What does that even mean? I don't see you saying other countries are the emission-emitting bad guys when the U.S. exports stuff to them, yet that seems to be your framing here. China's domestic production dwarfs what most people can even imagine, and that produces most of the pollution. The U.S. contributes to the problem by buying stuff from them, but what you are saying isn't true in relation to the actual data.

I'll reiterate: what do you think is a more achievable solution - having every country stop buying **** from everyone, or getting China to fix their outdated energy policies while the U.S. continues their own policy of domestic emission reduction?

**** your false dichotomy
It means that I can tell that you're not approaching this discussion with an honest aim toward accuracy.

Addressing it on a financial level would be more effective than obsessing over which country is Most to Blame via an unwillingness to recognize confounding factors within your statistics.

It isn't a false dichotomy. You don't have actual solutions. The U.S. isn't going to change their buying habits, so it is a moot point no matter how you try to spin it. Plus if the U.S. was sitting in China's shoes on these graphs, you'd be singing a very different tune.



Just because I look at the data and come to different conclusions than you might doesn't mean I'm not being honest. You are indulging in fallacious thinking here. To put it another way, the fact you brought up a purposely over-the-top joke I made about the U.S. invading China in a completely different discussion doesn't give one any confidence about your particular viewpoints here. Or were you serious with Bat about the eco-terrorism stuff?


Sure. I don't really care if China is the problem or if it turned out to be the U.S. or Saudi Arabia. And like I said, you'd be singing a different tune if those stats reflected a different hierarchy. And you didn't even believe me anyway until I showed you a few articles, so that was your previous line of attack. If you just want to play a game of move the goalposts then by all means, be my guest.

All the more reason for China to get off of coal at this point. There's no way that's the most cost effective option they have.

Nah.

You're dishonest because of your history as a troll going down the standard tree of conservative talking points, misframing of your opposition, attempts to lay a groundwork of falsehoods to drive the conversation, etc etc.

I'm not super interested in making you out to be a bad man though, I'm just here to identify some of the falsehoods for others.

It's the functional outcome of what you're calling for. Tell him, jwb.

This is a global issue so no, I wouldn't. It's probably better if you base this conversation on things I have said instead of imagined arguments you've dishonestly constructed for me in order to frame a cheap gotcha argument.

I'm well aware of the media campaign intended to manufacture western consent of war with china and never even rejected their level of emissions. I'm mainly pointing out that it's entwined with american consumption, so america effectively (as opposed to performatively as we've been seeing) going net zero or even negative on emissions would include their relationship with china.

You introduced the nation-based goalpost btw.

Hey now, leave him out of this. He has a cocaine empire to build.


I read what you said, and there's nothing to imagine here. I went back into those articles and found that your particular assertions about America and China's production relationship doesn't seem to account for most of the cited emission numbers. Rather, their coal production for domestic products and cement production are the largest contributing factors. There's no "gotcha" here - I just found your generalizations to be inaccurate.

See though, I don't think you and I really disagree on these issues. You just don't have a strong grasp on my actual positions on most topics, so you tend to approach arguments with me ineffectually.

I never introduced this as some goalpost-oriented topic. I made a point that if you want to deal with emissions, you need to change China because by extension it would be more effective in a macro-sense since every other country (U.S., the EU, Russia, etc.) buy from them. The U.S. has been lowering carbon emission rates consistently for years now and under Biden will likely accelerate that trend - the CCP is a different story, hence the data and why pushing for change over there might be beneficial in regards to solving the climate change problem at a larger level.

You literally imagined what I "would" say.

My generalizations about tackling the financial incentives surrounding environmental destruction address something broader than your nation-obsessed goalpost.

That would introducing a goalpost attempting to reduce the conversation to which nation is the most to blame.

The u.s. has not functionally lowered its emissions because it outsources a good deal of industry to other countries that pick up the tab and some of the local reductions are not enough under the half-measures being implemented. Another confounding factor is that international shipping is also difficult to pin on one country and accounts for a great deal of global emissions. Then the countries where the emissions are offset to receive the blame for them, justifying the imperialist interference underpinning your calls to do "something" about those crazy chinamen in the public consciousness. This is why reducing the conversation to which nation is most to blame distorts the issue at hand. That's the function of these talking points that you apparently think nobody here has seen before.

That sounds like you being unable to comprehend where I'm disagreeing with your statements more than anything.

I don't think any kind of "imperialist interference" would solve these problems though. Only technological shifts I've previously discussed will solve the underlying issues.

Implication exists, you know.

Those shifts would be implemented by the same people wreaking environmental havok so I'm not so optimistic.

I understand the motive but like I've said I'm skeptical as to how well that would actually work.

Seems more likely to just create unnecessary death and destruction while not helping the environment one bit imo

If the hypothetical is purely that the terrorism is highly effective as attaining its goal without significant collateral damage then maybe... But that sounds more like a movie than reality to me