Do NASA's observations rebut the Greens rhetoric?

[old man emu]

Greens climate change and energy spokesperson Adam Bandt MP said, "We're one of the worst polluters in the world. Instead of trying to wriggle out of our climate commitments and inhibiting coordinated global action to reduce emissions, we should be leading the way and encouraging other countries to follow." Government confirms climate accounting trick as pollution continues to rise: Greens

 

However, analysis of data obtained from NASA's observations clearly indicates that Australia, and most of the Southern Hemisphere countries hardly contribute to global CO2 levels through human activity (Look at the red bits). South of the Equator, most carbon enters the atmosphere as carbon monoxide generated by naturally occurring forest fires. (I'll admit to some contribution from fossil fuel usage around urban areas south of the Line.) So who is distorting the facts?

 

 

[facthunter]

Per CAPITA we are right up there in the pollution issue. Worst or second worst. To argue we are too small to matter is dodging the morality and responsibility aspects of it. A lot of small populations add up to something not small. IF we don't do our share we have no decency and will fall foul inevitably of sanctions by countries that have done the hard yard and rightly so. No one is entitled to a free ride especially when they have such a high standard of living compared to others. Nev

 

 

[octave]

The amount of tax I pay is minuscule when compared to the total tax take. Being self-employed I could probably pay no tax and get away with it. It wouldn't make much difference would it, I mean as long as everyone else did their bit.

 

 

[Yenn]

We keep seeing that per capita we are the worst polluters, but I have never seen any figures published to prove this. Given that everyone pushes their own barrow and we get facts distorted all ways to bolster someones argument, I take it all with a grain of salt.

 

Even if we are the highest polluters, I am not one of the highest polluters and if I could make a 5% improvement, it would have no impact on Australia as a whole.

 

What would make an immediate impact is if we stopped exporting coal to China and India. Even if we started producing all those goods we used to produce and are now produced by China we would lower world pollution rates.

 

 

[old man emu]

I won't argue the per capita calculation, but that calculation is influenced by the economic standard of the people of each country.

 

These Population Density figures from the World Bank Population density (people per sq. km of land area) | Data show persons per sq. km. of land area of the data source

 

1. Australia: 3 per sq km
    
   
2. USA: 36
    
   
3. EU: 121
    
   
4. China: 148
    
   
5. India: 450
    
   
6. Sth Korea: 528
    
   
7. Bangladesh: 1265
    
   

 

Is each and every person generating greenhouse gases from exactly the same activity? If not, then it stands to reason that the higher a country's population the lower will be its per capita contribution to the total amount generated.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

China and India would still need coal and source the same amount elsewhere. Australia's coal is "cleaner" than much of theirs and our mines are certainly cleaner and safer than theirs. So we would be exporting pollution, death and injury by denying them our product.

 

 

[facthunter]

Usage per capita is affected by living standards and size of the place. The more luxurious your lifestyle the more energy dependent you're likely to be. Plastics come into this and the amount of garbage per person/year. The poor countries don't pollute much per person. It's only when they live like us, there becomes a problem..

 

Pmc that's the usual line run by the COAL mining companies. Delhi already has so much pollution they are dying young from it regardless of how "CLEAN" Coal is said to be. It's nearly pure carbon so NONE of it is clean. We have "Black Lung Disease" here. That should be a thing of the past. if what you say is true. Spend a few days in Newcastle and see how the dust from the mines is everywhere. Nev

 

 

[old man emu]

How about we just tell China we won't buy anything that is over-packaged with hydrocarbon-based coverings and multi-coloured cardboard. In fact, let's tell them to stop dumping all forms of plastic on us.

 

Sorry! We can't do that because:

 

1. If we tell them their actions are affecting us, it's a racist attack on the starving masses of Asia
    
   
2. If we tell them to stop over-packaging, it will throw masses of Asians out of work to starve.
    
   
3. If we tell them we want to reduce the amount of plastic waste that comes with their products, it's a reneging on trade treaties.
    
   
4. If we tell them their products are low quality knock-offs that we don't want, they'll still keep pushing them out. 22 million people is a minuscule market place.
    
   
5. If we tell them to stop ignoring our foreign ownership laws, they'll just buy another government which will allow it.
    
   

 

 

[octave]

How about we just tell China we won't buy anything that is over-packaged with hydrocarbon-based coverings and multi-coloured cardboard. In fact, let's tell them to stop dumping all forms of plastic on us.

Sorry! We can't do that because:

 

1. If we tell them their actions are affecting us, it's a racist attack on the starving masses of Asia
    
   
2. If we tell them to stop over-packaging, it will throw masses of Asians out of work to starve.
    
   
3. If we tell them we want to reduce the amount of plastic waste that comes with their products, it's a reneging on trade treaties.
    
   
4. If we tell them their products are low quality knock-offs that we don't want, they'll still keep pushing them out. 22 million people is a minuscule market place.
    
   
5. If we tell them to stop ignoring our foreign ownership laws, they'll just buy another government which will allow it.
    
   

Not even sure how we would go about telling them we don't want to buy their low-quality knockoffs.

 

" please stop selling me this item I keep buying from you"

 

 

[Methusala]

As well as the obvious cheap quality consumer trash that we buy from China they also produce much of the high quality componentary that enables airliners, cars, trucks and heavy industrial machinery to function. As much as people will wish that a global climate catastrophe is not happening...it is. Australian coal and gas fuels much of the CO2.

 

 

[old man emu]

Australian coal and gas fuels much of the CO2.

 

In that case, the only moral thing to do is to cease mining the stuff.

 

 

[nomadpete]

The mining itself is outside our control.

 

Our choice of purchase is the only control we have.

 

Unfortunately most of us Aussies are cheepskates. Its a kind of economic democracy where the majority vote with their dollars.

 

And we get more and more of what we vote for, then complain that we are getting exactly what we voted for - cheap junk.

 

 

[storchy neil]

What would make an immediate impact is if we stopped exporting coal to China and India.

 

yes yen it would make a immediate impact no bloody hospitals no bloody money for the dole no bloody work no police they wont work for nothing brilliant yen I think not neil

 

 

[old man emu]

Happy Australia Day!

 

Let's all get out there and sell our land, our resources, our culture and our souls.

 

Is it any wonder that the Aboriginal peoples hate us? They sustained a whole continent for over 40,000 years. Non-Aboriginals have managed to dig up and ship off cubic kilometres of it; denude the hills of vegetation for millions of square kilometres, and filled the abandoned holes with the detritus of avarice, all in the space of 200 years.

 

What's Australia become? A once-proud, God-fearing society of toilers which raised itself from poverty to being part of the First World, but whose lotus-eating is fast spiraling it into a society of coolies and chai wallahs for the Asian hordes.

 

 

[Marty_d]

OME, your second paragraph

 

"which raised itself from poverty to being part of the First World "

 

is largely due to your first

 

"Non-Aboriginals have managed to dig up and ship off cubic kilometres of it; denude the hills of vegetation for millions of square kilometres, and filled the abandoned holes with the detritus of avarice, all in the space of 200 years. "

 

Having raised ourselves to first-world status, perhaps we can start using our brain instead of brawn to maintain our position in the world without having to rape and pillage the earth further.

 

You mention becoming "chai wallahs for the Asian hordes"... I think that parting Asian (or any other) tourists from their hard-earned renminbi is an entirely laudable concept. As are science, education, arts, and sustainable industries of all kinds.

 

Not that sustainable industries are flourishing in a country whose government contains a reactionary right-wing rump who deny facts, support polluters and undermine science.

 

 

[octave]

Happy Australia Day!

Let's all get out there and sell our land, our resources, our culture and our souls.

 

Is it any wonder that the Aboriginal peoples hate us? They sustained a whole continent for over 40,000 years. Non-Aboriginals have managed to dig up and ship off cubic kilometres of it; denude the hills of vegetation for millions of square kilometres, and filled the abandoned holes with the detritus of avarice, all in the space of 200 years.

 

What's Australia become? A once-proud, God-fearing society of toilers which raised itself from poverty to being part of the First World, but whose lotus-eating is fast spiraling it into a society of coolies and chai wallahs for the Asian hordes.

That's bleak.

 

It might surprise people that in spite of what I post about issues like climate change I am in fact an optimist. Although it is quite common to romanticize the past I believe that the best time in history to be alive is now.

 

On almost any benchmark you can find we are better off than in the past. Of course, we have many problems in our society to tackle but this has always been true.

 

 

[facthunter]

Our benefits have been obtained at an ignored hidden cost, that of degradation of the planet which we have only had the ability to do for the last 250 years as a result of the industrial revolution and population increase. We have NOT paid the full cost of the damage as we have profited and made ourselves comfortable and surrounded by toys and excess, pretending all is well if we keep on doing the same thing, because the poor feel the problem more than WE do. Well off can mask the changes and isolate them selves from it. (they think).. and allow "all for profit" to cope with the matter. Well that won't work ,because profits are normally short term considerations. and you will hear "I'll be dead by then" as a response to climate evidence, more and more rather than do something about it. Keep making money (for the powerful minority) is the aim THEY control the news and most governments and you better believe it., while you still have the vote. Nev

 

 

[spacesailor]

"It might surprise people that in spite of what I post about issues like climate change I am in fact an optimist. Although it is quite common to romanticize the past I believe that the best time in history to be alive is now. ".

 

IT always WAS !.

 

My Grand dad told me in the fifties, , after he fought in three wars, Wounded in each.

 

That's optimism.

 

FactHunter

 

That's a Conspiracy from the 1% making us believe " Greed is Good" (keeting).

 

He sent hundreds bankrupt, & thousands of foreclosures with his 17.7% mortgage interest.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Aboriginal Australians operated mines across the continent for thousands of years, to the limit of their technical ability to mine them for flint and ochre. Don’t pretend that mining is a whitey innovation.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Aboriginal Australians operated mines across the continent for thousands of years, to the limit of their technical ability to mine them for flint and ochre. Don’t pretend that mining is a whitey innovation.

Even if they had the ability to strip mine for flint and ochre, I don't think they would have. They cared for the land they lived on.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Even if they had the ability to strip mine for flint and ochre, I don't think they would have. They cared for the land they lived on.

I used to share that romantic notion, Marty, but a lifetime of living near and working with indig. people has led me to question that. There are plenty of places where people have, over thousands of years, really changed the land thru quarrying. I agree there was respect for the land, but I suspect that nomadic lifestyle and low population density was the main factor that limited their impact on the landscape.

 

Wherever modern Aboriginal people live in permanent settlements they tend to bugger up the place at least as much as white fellas.

 

 

[facthunter]

They didn't get involved with cyanide and heavy metals and affect the environment and water they depend on so completely. Tap a bore and just leave it running. Aboriginals would use a part of the tree, b not kill it, never clear fell etc. They were appalled by what the early settlers did to degrade the land . The story of most settlement is take the lands riches and resources and make money, and bugger anyone else.. Consider the Cedars and exotic timbers of the NSW Ranges as an example. Mining is necessary but the damage (all of it) must be taken into the equation and not just left to someone else to fix later when the profits have gone overseas to places like Switzerland where the consequences are not even thought about. Out of sight and out of mind.. How much topsoil and creek bank erosion has been lost for wheat production with excess tilling and overstocking? This environment is very delicate and fragile.. NO ONE has the entitlement to destroy it. Nev

 

 

[pmccarthy]

They didn't get involved with cyanide and heavy metals and affect the environment and water they depend on so completely. Tap a bore and just leave it running. Aboriginals would use a part of the tree, b not kill it, never clear fell etc. They were appalled by what the early settlers did to degrade the land . The story of most settlement is take the lands riches and resources and make money, and bugger anyone else.. Consider the Cedars and exotic timbers of the NSW Ranges as an example. Mining is necessary but the damage (all of it) must be taken into the equation and not just left to someone else to fix later when the profits have gone overseas to places like Switzerland where the consequences are not even thought about. Out of sight and out of mind.. How much topsoil and creek bank erosion has been lost for wheat production with excess tilling and overstocking? This environment is very delicate and fragile.. NO ONE has the entitlement to destroy it. Nev

I agree 100%. I have seen many bores in the GAB running to waste on pastoral properties. Yes, miners should completely clean up after themselves. I am appalled by the state Qld strip mines have been left in. It is a failure of regulation (ie government) because company directors have legal obligations to shareholders to maximise benefits (which means minimise costs) and to governments to comply with legislation so they don't have the authority or discretion to spend more than the government requires.

 

 

[Litespeed]

Mining creates only approx 5% of our GDP and 1% of jobs.

 

So we could easily afford not to do it, especially since it uses foreign capital, equipment and rarely pays any tax.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Mining produces nearly all our worldly goods! Back to the caves for you Litespeed.