China is worlds manufacturing homeland. I think they are doing fine for the capacity of work they are offshored to do
Comment on As US Offshore Wind Disappears, a Generation of Workers Is Left Behind
Jax@sh.itjust.works 3 days agoTrending downwards for China, however their emissions are intrinsically tied to the U.S./western world’s emissions which… sort of makes things messy from an analytical standpoint. Yes the U.S. has higher per capita emissions, yet China has something like 400 million more people than the entire western world combined.
So yes, the numbers are messy but the U.S./western world’s emissions and China’s emissions are intrinsically linked - you don’t get one without the other, especially in a globalized economy. The bottom line is that both need to stop, and one contributes to the global emissions far more heavily than the other - per capita emissions don’t matter. This isn’t even discussing China’s internal markets, which aren’t exactly pollution free.
Now, one legitimate metric to guage the U.S. by would be emissions since the industrial revolution began. We’ve absolutely contributed far more pollution since then any country, ever, including China - though as China’s population grows this will change.
The same can be said for India and plastic pollution per capita. Yes, the U.S. generates more plastic waste per capita. I can tell you however, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the U.S.’ most polluted rivers pales in comparison to India’s. I’ve seen it firsthand.
liuther9@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Jax@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
They literally enable the U.S. and the western world to pollute as much as they do.
The vast majority of Co2 output from China is wrapped up in trade. You can’t just say ‘well they’re the world’s factory so it’s all the U.S. fault’ - that’s simply fucking brain damaged.
fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I mention per capita because pollution per person that is living because of that system is just a more fair metric to me. It also mean that on a responsibility level people with a higher amount of pollution contribution have a higher responsibility to do something about per person.
Now the question we were trying to answer: “is the US being left behind?”
Still hasn’t been answered, which sure linkages, but what is the delta between the US trend and the EU, China, India, North and Southern Africa, Central and South America, and Canada?
If the rest of the world is seemingly blazing ahead on renewables, public transport, and EVs and their trends of per capita pollution generation is on a down word trend at a statistically significant rate then the US then the hypothesis would seem supported. If, however, it’s not or the inverse is even true then the hypothesis would seem to be untrue in this regard. A fuzzier metric to compare in this would be standard of living as well, since how well people are living based on their per capita pollution generation to me also shows a maturity of the model (and in this context would be if the US was sliding backing into preindustrial society the previous metric (pollution per pop) would show that as a huge success but few would call it that).
Also India has a heavy textile industry, so water usage and pollution is a big unfortunate part of that, but it’s one reason why we in the western world went from spinning and sowing taking up a significant part of people’s daily lives to clothes being so cheap they are disposed of by the tonnage based on fashion trends.