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CHINESE climate experts have urged rich nations to rein in their "wasteful and luxurious" lifestyles and say Australia's carbon reduction targets are insufficient to reverse damaging climate change. Arguing that developed countries needed to take the lead in tackling climate change, the experts told an Australia-China climate conference in Canberra yesterday that any global solution should be based on per capita emissions. Such an approach would be damaging for Australia, which has high per capita emissions. China has the highest total emissions of any country, but its per capita emissions are only about one-fifth of Australia's. ...

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25340480-11949,00.html

If we let more Chinese and other immigrants here we will reduce our per capita emissions.
The question is how many more people we need here to reduce our per capita emissions to one-fifth?

Quote:

If we let more Chinese and other immigrants here we will reduce our per capita emissions. The question is how many more people we need here to reduce our per capita emissions to one-fifth?

How do they figure that out?  Nearly every Chinese person you see walking around the streets or on transport  is stuffing their face with something that has to be grown, slaughtered, processed and then cooked.

The fumes of their products alone - formaldehyde in their manchester, the production of plastics and metals and crops alone are killing more than half a million Chinese each year.

Did these climate experts take into consideration that 2/3 of their population is living in abject poverty and has no access to the processed food, technology and other junk China produces and manufactures?

IMHO, "per capita emissions" is a "red herring"

http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/b52RzkHuF3c/default.jpg
Why can't the whole world take a common sense approach?

Put larger taxes on oil and coal mining. But keep it. A "sin tax" is what we call it over here.
Put larger taxes on things like plastic bags, encourage people to "bring your own bag" to groccery stores and poo.
Develop solar powered cars, or cars that run efficiently on vegetable oil.
I don't know if hemp is legal in your country, but here it's not. So stop catering to the chemichal production companies and produce more things with hemp.
Change the war on drugs to combat ecologicaly hazardous drugs. Such as crystal meth and painkillers that don't breakdown in your system and get into the water. But decriminalize morphine, cocaine, and other drugs that people can consume without harming the Earth.
Put a larger tax on meat. This is a double whammy as I don't believe people are entitled to meat. We ain't starving. And even if we were, meat would not be on the agenda. As we'd be looking for food that was in abundance.
I'd also like some scientific study on "clean nukes". Immagine if we had a nuclear bomb that didn't harm the enviorment! bugger yeah!


Yes, Jim Profit cares about the enviorment. He wants to save all the cute little koala bears and even those ugly ass platypussy!

James, I agree with you on this. Catching own fish or meat without restoring to motors that use long gone animals and/or vegetation also keeps you healthy and down to earth and up to the sky when it is needed.
Unfortunately common sense is not common.

tallowood wrote on Apr 16^th, 2009 at 2:10pm:

IMHO, "per capita emissions" is a "red herring"

It is. We should be working to find alternatives to fossil fuel on a global basis. We might even find that the country that gets there first in terms of renewables will have a considerable commercial advantage.

If 30 years hence, China still relies on burning coal to the extent that it does now, I'd predict a massive downturn in their economy, because I'll predict that other countries will no longer supply, and they will suddenly find themselves with a technology gap.  

I think we can still live a comfortable lifestyle with renewable energy.
With fossil fuel derived energy, our lifestyle is going to be anything but comfortable, even 30 years from now.

Ultimately our target should be 100% reduction in fossil fuel combustion. The sooner we get over this arguing over quotas, the better.

muso - yes, given that fossil fuels are finite, renewables are the solution

I really liked report that mentioned some algae actually producing crude oil right now, that could be refined and used as our renewable liquid fuel.
Problem is that it happens in nature in minuscule quantities, making it to scale of significant fuel supply is effectively mind-boggling and this is where some findings stop.

Had a discussion the other day regarding our wasteful life.
Few obvious issues were mentioned like putting extra jumper on and keeping room temperature say 1 or 2 degrees lower, multiplied by half a billion dwellings that currently are in cooler season making saving enormous.

Double or triple glazed windows should be compulsory irrespectively of climatic location was agreed on.

There were some reservations toward suggested heat exchangers coupled to household ventilation, where we exchange air but retain the energy, despite that all we need is cross-flow arrangement.

Need for integrated heat controller, as at the same time ordinary dwelling needs lower and higher than ambient temperatures, where during summer fridge lowers temperature inside and works against air-conditioner. This heat from air conditioner and fridge could be used to heat water, but as it is now, appliances are independent; Suggested integration was given cold shoulder like too much trouble, almost impossible to contemplate.

But when I mentioned recovery of heat created during cremation ceremony I could clearly see that my discussion partners were not yet ready to go that far.