Re-freezing Arctic with a submarine

[Ice-Tea]

Murder? Who's talking about murder?

What baffles me is how folks seem to be willing to accept pretty much anything in the name of global warming (Consume less! No more meat! No more plane hollidays! Smaller houses! Spend a gazzilion dollars!) even though whatever we do probably won't even outpace the population explosion.

However, having less children is hardly ever mentioned and when you do people react all strange.

[SerieZ]

Murder? Who's talking about murder?

What baffles me is how folks seem to be willing to accept pretty much anything in the name of global warming (Consume less! No more meat! No more plane hollidays! Smaller houses! Spend a gazzilion dollars!) even though whatever we do probably won't even outpace the population explosion.

However, having less children is hardly ever mentioned and when you do people react all strange.

I fail to see the point when we do it here in Europe (without Migration most european nations already have declining Population) and then they go and talk about Demographic decline and start to Import foreigners.
Maybe take this subject to China, India, Africa, Latin America or maybe even North America. 
Doubt they are interested tho.

[Simon]

Murder? Who's talking about murder?

What baffles me is how folks seem to be willing to accept pretty much anything in the name of global warming (Consume less! No more meat! No more plane hollidays! Smaller houses! Spend a gazzilion dollars!) even though whatever we do probably won't even outpace the population explosion.

However, having less children is hardly ever mentioned and when you do people react all strange.

The more advanced countries tend to have less children. Where children survival is less guaranteed (and they are less used to contraception) they have more. In theory as a country advances people start to have less children.

But we do have to consume less. Even I am over weight and I can certainly eat less meat. Look at you inboxes, isn't it full of black friday deals emails ? why? how many people are goiung to consume more because they were encouraged to do so by so called limited time offers.

Yes technology advances but we change equipment far too often just to have the latest thing. I hate to think how many not very old 4K screen will be dumped as soo as 8K arrives when 4K is fine for the average consumer in fact 8K will only have niche applications but I am sure in less than 5 years everyone will want one even if we don't need it.

The relentless smartphone market and provider contracts that keep pushing new phones onto us to keep us locked to them. I just buy a phone for less than I can get the same one on contract and keep it as long as i can. We have to stop consuming.

The harm to the economy is a stupid argument. this is going to cost either way and lets face it, who is actually benefiting from economic growth?

[magic]

What baffles me is how folks seem to be willing to accept pretty much anything in the name of global warming (Consume less! No more meat! No more plane hollidays! Smaller houses! Spend a gazzilion dollars!) even though whatever we do probably won't even outpace the population explosion.

However, having less children is hardly ever mentioned and when you do people react all strange.

Because meaningfully reducing the problem of pollution with humans would necessitate genocidal action against a continent or two on a scale never seen before
Nobody wants to be the next Hitler and those do are looked at weird.

[Ice-Tea]

I honnestly don't get it. Genocide? I'm talking about birth rate control. For starters: introducing it in the debate might be a good begin. Now it seems to be the last big taboo.

It's quite simple. With regardless what pupulation growth, and with regarless what GW countermeasures you take, it is a mathematical certainty we will sooner or later surpass whatever limit you impose on total global warming impact. Likewise, it is a mathematical certainty that with a population decline we will sooner or later arrive in a position where we can all enjoy our current lifestyles without too many issues.

[SerieZ]

I honnestly don't get it. Genocide? I'm talking about birth rate control. For starters: introducing it in the debate might be a good begin. Now it seems to be the last big taboo.

It's quite simple. With regardless what pupulation growth, and with regarless what GW countermeasures you take, it is a mathematical certainty we will sooner or later surpass whatever limit you impose on total global warming impact. Likewise, it is a mathematical certainty that with a population decline we will sooner or later arrive in a position where we can all enjoy our current lifestyles without too many issues.

You make it sound so Trivial and easy... but hey you are right about the taboos, at least we should be talking about it!

If you ask for my humble Opinion Id rather let Nature take over this issue and we, the west, stop aiding those people who pop out Children like it is pre-industralization times. Let them learn by themselves and let nature be the educator.
Also Id like to chip in that People who "just know better" on such subjects have a weird historical tendency to make it worse for everyone involved.

There is a certain big Country in Asia that already tried Governmental enforced Birth Control with results which, arguably, were pretty bad overall and did not really help even mitigate the Issue at hand - too many Humans. (At least that was my notion of the Chinese 1 Child Program - I am not really educated enough on the subject)

Either we get there by implementing arguably dystopian government policies and force others to do the same or we let nature do its thing (by that I include the possibility smarter Humans figure out a better solution for everyone).
I know which one I prefer. 

[Simon]

The problem with Global warming is that for every person that has half an idea about it there are 10 to 1 hippies that will fall for anything with cool presentations and there 10 to 1 people who are clueless and need guidance but are not getting any.

[Simon]

Of course there is a massive market in taking advantage of both without actually doing anything.

[texaspyro]

Unfortunately it is not. Architects who came-up with this nonsense seems to believe that their dumb invention will not require any energy to operate.

No extra energy required plan: 
   1) collect all the ice cube remnants from restaurants and bars 
   2) load them up into SpaceX Starliners
   3) dump ice cubes into the ocean
   4) profit!!

[Doom-the-Squirrel]

Just be sure to follow the Rules of Acquisition. 


Meanwhile, that sounds like a plan! I'm glad to be a part of it! Let's do it!

[Nominal Animal]

If we were serious about reducing negative anthropogenic effects on Earth, we would simply use the humane solution we have: adding contraceptives into the food sold to third-world countries, and coupling contraceptives with government support.

We could also use a much more effective and faster solution -- neutron bombs -- but I for one would prefer to avoid mass murder.

Humankind is too antagonistic by its very nature, for a significant majority to ever voluntarily restrict or give up comforts for other people they never see, and look different than themselves.  This is not sociology, this is biology; a direct result of our evolution, that you cannot "program" out of humans. You can try, like Chinese did with their one-child policy, but the results of such attempts have thus far never been positive.

(Aside from mass murder, of course.  It is effective, even if monstrous.)

Even if a significant fraction managed to limit their birth rate and reduce their quality of living to reduce the amount of total pollution, a different faction would take advantage of that, and cause a rift that would nullify the efforts.  Consider the fairness tests done on primates: if you give one monkey grapes, and the other pieces of cucumber, the one getting the cucumber feels slighted and will be enraged even though they did get a nice treat for free.  Just because the other one got something they didn't, they feel they were wronged.  Understanding this is key.  Trying to change this will fail.

The hard truth is that to make significant changes to the "trajectory" mankind is on, we'd have to decimate our numbers.

However, looking backwards, this trajectory hasn't been nowhere nearly so apocalyptic as various proselytes have claimed it is.  We haven't drowned in horse dung, we haven't killed ourselves off with coal dust or coal-fire smokes, we have avoided the nuclear holocaust thus far, and we are even decreasing the fraction of humans living in abject poverty and dying of hunger and illnesses.  We are doing better than before.

There is no evidence supporting the death of humankind, or all life on Earth, within a decade or even a century.  The projected temperature increases and the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere might be deadly to current human societies, but life on the planet is not threatened, because at other epochs life has thrived in the conditions projected.  Certain places, like areas around the Arctic Circle, would become more, not less, hospitable to human life, so even human extinction is a ridiculous exaggeration, even if the worst projections were true.  (Such areas are also places where there is ample potable water.)

Just like with "humanitarian help" to third world countries, we aren't actually making much of a difference in the projected trajectories, only increasing the number of humans that the next catastrophe will kill.  It could be a huge tsunami due to underwater landslides (like the one that sunk Doggerland a few thousand years ago) or due to a large meteorite or space rock, a chain of volcanoes, a particularly virulent disease, or one of a dozen other things.

I find the shortsightedness of our species more dangerous and a bigger flaw, than even our propensity for near-ceaseless warfare.  Even for I myself it is very hard to look at the facts objectively, without coloring them with emotion, when future and survival of children, family, and kin is involved.

[PlainName]

adding contraceptives into the food sold to third-world countries

That highlights the main problem: NIMBY-ism. It's OK to do it to them so that we don't have to.

A much better solution would be to prematurely bump off the illiterate and those with below average intelligence once they get too old to be productive doing manual work. Those third-worlders just need decent education and a chance, and many of them would then make us first-worlders look simple.

Skipping back a paragraph, why do we still allow IVF? Surely we could say that's just Nature's lottery, but of course one has the God-given right to bear children, and that's the main issue with a growing population. Mustn't interfere with anyone's rights.

we are even decreasing the fraction of humans living in abject poverty

Really? For how much longer, if so? The gap between the (very very) few richest and poorest is getting bigger, so most people may not be in abject poverty but they are getting relatively poorer, and a couple or three are living like Croesus on steroids. It's not going to end up with everyone sharing wealth, you know!

[magic]

Sorry to be that guy, but neutron bombs are tactical weapons designed to penetrate thick armors at close distance; at farther distance the neutrons are stopped by air. You're better off harnessing them to fission uranium for more yield, which is indeed how the so-called hydrogen bomb works. For saving the planet we should consider strategic weapons; one 100 megaton Big Ivan would roast everybody within tens of km.

Those third-worlders just need decent education and a chance, and many of them would then make us first-worlders look simple.

Dude, they used to say the same about Europeans in the 19th century and look what happened. The most overcrowded continent and as full of stupidity as ever
But a few of them were smart enough to invent consumer electronics, advertisements and planned obsolescence, damnit, so impressive.

Skipping back a paragraph, why do we still allow IVF? Surely we could say that's just Nature's lottery, but of course one has the God-given right to bear children, and that's the main issue with a growing population. Mustn't interfere with anyone's rights.

It's condemned by every serious religion out there. But yeah, in that country which shall remain nameless everything that somebody wants somehow always is "God given" and "constitutional" even if it's not

[dietert1]

Apropos looking simple. I think for most humans free will and being resposible are categories not applicable. The overwhelming majority is determined by their habits. Humans are much more like animals than they may think. An example: Our dog (an eight year old german sheppard) goes shopping. She has a basic understanding where to get certain goodies and she will make sure that we pass by the shop when taking a walk. She also knows that once we go there, we will have several of the goodies and she roughly counts how many she already got and when it's time to go there again. Of course she doesn't talk like we do, but she certainly knows how to express herself.
Another idea that troubles me: Robbery is a business model that competes favorable with most others, except you may later find yourself in trouble. I think that's a valid description of what's going on. Humans are robbing the goodies of the planet to realize their ideas and to shut down competitors. And in the end they will find themselves in a prison. The day before yesterday the EU council declared a state of climate emergency. This is the beginning of a process that may finally terminate democracy. In the future governments all over the world may have to enforce drastic measures to keep basic conditions of human society intact. It will probably resemble more the Chinese than the Western model.

Regards, Dieter

[Simon]

The problem is that it is the west causing most of the emissions. Fortunately many of the growing economies are shifting faster to renewable's now that the tech is available.

No we can't live in the arctic circle it's err.... all water. South pole (antarctic) maybe but really are we planning on how to survive something we should be trying to stop? and simply moving there and carrying on won't help because if we don't try to do something things will still become un-survivable in the antarctic.

People don't like change, in the past the inability to adapt meant you died out. Problem here is there are so many that won't adapt that they will wipe the rest of us out. There are too many stupid people out there and sadly getting rid of them is not an option.

[Nominal Animal]

Sorry to be that guy, but neutron bombs are tactical weapons designed to penetrate thick armors at close distance; at farther distance the neutrons are stopped by air.

They're excellent at depopulating densely populated cities, and neutralizing deep bunkers where the leaders are.  Do not forget the psychological effects.  (Nobody seems to have taken notice of how oddly Russian males life expectancy evolved in the two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union.)

The problem with uranium and plutonium is their chemical toxicity.  I know most people fear radiation, but it's really not an issue compared to the heavy metal toxicity and DNA damage they cause, and accumulate in predator species, causing long-term fertility and reproductive issues.
(The LD₅₀ dose due to radiation is several times larger than due to chemical toxicity, even for the radioactive isotopes.  Chemical toxicity kills you way before you have to worry about the radiation.)

one 100 megaton Big Ivan would roast everybody within tens of km.

The downside is that the heavy metal particulates get thrown so high up in the atmosphere, that they essentially blanket the entire world.  It would be much better to use a large number of smaller, limited-yield nuclear devices to generate barriers and death zones.

Those third-worlders just need decent education and a chance

As long as their population growth is unchecked, that will not happen.  When their population growth is curbed, they can use the resources for education and family planning.

The problem is that it is the west causing most of the emissions.

EU accounted for 9.51% of fossil CO₂ emissions in 2017 with a drop of 19.5% from 1990; US 13.77% with basically no change from 1990, and Russia 4.76% with a 25.8% drop from 1990, so about 30% overall, and all except US dropping their emissions.

So, what the fuck is the "west causing most" that you are talking about?

Or are you saying that you feel like the west is responsible?

No we can't live in the arctic circle it's err.... all water.

Bullshit.  Look at the map.  Greenland, Siberia, northern Canada will all be prime estate land, with roughly current Central/Southern European climate.  Very good for agriculture.

However, there's people already there, and at least in Nordic countries, are getting very fed up with the EU/UN population replacement programs currently underway.

It will not be able to carry several billion humans, no; but perhaps a couple of hundred million, in excellent comfort, even if the rest of the world becomes a hot dry desert.  No risk of human extinction, or extinction of life in general, was my point.

[Simon]

EU accounted for 9.51% of fossil CO₂ emissions in 2017 with a drop of 19.5% from 1990; US 13.77% with basically no change from 1990, and Russia 4.76% with a 25.8% drop from 1990, so about 30% overall, and all except US dropping their emissions.

So, what the fuck is the "west causing most" that you are talking about?

Or are you saying that you feel like the west is responsible?

No we can't live in the arctic circle it's err.... all water.

Bullshit.  Look at the map.  Greenland, Siberia, northern Canada will all be prime estate land, with roughly current Central/Southern European climate.  Very good for agriculture.

However, there's people already there, and at least in Nordic countries, are getting very fed up with the EU/UN population replacement programs currently underway.

It will not be able to carry several billion humans, no; but perhaps a couple of hundred million, in excellent comfort, even if the rest of the world becomes a hot dry desert.  No risk of human extinction, or extinction of life in general, was my point.

Ok so I take that nothing made in china or shipped from china has anything to do with Europe or the US? Yes our emissions have droped. UK electricity consumption has stabilized and dropped a bit due to the better efficiency of our products.

If you look at the real picture: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Total_CO2_emissions_by_country_in_2017_vs_per_capita_emissions_%28top_40_countries%29.svg/1920px-Total_CO2_emissions_by_country_in_2017_vs_per_capita_emissions_%28top_40_countries%29.svg.png you see that apart from the oil rich arab states the west is up there per head. and china make all our stuff so don't blame it on them.

[coppice]

Bullshit.  Look at the map.  Greenland, Siberia, northern Canada will all be prime estate land, with roughly current Central/Southern European climate.  Very good for agriculture.

Unfortunately a lot of that land mass is permafrost, which won't remain frosty with a lot of global warming. How many people can farm and live on a bog?

[Nominal Animal]

Ok so I take that nothing made in china or shipped from china has anything to do with Europe or the US? Yes our emissions have droped. UK electricity consumption has stabilized and dropped a bit due to the better efficiency of our products.

Countries like Finland have invested a lot into scrubbing emissions from coal powered energy and heat plants.

I have this principle that if you have to construct complicated dependency chains to find the root who to blame, there is something wrong in the logic.

In your case, it seems like you believe Europe or the US has forced China to produce stuff and sell them to Europe.  That's not how it happened.  China chose to ignore pollution in order to gain a commercial advantage.  It's on them.  In fact, you probably don't even realize that China has restarted manufacturing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, i.e. freon) to use as a cheap refrigerant in their internal market, even though they claim they have forbidden their manufacture just as about every other country on this planet has.

If you consider a bit deeper, it is the Chinese who benefit from their pollution, not the Europeans.  Europeans spent a lot of resources into making manufacture less polluting, and because it increases the cost of manufacture, Chinese government chose to avoid those measures and gain a competitive advantage.  Sure, that pollution kills a lot of people in China, but it's not like their government actually cares much.

These are not complicated chains.

As to per capita calculations, I already explained that you cannot talk anyone else to reduce their quality of living.  It does not work on humans, it does not work on primates, and it does not work on monkeys.  Either you limit or reduce the number of humans, or you develop the technology to reduce the pollution.  For CO₂, the technology already exists and is used in the West; it's just that China et al. have considered their use too costly thus far (and the related death rates etc. acceptable), because they'd lose their manufacturing advantage.

Because it is always the less privileged who suffer the most, this same picture will repeat again if/when China decides to go the European route, and start dealing with the massive pollution problem.

Just think about the whole picture a bit before you spout the inane talking points media regurgitates for those who find critical thinking too hard.

[Nominal Animal]

Unfortunately a lot of that land mass is permafrost, which won't remain frosty with a lot of global warming. How many people can farm and live on a bog?

Did you know that when mixed with sand, and controlled for PH, peat makes for an excellent growth medium?
My family used to have a commercial (unheated) greenhouse well north of the Arctic Circle in the 1980s.  Using such a growth medium, many vegetables (cucumbers and tomatoes in particular) had enough time in the short growth season (three months or so) to grow to full size, and were much tastier, probably due to the 24h sunlight during the season.  The same applies to non-greenhouse vegetables; possibly a higher sugar content or something?

About 15% of the land area in Finland is bog, of which about half is in natural state.  In the southern Finland, most of the bogs have been dried and converted to arable land using drainage ditches a couple of hundred years ago.

Bog peat can be used for energy production also.  In Finland, the calculated energy capacity from peat only is about 13,000 terawatt-hours, equivalent to about 1,100 million metric tons of oil.  It is not a fossil energy source, although it renews at a relatively slow pace.

Personally, I kinda like bogs; it's just the gnats, mosquitoes, and other blood-sucking flying insects that thrive in bogs that bug me.

I know that all of Siberia has bogs under the permafrost, and a LOT of methane in clathrates (which is a powerful greenhouse gas, and a big unknown in the climate predictions), but I'm not exactly sure what lies beneath the ice in Greenland.

[PlainName]

China chose to ignore pollution in order to gain a commercial advantage.  It's on them.

There is only a commercial advantage when there is a market to sell into. If we wouldn't accept the cheap goods then they would only make the more expensive ones, so the buyer is at least partly to blame.

This is the argument used against kiddy porn consumers and you wouldn't want to get involved in disputing that, I reckon.

[Simon]

Ok so I take that nothing made in china or shipped from china has anything to do with Europe or the US? Yes our emissions have droped. UK electricity consumption has stabilized and dropped a bit due to the better efficiency of our products.

Countries like Finland have invested a lot into scrubbing emissions from coal powered energy and heat plants.

I have this principle that if you have to construct complicated dependency chains to find the root who to blame, there is something wrong in the logic.

In your case, it seems like you believe Europe or the US has forced China to produce stuff and sell them to Europe.  That's not how it happened.  China chose to ignore pollution in order to gain a commercial advantage.  It's on them.  In fact, you probably don't even realize that China has restarted manufacturing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, i.e. freon) to use as a cheap refrigerant in their internal market, even though they claim they have forbidden their manufacture just as about every other country on this planet has.

If you consider a bit deeper, it is the Chinese who benefit from their pollution, not the Europeans.  Europeans spent a lot of resources into making manufacture less polluting, and because it increases the cost of manufacture, Chinese government chose to avoid those measures and gain a competitive advantage.  Sure, that pollution kills a lot of people in China, but it's not like their government actually cares much.

These are not complicated chains.

As to per capita calculations, I already explained that you cannot talk anyone else to reduce their quality of living.  It does not work on humans, it does not work on primates, and it does not work on monkeys.  Either you limit or reduce the number of humans, or you develop the technology to reduce the pollution.  For CO₂, the technology already exists and is used in the West; it's just that China et al. have considered their use too costly thus far (and the related death rates etc. acceptable), because they'd lose their manufacturing advantage.

Because it is always the less privileged who suffer the most, this same picture will repeat again if/when China decides to go the European route, and start dealing with the massive pollution problem.

Just think about the whole picture a bit before you spout the inane talking points media regurgitates for those who find critical thinking too hard.

Simple solution then. Slap huge tariffs on china! No we don't make them make stuff for us, but we happily keep asking them to. And I was not even talking about their methods. Just the fact that they make stuff for us which means that our emissions are not as low as they seem. So take everything china makes for the rest of the world and add the carbon that would have been produced if it were made locally. That is all i was saying but you had to insinuate and distort! Fact we consume a lot and not all of that consumption shows up in our local consumption.

[Nominal Animal]

There is only a commercial advantage when there is a market to sell into.

If we wouldn't accept the cheap goods then they would only make the more expensive ones, so the buyer is at least partly to blame.

In the figure Simon showed, not "partly"; completely.  Those statistics are calculated as if the buyer caused all the pollution needed to manufacture the product.

We could discuss what factor between 0% and 100% we could use (I really don't have an opinion, except that it probably is somewhere in the middle and not at either end), but it would become politics really fast, as "free trade" is strictly regulated, and it is near impossible for any single country (except a large one like USA or Russia, or a union like EU) to impose tariffs for products simply because of pollution in manufacture.
Those large countries usually fail to impose such tariffs because of internal objections due to the "fairness" issues I already mentioned -- they are just not willing to forgo something just to help somebody they do not know or associate with.  (That includes future generations, BTW.)

Even if we reallocate 50% of China's CO₂ to western countries, we still arrive at less than 50% of all fossil CO₂ emissions, according to 2017 figures.

I do understand your viewpoint, I just vehemently disagree, because I see no way your viewpoint can affect any significant change.

We cannot control what people buy and sell.  We can only control what and how stuff is manufactured.  This applies to everything, from consumer products to illegal drugs to pedophile media to human slavery.  The only place you can make a real difference is at the root.

When you see others have to invest more into their manufacturing methods because the pollution is killing too much people, and decide to invest heavily in the polluting manufacturing methods because you see it as a market opportunity -- which is basically exactly what China has done in the last 30 years or so --, I'd say the blame is very much mostly on you.

As I already said, this is not China bashing, because if/when China finds it has to do what Europe did, and start dealing with the pollution, it will just be the next set of countries that will do the exact same thing.  That is, unless we do something significant about polluting manufacturing worldwide.

A viable option, in my opinion, would be to allow any country to block or tax/tariff incoming products manufactured using polluting methods, at the World Trade level.  Then we'd shift the responsibility to the buyers, at the national or state level, where changes might be possible.

This is the argument used against kiddy porn consumers and you wouldn't want to get involved in disputing that, I reckon.

Some "products" should not exist at all.  I include human slavery and primate and whale hunting and captivity in that set.

My arguments above are limited to the set of products necessary for current societies, obviously.  Most of the "products" that should not exist have little to no contribution to pollution, so I did not consider that sort of stuff at all.  (Plus, just because an argument can be misused in some topic, does not mean it is invalid in all topics.)

[Nominal Animal]

Simple solution then. Slap huge tariffs on china!

Well, no; but a sliding scale based on the pollution caused by its manufacture, yes!

Thing is, those tariffs would apply to China and USA.

So take everything china makes for the rest of the world and add the carbon that would have been produced if it were made locally.

You forget, at least in Europe manufacturers have invested A LOT into reducing the pollution, from CO₂ to particulates.  Manufacturing a ton of steel in Europe costs a lot more than manufacturing a ton of steel in China, but would also produce a lot less CO₂.

So, the proper comparison would be to subtract the amount of CO₂ China produces when producing stuff for westerners from China's figures, and add the amount of CO₂ that would have been produced if the same had been manufactured in the west.  Those two amounts are vastly different.

Furthermore, price is a substantial driver.  Since we know the manufacture in the west costs more, the prices would have been higher, and at least some buyers would have chosen different, possibly less polluting alternatives.  How do we account for that?

I was not even talking about their methods. Just the fact that they make stuff for us which means that our emissions are not as low as they seem.

No, you claimed that most of the emissions are caused by the west, and I pointed out it is not true.

That is all i was saying but you had to insinuate and distort!

Be angry at me, but do re-read my points.  I am not distorting, I am trying to get you and others to see that the true picture is wildly different than what everyone, especially media, tells you.  (I also do not insinuate: my English skills are not good enough to hide anything "between the lines".  If you read anything there, I am telling you it is not intended, and is most likely an error on my part.)

It is not difficult to find the underlying truth, and it is not that the west is to blame for pollution; and it is definitely not that the west can alone make a difference here.

In fact, because of US not reducing its emissions at all in the last three decades or so, I'd put them in the same class as China.  Possibly worse, because they certainly have the capital to invest; they have just chosen not to.

Fact we consume a lot and not all of that consumption shows up in our local consumption.

True, but that cannot be changed.  The fairness studies show that people cannot be satisfied when they see anyone else getting something they don't have.  No amount of education or government control will change that.  As long as there is a single human being swimming in opulence, the rest want that too.

(Yeah, you do have small hippie communes, and individuals who forgo the materialistic society, but we're talking about large-scale statistics at the level of countries and states here.)

There are only a few options.  We can decimate the human population.  We can control the manufacture, to limit the pollution generated by the stuff people can want.  We can tax/tariff products whose manufacture pollutes.  We can develop technologies that reduce the pollution generated by manufacture.
Thus far, the last one has happened in the western countries.  The third one was also used in many European countries before EU gained the ability to control import tariffs for the entire union.

We cannot push China and others to do the same as Europe did, because we have no leverage.  Currently, EU cannot even add taxes/tariffs without getting torn to shreds in the WTO (with equivalent counter-taxes/tariffs, negating any effect). 

USA is a big bully, too, having not reduced its emissions any, unlike basically all other western countries, so any push against China would apply to USA as well.  And that is currently politically untenable.

[Simon]

There is only a commercial advantage when there is a market to sell into.

If we wouldn't accept the cheap goods then they would only make the more expensive ones, so the buyer is at least partly to blame.

In the figure Simon showed, not "partly"; completely.  Those statistics are calculated as if the buyer caused all the pollution needed to manufacture the product.

We could discuss what factor between 0% and 100% we could use (I really don't have an opinion, except that it probably is somewhere in the middle and not at either end), but it would become politics really fast, as "free trade" is strictly regulated, and it is near impossible for any single country (except a large one like USA or Russia, or a union like EU) to impose tariffs for products simply because of pollution in manufacture.

erm no, if i buy it i am responsible for all of the CO2 produced in it's manufacture. I really don't get why you want to spit hairs over this! If people did not buy these chinese products they would eventually stop manufacturing them... I dunno... maybe when they just happen to notice they have a warehouse full that is not going anywhere!

it's not a case of blame gaming or politics. It's the simple fact that my goods are not made in my home country therefore if you want to look at the impact that people make individually everything they consume is down to them no matter where it is made. i can't have a stupidly lavish lifestyle and blame all the emmissions on the countries that made my stuff.