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I'm sure economic sanctions would apply pressure.  I doubt they'd work however.

Yes. Companies. Because we can always trust them to do what's in our best interest.

</sarcasm>

*Wraps Idaho in plastic wrap to trap polution.*

Switcher wrote:

If they go through with this I can see a nice trade war coming up. It is more a gesture to the US that the rest of world stopped giving a damn about what america thinks or does. Sort of a ahhh smurf you George of international diplomacy.

Ain't gonna happen. Just a bit of self-righteous we're-not-American-ism.

otter wrote:

Hardly matters now.

It's nearly too late to even mitigate the effects of greenhouse gasses.  Better now to start reducing emissions just as a matter of course, and focus mostly on addressing what to do about sea level rise.

The Arctic ice cap is close to becoming a seasonal thing.  The Antarctic glaciers have increased their rate of flow into the ocean by a factor of 3 to 6, and the Greenland ice cap is showing signs of collapse within the century.  Combine all those three things, and it's a predicted sea level rise of and estimated 40 to 50 feet.  Greenland alone accounts for an estimated 23 feet.  If those estimates are even over by twice, that's still a lot of dry land lost, and a hell of a lot more than the few inches predicted by previous climate models.

Glad I don't have any kids to explain why I allowed the world to flood to.

Yep, thats Bangladesh gone - 140 million odd people homeless. And thats just one obvious example.

Oh, and the sea ice in the Arctic is already in the sea, so it melting would not effect sea levels. So really it's just Greenland and the Antarctic. But still would be very bad.

Yes, true about the Arctic sea ice and sea levels, but the thing to consider there is ice has a higher albedo than open sea water, which means more heat is absorbed by the sea in summer, thus exacerbating the problem.

Think for a second about how much of the US and Europe alone is within, say, 25 to 30 feet of sea level?  And, rising sea levels increases the size of river deltas (flooding).  Not to mention the effects on weather patterns, which we are only just beginning to comprehend, thanks to more research and more powerful computers.

Hmmm, maybe Water World wasn't so far fetched after all.

Ah, who am I kidding, that movie sucked!

NAG wrote:

*Wraps Idaho in plastic wrap to trap polution.*

You're living in your own Private Idaho.

You know what amuses me is that out of what I've been hearing all around the newspapers etc... the US produces 25% of all the pollution in the world (I've yet to find a statistic on a good site to prove that), but what most people forget to mention is that we also produce 13% of products that the world consumes on a yearly basis.

In english 13% of the world's needs are covered by the US's exports... and has only 6% ownership of all land that is controlled by the rest of the world. Boy it seems to me that in one way this is just like the middle east.  Everyone is blaming the guy who has the biggest muscle, but the smallest piece of land for all their faults.

Cyberpawz wrote:

You know what amuses me is that out of what I've been hearing all around the newspapers etc... the US produces 25% of all the pollution in the world (I've yet to find a statistic on a good site to prove that), but what most people forget to mention is that we also produce 13% of products that the world consumes on a yearly basis.

In english 13% of the world's needs are covered by the US's exports... and has only 6% ownership of all land that is controlled by the rest of the world. Boy it seems to me that in one way this is just like the middle east.  Everyone is blaming the guy who has the biggest muscle, but the smallest piece of land for all their faults.

So...by your own statistics, our pollution is proportionally twice our production? Why does this in any way help the point you're presumably trying to make?

resedit wrote:

I for one don't believe the US produces 25% of the pollution in the world.
We don't do a lot of manufacturing here. I think you'll find most pollution is actually produced in 3rd world country sweat shops.

Linky?

ShnickyShnack wrote:

resedit wrote:

I for one don't believe the US produces 25% of the pollution in the world.
We don't do a lot of manufacturing here. I think you'll find most pollution is actually produced in 3rd world country sweat shops.

Linky?

Don't need one, many 3rd world countries don't use clean fuel sources to power their industry because they can't afford it.

Cyberpawz wrote:

ghlbtsk wrote:

Cyberpawz wrote:

You know what amuses me is that out of what I've been hearing all around the newspapers etc... the US produces 25% of all the pollution in the world (I've yet to find a statistic on a good site to prove that), but what most people forget to mention is that we also produce 13% of products that the world consumes on a yearly basis.

In english 13% of the world's needs are covered by the US's exports... and has only 6% ownership of all land that is controlled by the rest of the world. Boy it seems to me that in one way this is just like the middle east.  Everyone is blaming the guy who has the biggest muscle, but the smallest piece of land for all their faults.

So...by your own statistics, our pollution is proportionally twice our production? Why does this in any way help the point you're presumably trying to make?

You obviously didn't read what I posted, because if you did you would of seen that I said that I couldn't find a statistic (That isn't biased) proving that the US produces 25% of the world's pollution. This statistic doesn't include what we give via military help or anything else as well. If we added that the percentage would go higher.  And in all honesty I think the 13% is very low but I'm using out dated statistic that are almost 10 years old.  I'd like to see what we are up to now.

And you are again missing the point that one country actually is supplying over 10% of the entire world's needs through production of more than one product.  That's a nice chunk of the pie.

I obviously did read what you posted, what with my replying and all. But I did make the reasonable assumption that, since you quoted a number, you were in some way asserting that that number was what you believed. If you don't believe the number, you shouldn't have used it, or at least you should have made it clear that you thought it was inaccurate. Why you think military help is relevant in any way is completely beyond me, unless you think that somehow contributes to pollution in a significant way? Unless you meant that affects the percentage of products produced. In which case, I have to wonder why you think that wasn't included in the original production figures. And as for the overall point, which YOU apparently didn't read, assuming your statistics are accurate, the US's share of world pollution is nearly twice its share of world production. This would suggest an incredibly inefficient system on our part.

I'm responding to what you said. If you meant something different, you should express it differently.