It is NOT China’s NOR India’s Responsibility to Cut Emissions!

            Welcome back for another climate myth debunking!

            One of the most vicious ‘retorts’ I hear from climate change deniers is, “China and India are at fault—they should cut first!” So, let’s analyze this bad-faith, factually incorrect argument.

            First, a historical perspective. The U.S. has been emitting CO2 since roughly 1800. Coal was the culprit, then oil and natural gas. More than two hundred years’ worth of emissions. Over that time, the U.S. emitted 404.77 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, resulting directly from the growth and expansion of the U.S. economy (https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54719577). In contrast, China only began emitting CO2 in earnest in the 1980s, resulting in a cumulative 210.20 billion tonnes of carbon (Ibid.). For India, the timeframe is the last fifty or so years, and the emissions are significantly less than China’s.

            Mind you, in 2016, China’s population was 1.414 billion, India’s population was 1.324 billion, and the U.S. population was 323 million. That means per capita (per person) emissions were 7.38 tons per person in China, India’s was a paltry 1.91 tons/person, and the U.S. was a whopping 15.52 tons/person (https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/). The average American drives more, eats more red meat, and buys more consumer goods than the average Chinese or Indian person. These are choices we can alter.

            Second, an economic, social, and cultural justice perspective. China and India are just as deserving of economic development as we are. It is morally wrong and shameful to suggest they deserve to suffer harsh living conditions because we refuse to cut emissions. China and India have every right to build public transportation infrastructure, as well as plumbing, electrical, sewer, and wastewater infrastructure. This necessitates carbon emissions, just as the U.S emitted for centuries. And more than that, China produced 895 gigawatts of electricity from renewables in 2020, India 134 gigawatts, and the U.S. only produced a modest 292 gigawatts (https://www.statista.com/statistics/267233/renewable-energy-capacity-worldwide-by-country/).

It is hypocritical and embarrassingly immature to point fingers at those who are much worse off, force them to cut emissions, and limit their economic prospects and upward mobility. Especially when China and India are decarbonizing faster than us!

            Now, there are things I dislike about China. I found the One Child Only policy to be brutally dystopian, the air pollution from coal plants is extremely unhealthy and bad for the population, the lack of free and fair elections angers and horrifies me, and the governmental censorship is a nightmare. 

But this is a climate corner. So, we’re just talking about carbon emissions. And economics.

            One more point to make: We cannot change China. We cannot vote there; we cannot influence events there. We can only change ourselves. We can only build a better America. That is our new calling. We must amplify indigenous voices, elect them to higher positions of power, and we must cut our emissions and our consumption—fast.

            The United States already has public infrastructure built. Unfortunately, we’re also letting it crumble before us. Bridges are collapsing in Pennsylvania. Flint, Michigan still doesn’t have access to safe drinking water. Everyone in Trinity County knows how rough our roads are. We have stopped investing in our public, common goods and interests. This serves no one and hurts everyone.

            I am so deeply tired, and I am still not yet thirty. We all used to agree that actions have consequences. Now, not even that universal truth resonates with everyone anymore.

I wonder what I could do with my energy, with my life, if I didn’t have to battle liars who can’t accept the physical and chemical consequences of our actions. I wonder what I could do with more hope.

Look yourself in the mirror. Can you honestly say you’re doing anything to help future generations survive the rapid shift to a blisteringly hot future? I still don’t have children . . .

We capitalist, over-consumptive humans are the harbingers of Hell on Earth. We are awake, self-conscious, knowingly roasting our one and only planet. Even if we pray for rain, I don’t think God would show mercy to an abusive species killing His good, green Earth.

Reimagine our future. It’s time to repair and build. Time to do better. No excuses.

Change starts here.

Fact: CO2 is Rising Exponentially. And, New Beginnings for the Climate Corner.

            Welcome back, readers!

            Atmospheric CO2 has increased exponentially. This is a provable fact.

            The reason for this exponential growth is multi-faceted. First and foremost, we are emitting more CO2 today than we were one hundred twenty years ago. In 1900 global emissions were only 5 x 10^8 (five hundred million) metric tons. In 2015, global emissions were 1 x 10^10 (ten billion) metric tons (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data). The global output of CO2 has increased by two orders of magnitude, a 100-fold increase! This is exponential growth. If you need a refresher on scientific notation and orders of magnitude, watch this helpful study video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXTuYjPDjqQ.

As our economies have grown, so has our global consumption of fossil fuels. Humans cannot produce goods and services without energy, and we have chosen to use energy that takes tens of MILLIONS of YEARS to form through geologic processes, but only a matter of DAYS for us to extract it from the ground and burn it.

Second, I mentioned the importance of lag times and feedback loops in my Systems Thinking article. Carbon dioxide stays present in the atmosphere for a whopping 100 years! As far as the atmosphere is concerned, it’s only 1921 and we are feeling the residual warming from CO2 emmitted by our ancestors with the advent of the Model T. This also means that our great grand babies will be feeling the effects of warming caused by OUR emissions today all the way in 2121! If you build upon something in an increasing fashion, the rate of change accelerates. This lag time in CO2breakdown has allowed it to accumulate to extraordinary levels, levels this planet has not seen for the last 3 million years. And again, to reiterate, bipedal hominids (our evolutionary ancestors) have only existed for 2 million years.

            Regarding feedback loops, we’ve already begun tipping key Earth systems into new equilibriums. For example, permafrost in the arctic tundra is melting at an increasing rate which releases methane, a GHG 30 times more powerful than CO2. This accelerates warming even more! Mass coral bleaching events are another example of a system reaching its breaking point. Corals are habitat for many species, and according to the geologic record, the oceans die first in extinction events.

Compare the Vostok ice core graph of atmospheric CO2 (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Graph-from-the-Vostok-Ice-Core-for-the-past-800-000-Years_fig5_339130657) to the graph of human population throughout history(https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/population-environment). There is a sharp increase in one variable over very little time. If we continue on “business as usual” meaning “growing and emitting at the same increasing rate” we will warm six degrees Celsius. This will sterilize ninety percent of life on Earth. We cannot in good conscience keep emitting as we have been. This is why climate scientists urge us to cut emissions so that we warm fewer than two degrees Celsius: our species (and others) will have a better chance of surviving. We are pressed for time because there is already warming “baked into” the atmosphere from our past and current emissions. This is why I stick my neck out and write. Catastrophic climate change is an issue much bigger than my personal safety or the hurt feelings of letter writers who viciously and repeatedly lie about this topic. Carbon dioxide has increased exponentially and this is not up for debate. One can either accept the reality of atmospheric chemistry and its consequences, or one cannot.

Alas, dear readers, this is the final edition of Megan's Climate Corner. Thank you to the Trinity Journal for the opportunity to share information about Earth with all of Trinity County. They took a gamble on me and gave my first column a home. I am very grateful. Thank you, Mr. Wagner, and thank you to the entire Trinity Journal team.

The next edition will appear the second Wednesday of January 2022 with a new name and email address for the New Year (for copyright purposes), but the same complex, quality climate content presented in an approachable manner. We will continue to explore environmental topics in depth while marveling at the majesty of our unique, one-in-a-million home planet and its place in the universe. See you next year!