesla ................................................... ..................................................................................................
..................................................................................................
............................................................................................. AI

Really impressive, but despite the description I'm not sure how this differs from the current, modern approach, beyond using more processing power for the environment assessment and realtime decision-making, weighting and blending. It just seems like a more thorough and complete AI-supported locomotion system.

"If you think that fossil fuels aren't harming the environment, why don't you go kill yourself."

Well, that escalated quickly.

*promote

I totally agree with her that environmental concerns turn "conservatives" off on any argument (funny, since it's conservation of the environment that they can't abide).
I think she should also be using financial phrases, because done properly, renewable energy saves you money in the long run. My solar system, for instance, paid for itself in the first 8 years of an expected 20 year lifespan, so I get 12 years of 'free' electricity and ignoring rate hikes, but most right wingers would claim it will never pay for itself and is nothing more than pie in the sky hippy fantasy because that's what Alex Jones and his ilk told them.
Showing people that being responsible will actually save them large sums of money is the number one way to convince them to change their behaviors, it's far more effective than any philosophical arguments. It's the main reason I bought my system, and is also a main reason I want an electric car.

Side note: the 'sit in your car in your garage' argument is the same one I use against anti-smokers. I tell them, "you sit in the car you drove here in to complain about some smoke with a hose from the tail pipe going into the window, I'll sit in my car smoking, and we'll see who dies first.". This is to illustrate that their complaints about the dangers of smoke are ridiculous and negligible compared to their own polluting behaviors.

It's almost as if the chinless, inbred inheritees of slavery and imperial bloodlust are so stupid and greedy they'll run the society that surrounds them into the ground for an extra few % a year on their already insanely swollen ill-gotten gains.

Good job they're not such assholes with the environment or the whole planet would be screwed..

*ban
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