“China increased its footprint from 6.86 billion tons in 2019 to 10.17 billion tons in 2019.” — this should read 2007/2019
Globally, EV sales were 2.6% of car sales in 2020 (3 million), of which Tesla was about 17% (500K).
Climate change over billions of years is irrelevant, except that we know from the paleo records that changes can be sudden and can be catastrophic for life as we know it. Although we may not be able to precisely model all aspects of climate change (including especially tipping points of non-linear progressions), we do know the risks are extreme and unhedged. If sea levels were 200 feet higher (as they have been, not all that long ago), it would be catastrophic for a large part of the infrastructure and the population, who are no longer stone age hunters that will simply go to higher ground. And that is by far not the worst risk.
As for cold water fresh water lenses, these will not be cooling the climate system, but only the air temperature. Warming of ocean water would continue, but it would be more stratified. The cooling does not come from the cold water but from stratification, and it would likely cause far more severe weather events.
The reason the free market is not up to protecting the climate or the ocean is that there is no one who owns it and is leasing it at discount rates that include the depletion of the resource, nor would the owner be able to price the value of the asset for “humanity”. A world full of money would yield a rather meaningless market in which one haggles over the price of the earth.
Lack of private property results in public irresponsibility. All property should be privately held by owners whose rights can be objectively defined and so defended through government. Most “tragedy of the commons” pollution problems go away if all property is private so that owners can pursue their property rights.
Amazing Post. I like it. If you want to see the post than click on link to thegbapp.com
mrchinup
3 years ago
There is! Stop supporting communist China and build things at home.
mrchinup
3 years ago
Mish is right on with this one. You want to stop communist China in their tracks stop buying their garbage. Start making things here at home. We are fueling the virus called communist China.
ColoradoAccountant
3 years ago
The Eastern US is more wooded than it has been since the white man appeared. When I grew up in Massachusetts, my dog Tex and I would raid the orchards for apples, or the blueberry swamps for guess what? Yep blueberries. All the farms are gone now. The farms were bought up for two acre suburban lots. Then the trees came back, and the deer, and the ticks. Watch what you wish for.
Sechel
3 years ago
It’s useful to know how countries with a similar standard of living are competing on carbon emissions but the U.S. has more people than Germany or France. I wish there was a metric that could help solve that problem..
QTPie
3 years ago
When it comes to carbon emissions reduction, China talks a big game but the reality is very different. While the rest of the world keeps reducing its reliance on the most dirty CO2 fuel – coal, China keeps increasing increasing its use of coal. It is the only country in the world which is increasing the amount of electricity being generated from coal.
China is also investing in solar, wind and hydro . The picture is far more complicated then.
For the record I’m not in favor of hydro in many situations. It might be OK in the Alps but it destroys rivers and ecosystems and harms wildlife
rum_runner
3 years ago
Mish, are you saying you believe in man-made climate change? Because I saved this quote of yours:
” “There is no “proof” of man-made global warming. There is data to support a THEORY, much of it fake, but some of it not. The time-frame analysis is clearly insufficient and there are thousands of factors. It is likely, we do not yet know the biggest cause of what’s happening. Moreover, as LaCalle pointed out, the free market will take care of this problem anyway, assuming there is a problem”
numike
3 years ago
Johnson fits into a long history of prime ministers who are lazy charlatans link to unherd.com
Mish
3 years ago
Per Capita Addendum
A reader asked why I don’t mention per capita carbon.
I have commented before. It proves my point so I should do it more often.
Q: What happens when the rest of the world wants a US standard of living?
A: The global carbon footprint will not decline, global standards of living will not rise, the US standard of living will fall dramatically, there will be a huge technology breakthrough, or some combination of the above.
Let’s agree on the right stat first. Policy comes after.
Zardoz
3 years ago
We could do this easily if we weren’t so preoccupied with filling up landfills with the plastic crap we consume. We could have moon and mars bases now if we weren’t so preoccupied with enriching the ultra rich.
We’re a smart species with amazing potential that allows itself to be dragged down by morons.
We don’t allow it. We instead actively encourage it.
Everything the government does / regulates is designed to drag things down to the lowest denominator. A classic example of this is the ‘no child left behind’ policy in schools which drags the education down to the level of the slowest child so the brightest are bored instead of raising up the brightest and realizing the slowest aren’t going to make any breakthroughs. There are countless examples of similar things where laws are made to bring things down to the slowest/weakest etc forcing everyone down to that level.
Sechel
3 years ago
This could wind up being really positive. Often it means conserving energy and looking at the energy bill and reduce footprints. Chillers and boilers may be using old equipment or not optimized. Are VFD’s being employed? Are fans operating at the right speed? Etc
Sechel
3 years ago
@Mish , notice you tend not to quote emissions on a per capita basis. Why not?
Yea I think per capita, and noticed most of the stats tend to favor this The exception is for oil rich producing nations with few people. Then per capita breaks down
Tex272
3 years ago
All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed (I. F. “Izzy” Stone, 1907-1989).
KidHorn
3 years ago
Everything that doesn’t fit in the democratic narrative is racist.
Sechel
3 years ago
Per Capita the U.S. is an attoricious offender. Isn’t that how economists look at data?
CO2 emissions per capita are closely correlated to the GDP per capita or living standard.
A related measure is the cumulative emissions (over the last e.g. 200 years), which reflects better the stage of economic development of a country.
Sechel
3 years ago
India’s climate is a disaster. They cut down all the trees and forests and as a result the teperature has skyrockete. While the average temperatures have only gone up a degree or two the hottest days have gone up more. The detruction of the environment is just one more reason why Indians emmigrate to the U.S.
Sure, keep towing that corporatist line about the domestic talent pool being too small to justify needing cheap labor. “Great talent” at doing what? I’m a software engineer currently knee deep in un-clustering a total mess of a project that was entrusted to Indian ‘talent’. In my experience with Indian engineers over the years at best it’s a wash – what good is getting 10 for the price of 1 if you need 10 to do the job of 1 with a high degree of supervision?
derder
3 years ago
… and I thought Mish was an offensive Demorat? Just a Rino, then ey?
shamrock
3 years ago
If the U.S. and Europe were net zero now there would be 25b in carbon emissions instead of 36b. It’s not zero, but isn’t 25 better than 36?
It would be better if we are getting to net zero. But as you can see in the article below things like burning biomass(wood) for fuel is considered net zero even though it puts lots of CO2 into the air now (that will be removed in future decades/centuries by plants)
Also it assumes someone else (India/China/Developing Country) doesn’t replace our carbon with some of their own.
In 40 years (2060)m world population is forcasted to grow another billion or more so that means massive increase in carbon just from all the new people even if we managed to break even now.
No, it isn’t. Because, CO2 is not a problem. The problem is “environmentalists” who are trying, and unfortunately succeeding, in bleeding money out of governments who do not have a clue about science.
That is really nice to hear. thank you for the update and good luck, link to tonightsmakeup.com
amazing game! I like it. Also check link to cocpureapk.com
Net Nope, anytime soon
link to iea.org
Net Nope
link to iea.org
“China increased its footprint from 6.86 billion tons in 2019 to 10.17 billion tons in 2019.” — this should read 2007/2019
Globally, EV sales were 2.6% of car sales in 2020 (3 million), of which Tesla was about 17% (500K).
Climate change over billions of years is irrelevant, except that we know from the paleo records that changes can be sudden and can be catastrophic for life as we know it. Although we may not be able to precisely model all aspects of climate change (including especially tipping points of non-linear progressions), we do know the risks are extreme and unhedged. If sea levels were 200 feet higher (as they have been, not all that long ago), it would be catastrophic for a large part of the infrastructure and the population, who are no longer stone age hunters that will simply go to higher ground. And that is by far not the worst risk.
As for cold water fresh water lenses, these will not be cooling the climate system, but only the air temperature. Warming of ocean water would continue, but it would be more stratified. The cooling does not come from the cold water but from stratification, and it would likely cause far more severe weather events.
Tesla is at 23% counting only BEV sales.
The reason the free market is not up to protecting the climate or the ocean is that there is no one who owns it and is leasing it at discount rates that include the depletion of the resource, nor would the owner be able to price the value of the asset for “humanity”. A world full of money would yield a rather meaningless market in which one haggles over the price of the earth.
Lack of private property results in public irresponsibility. All property should be privately held by owners whose rights can be objectively defined and so defended through government. Most “tragedy of the commons” pollution problems go away if all property is private so that owners can pursue their property rights.
Amazing Post. I like it. If you want to see the post than click on link to thegbapp.com
There is! Stop supporting communist China and build things at home.
Mish is right on with this one. You want to stop communist China in their tracks stop buying their garbage. Start making things here at home. We are fueling the virus called communist China.
The Eastern US is more wooded than it has been since the white man appeared. When I grew up in Massachusetts, my dog Tex and I would raid the orchards for apples, or the blueberry swamps for guess what? Yep blueberries. All the farms are gone now. The farms were bought up for two acre suburban lots. Then the trees came back, and the deer, and the ticks. Watch what you wish for.
It’s useful to know how countries with a similar standard of living are competing on carbon emissions but the U.S. has more people than Germany or France. I wish there was a metric that could help solve that problem..
When it comes to carbon emissions reduction, China talks a big game but the reality is very different. While the rest of the world keeps reducing its reliance on the most dirty CO2 fuel – coal, China keeps increasing increasing its use of coal. It is the only country in the world which is increasing the amount of electricity being generated from coal.
China is also investing in solar, wind and hydro . The picture is far more complicated then.
For the record I’m not in favor of hydro in many situations. It might be OK in the Alps but it destroys rivers and ecosystems and harms wildlife
Mish, are you saying you believe in man-made climate change? Because I saved this quote of yours:
” “There is no “proof” of man-made global warming. There is data to support a THEORY, much of it fake, but some of it not. The time-frame analysis is clearly insufficient and there are thousands of factors. It is likely, we do not yet know the biggest cause of what’s happening. Moreover, as LaCalle pointed out, the free market will take care of this problem anyway, assuming there is a problem”
Johnson fits into a long history of prime ministers who are lazy charlatans link to unherd.com
Per Capita Addendum
A reader asked why I don’t mention per capita carbon.
I have commented before. It proves my point so I should do it more often.
Q: What happens when the rest of the world wants a US standard of living?
A: The global carbon footprint will not decline, global standards of living will not rise, the US standard of living will fall dramatically, there will be a huge technology breakthrough, or some combination of the above.
Let’s agree on the right stat first. Policy comes after.
We could do this easily if we weren’t so preoccupied with filling up landfills with the plastic crap we consume. We could have moon and mars bases now if we weren’t so preoccupied with enriching the ultra rich.
We’re a smart species with amazing potential that allows itself to be dragged down by morons.
We don’t allow it. We instead actively encourage it.
Everything the government does / regulates is designed to drag things down to the lowest denominator. A classic example of this is the ‘no child left behind’ policy in schools which drags the education down to the level of the slowest child so the brightest are bored instead of raising up the brightest and realizing the slowest aren’t going to make any breakthroughs. There are countless examples of similar things where laws are made to bring things down to the slowest/weakest etc forcing everyone down to that level.
This could wind up being really positive. Often it means conserving energy and looking at the energy bill and reduce footprints. Chillers and boilers may be using old equipment or not optimized. Are VFD’s being employed? Are fans operating at the right speed? Etc
I have commented before. It prove my point so I should do it more often.
What happens when the rest of the world wants a US standard of living?
NO idea what that means. Its either a more accurate statistic or its not
No! Hide the truth, use percentages.
Yea I think per capita, and noticed most of the stats tend to favor this The exception is for oil rich producing nations with few people. Then per capita breaks down
All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed (I. F. “Izzy” Stone, 1907-1989).
Everything that doesn’t fit in the democratic narrative is racist.
Per Capita the U.S. is an attoricious offender. Isn’t that how economists look at data?
CO2 emissions per capita are closely correlated to the GDP per capita or living standard.
A related measure is the cumulative emissions (over the last e.g. 200 years), which reflects better the stage of economic development of a country.
India’s climate is a disaster. They cut down all the trees and forests and as a result the teperature has skyrockete. While the average temperatures have only gone up a degree or two the hottest days have gone up more. The detruction of the environment is just one more reason why Indians emmigrate to the U.S.
That problem is very easily fixable. Very. Cut off H1 visas.
who said its a problem? We’re getting great talent
Sure, keep towing that corporatist line about the domestic talent pool being too small to justify needing cheap labor. “Great talent” at doing what? I’m a software engineer currently knee deep in un-clustering a total mess of a project that was entrusted to Indian ‘talent’. In my experience with Indian engineers over the years at best it’s a wash – what good is getting 10 for the price of 1 if you need 10 to do the job of 1 with a high degree of supervision?
… and I thought Mish was an offensive Demorat? Just a Rino, then ey?
If the U.S. and Europe were net zero now there would be 25b in carbon emissions instead of 36b. It’s not zero, but isn’t 25 better than 36?
It would be better if we are getting to net zero. But as you can see in the article below things like burning biomass(wood) for fuel is considered net zero even though it puts lots of CO2 into the air now (that will be removed in future decades/centuries by plants)
Also it assumes someone else (India/China/Developing Country) doesn’t replace our carbon with some of their own.
In 40 years (2060)m world population is forcasted to grow another billion or more so that means massive increase in carbon just from all the new people even if we managed to break even now.
It rained last night and left carbon/dirt all over my Tesla ewwwww.
No, it isn’t. Because, CO2 is not a problem. The problem is “environmentalists” who are trying, and unfortunately succeeding, in bleeding money out of governments who do not have a clue about science.
I’m an environmentalist and would say its the lobbyists…yah.