Hawaii Decarbonization Settlement 2045

[HiloJulie]

HiloJulie - the primary unsustainable elephant in the room is 8 billion people worldwide.

Total impact is the of number of people times the consumption of those people. Given that each person on average in the US emits 4x the amount of CO2 as the world average, it's a bit rich to be claiming that the other ~7.5 billion people living lower-polluting lifestyles are the real problem. When one country has only ~5% of the world population, but consumes 25% of the resources, it's not just the "man in the mirror", but 7 Brazilians or 18 Nicaraguans or 148 Madagascans that may want to have a talk with you about your excessive consumption for a single lifestyle.

What is your proposal for solving the current population/consumption dilemma?

First and foremost, per capita measurements are statistics. They equalize a measurement based on one constant. Similar to percentages used in accounting.

That being said, and with no doubt, the United States is on a per capita basis, a carbon emitting pig. It actually ranks 12th of all countries – per capita wise. (see below) But that per capita measurement conveniently ignores that between China and India alone, which represents just under 3 billion of the world’s 8 billion people, chug out 14,000 million metric tons of CO2 a year compared to the US at 5,000 million metric tons with 330 million people. On a per capita basis of measurement, both China and India come off much better than the US, but contribute almost 3 times the CO2 emissions as the US does. Further, when you consider that both China and India have a significant majority of their populations living in pure abject poverty, the distortions of per capita measurements become even fuzzier. While China has vastly improved its poverty conditions, most of India’s population live on less than one dollar a day.

In as much as on a per capita basis, the US is 3 to 4 times higher than the world average, it ranks 12th in the overall ranking of metric tonnes per person.

COUNTRY/PER CAPITA METRIC TONNES CO2/YR

Qatar 40.10
Trinidad & Tobago 37.78
Kuwait 34.24
Netherlands Antilles 23.55
Brunei Darussalam 22.96
United Arab Emirates 22.31
Aruba 21.59
Luxembourg 21.34
Oman 20.56
Falkland Islands 19.56
Bahrain 19.18
United States 17.50

Furthermore, using the per capita basis of measurement for CO2 emissions, that equalizes you and me, with you producing the same amount of CO2 gasses as I do, so I am quite sure those 7 Brazilians or 18 Nicaraguans or 148 Madagascans would love to talk to you as well.

Unfortunately, climate change does not stop and start at a country’s line of demarcation. Or each individual's specific CO2 output. It's everybody's problem. It’s a world problem. A world made up of 195 countries. Even if one country was responsible for 100% of all carbon emissions, the other 194 are going to feel the same impact.

As for the world population dilemma, the most fundamental “paradigm” change needed is, in my opinion, two-fold. First and foremost, the removal of all things religious in terms of human reproduction. Secondly, the removal of all things political with respect to human reproduction. Further, through a commitment of education in math, engineering, science, technical and medical disciplines. When a religion/political party regulates the human reproductive system, we end up where America is right now as it relates to a virtual ban on abortions coupled with an ever-threating stance of no birth control. On the other hand, China tried the only one baby route, which caused mass abortions and forced sterilizations. Then it allowed two babies. Now, it’s evolved and allows three. Still with mass abortions and forced sterilization.

ANY government regulation of human reproduction, especially if fueled by religion, is no way dealing with the issue. Strong education of our youth, especially sexual education is paramount for dealing with human growth rates without it being a downright method of torture, especially for the woman who has to carry and birth unwanted babies. Instead of forcing the ten commandments to be posted in every classroom, let’s bring the kids together and go thru and teach them the basic facts of life as well as the overall commitment as to what having a child is, what it’s going to cost them, their loss of freedoms so on and so forth. Spell out the reality of pro creation in vivid detail to our youth instead of it being a disgusting act to even talk about it. You want to keep teenage boys from having sex with their unsuspecting, naive and uneducated girlfriends? Have them watch a video of the birth of a child every day in school for a few weeks. Toss in a few caesarian births. Let them see a child still born and the mother bleeding out and dying.

Then there are various religions that allow multiple wives thus pro creating in some parts of the world a staggering number of offspring. Right here in America we have hit television shows celebrating one husband and wife having a dozen kids plus. All because “god told them too.”

As for the world’s consumption dilemma, well, unfortunately, a lot of that problem falls on America, and fueled to huge proportions with what’s known as Amazon. Just look at the volume of threads right here on PunaWeb, mostly bitching about the slow shipping times to get stuff ordered on Amazon. Tomorrow is Amazon Prime Day – with an estimated 14 billion dollars in sales projected. And the purchaser never got off their fat ass to buy anything, of which, if they had to physically go out and buy, most likely would NOT do so. The “I want it yesterday” mentality of most Americans is by far a vast contributor to CO2 emissions. And that mentality has spread to a lot of other “1st world” countries mighty fast.

And to think, we have not even discussed how you feed 8 billion people.

While having a nice vegetable garden in your backyard may work for some, it’s hardly the answer to the question. Thus, the requirement of “mega farms” is that much more important – which leads to more CO2 emissions. And even that being said, it is amazing what technology has done for today’s farming – here in America and several other advanced countries which has significantly lowered farm-based CO2 emissions.

For example, my husband has relatives that are rather large corn/soybean farmers in Minnesota. Their farm lands have been programmed into GPS satellites that from initial tilling, to seeding, to various applications of fertilizers etc., to combine harvest, the GPS controls the tractor – allowing for the whole process to go much faster as well as eliminating much waste of the crop by simply keeping the tractors/seeders/sprayers/combine wheels/tracks in the exact same spot and between the rows of planted corn/soybeans so as to not “crush” large parts of the crop – in addition to doing all of that at a much faster pace than just a guy behind the wheel can.

Climate change is everybody’s issue. Your issue. My issue. Americas issue. The whole worlds issue. And, quite frankly, come this November, most likely will get even worse - for America that is. Take a look in that mirror!

Here are a few data links to view at your leisure:  

https://cotap.org/per-capita-carbon-co2-emissions-by-country/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkdO0BhDxARIsANkNcrfV8ewECJYVlAl6BCik-GEJjmeGGMUmObbyEN4frw8lPg25r8bJv4EaAgyaEALw_wcB

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/in...de-co2.asp

https://www.worldometers.info/world-popu...y-country/