Carbon footprint

Whenever I post anything about anthropogenic climate change, I get " What about China? " comments. It is true that the U.S. has actually reduced its carbon emissions slightly in recent years, and that China has now surpassed the U.S. in annual emissions. But we ' re still the #2 emitter in the world. Growing emissions from India are also a problem. Note that because the U.S. was the #1 emitter for most of the industrial age, we ' re still far an away responsible for the largest cumulative amount of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere.   Here ' s the story for the whole planet right now.  So yes, if we want to solve this problem we ' re going to need China,  India and the EU to get serious about it, as well as the U.S., and obviously the rest of the world also matters. China is the world ' s largest manufacturer of photovoltaics, but they ' ve built their industrial economy on coal and they ' re still dependent on it. So what can the U.S. do about China? The Chinese leadership certainly says that they take the problem seriously and they intend to address it. I have to assume that ' s true but they haven ' t been able to make the transition so far. So we need to collaborate with them in trade and technology. We need to buy their photovoltaics and other green technology, to encourage those industries in China as well as use the products ourselves. We are more technologically innovative and we need to share technology with the rest of the world....
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs