GUEST POST from DON: Climate Change?

Is Climate Change for real?  I don’t know.  I do know that most of the money our government is spending on this issue is a waste.  

So, for fun, let’s presume Climate Change is real, just so we can come up with realistic ways of dealing with it (because I know…how could it be otherwise…that everyone buying an EV is really not a realistic solution).

The big drivers of Climate Change are not going to work, heating/cooling your home, or cooking your food.  

CHINA (as an example).  
The United States can do a few things to reduce its emissions, but the result will unlikely be very great.  (I may share a few ideas below.)  The real root of future reductions of greenhouse gases is realizing that the United States, although a large player, is not where pollution is growing.  America has already reduced its pollution by enormous amounts, even while growing in population (Up 55% from 1973 to 2020).  The majority of the rest of the world has been, at the same time, increasing its production of greenhouse pollutants.  

China, particularly, has been a hot spot for greenhouse gas increases.  Therefore, China is one of the best places to implement significant changes.

We buy a huge amount of stuff from China.  
1) China does not have smokestack scrubbers.
2) China is the largest buyer of American coal.  It is one of the cheapest forms of electric generation.
3) China does not care that plastic packaging is toxic to the environment.
4) China does not care that everything we buy from them and which we sell to them has to be sent by truck, rail, pipeline and then ship (or vise versa).

All in all, China has been steadily increasing the amount of CO2 produced while the US has been steadily decreasing its pollution.  Seriously, has anyone who is nagging you to “do more” told you that?  In 2020 China alone produced 2.26 times as much greenhouse gases as the US.  

When we look at HOW they are producing that CO2 we find that they are the largest user of coal in the world.  In fact, we ship our coal to them.  

TO BE FAIR, the US is still producing more CO2 per person.  According to ourworldindata.org the emissions per person in the United States has dropped by more than 36% since 1973 while globally the amount of greenhouse gas being produced has more than doubled.  That is a huge reduction by us when placed in that context.  The United States went from nearly 20x the pollution per person as China in 1973 to a mere 2x per person in 2020.  We have reduced while China has increased (by over 650%).  At this rate, China will be outproducing the United States per person by 2026.

If you tally up the greenhouse cost of shipping China-made products to the USA as well as the shipment of coal and food products to China, the resulting emissions are staggering.  The annual increases in greenhouse gas emissions in China cannot be overcome by smart-tech in America.  

SENSIBLE REDUCTIONS.
One has to ask a serious question regarding United States reductions:  How much is enough, given the global rise is pollution?  Realistically there is no way WE can eliminate the global rise by reducing our footprint alone.  If it is real, it is a global problem which cannot be solved by a small number of nations.  

I liken it to being on a sinking ship.  If all the Americans and Europeans are sealing holes in their sections, but everyone else is drilling holes…we are still going to sink.  EVERYONE has to be about the business of sealing holes.

TRADE.  
One part of a sensible package of solutions is incredibly simple (this is what I mentioned above):  Reduce trade with China.  We can reduce greenhouse gases WE cause by a few more percentage points in as little as two years if we were to trade more heavily with the Americas (Canada, Mexico, Brazil, etc).  Even better…buy regionally sourced products.  Mexico and Brazil, in particular, produce far less greenhouse gases per person than China.  Plus, creating jobs in those countries puts less pressure on our border (win-win).

SHIPPING.
Sourcing products closer to home also reduces the length of the supply chain and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by shipping.  

Ships are a huge part of that supply chain.  Cargo ships burn some of the dirtiest oil products available, known as bunker.  Bunker is made from the sludgy leftovers of petroleum refining, it is as thick and black as molasses and full of sulfur.  When it burns it gives off carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide. Container ports are smog hubs.  Shipping alone accounts for 2%-3% of global carbon emissions.  

Sadly, nothing is being done by the global community to reduce shipping emissions.  No international goals have even been set.  They are not going EV or solar.  They have no plans to move to cleaner fuels, like #2 diesel or natural gas.  They certainly are not going nuclear. So, here is a second way the United States can cause a global impact.  We can work to clean up shipping.  This is where the U.S. can do something important.  

SHORT ENDING:
This post does not have enough space to go into detail or explore many options.  However, just a few INTELLIGENT choices can make a huge impact.  (Sign me up for seeing our politicians pushing for something intelligent.) 

Should the US do more to reduce its pollution?  Sure.  But when it costs $2 to save $1…that is not a good deal, is it!!!  So, stop pushing the $2 solutions, like EV and wind.  Look at the globe, instead of your own navel, and you will probably find something which would work far better for far less.

If Climate Change is real, we haven’t been doing the right things globally to slow it down.

MORE OF DON’S GREAT GUEST POSTS:

SPURIOUS UBIQUITOUS NOISE ~ TEW ~ Credit Card Debt ~ Insect Oddities ~ DATA ~ Cities Got Name? ~

~ The Bible Does Not Say That! ~ Too Old?? ~ Be My Guest ~ IN-CRE-MEN-TAL-ISM ~ Bad Friends & Broken Tools ~

~ Pools Are For The Birds?? ~ Animals Hindering Your Financial Freedom ~ The Chicken ~ Finding The Exit ~

~ Allegheny Blackberries ~ Romantic Sunset At The Beach ~ Fun Facts About Carpenter Ants ~ Bad Habits ~

~ Doing Faith Wrong ~ Quirky! ~ Ten-Foot Trestle ~ Settling Estates ~ Living In High Horse Country ~  The Dying Generation ~

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