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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

As someone living in the US who visits China every couple of years, I would really love to see China clean up their act (the pollution has become by far my #1 dislike), but I would really hate to see the US loosen pollution regulations because of some weird idea that we shouldn't bother cleaning up our air unless everybody else does too.

I love the fact that when we have air quality warnings, I can't even tell the difference. I hate the fact that half the time I'm in Beijing, I can't comfortably breathe outside. I would hate to see the air quality here made worse just because China hasn't made theirs better.

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I don't think his point was that we should loosen our restrictions, but re-direct our attention on the biggest abusers. Right now that's China. And it's not even close.

You would need to combine the emissions of the U.S, India and the entirety of the European Union to equal China's annual CO2 emissions. See for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

Basically, China emits as much CO2 as the next 3 countries. And they do nothing to curb it. Oh, they have regulations on books (Hey look, see, we have laws too!) but there is virtually zero enforcement unless something big is coming to town, like the olympics. And then they only focus on the relevant region, not the whole country. Oh, and they tell the factories to turn off completely rather than adding scrubbers or filtering.

China could reduce its emissions by orders of magnitude if they could get these factory owners and coal plants to put the bare minimum filters/scrubbers in play. But that cost money, and factory owners/government need every penny. Regulations you say? I must have forgot my monthly bribe money. Here you go sir. That's how it plays out, and will continue to play out until there is a massive systemic change to China's culture. The corruption is simply to high for anything else. They rank 100 on corruption, with 1 being the least corrupt. The U.S? Usually between 13 and 17. Source: http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results

We're not talking about CO2 emissions here, we're talking about local pollution such as fine particulates and ozone.

I've noticed that discussions about pollution frequently mix up CO2 and other types of pollution. It's weird.

If you want to combat climate change, then yes, efforts should be directed at China. But if you want clean air in the United States, then efforts should be directed at the United States, and possibly parts of Canada, Mexico, and Cuba. (Although I doubt Cuba contributes much.)

If the US buys only great for the air products - anyone that sells in US must make them. Once you have the infrastructure in place - it may be cheaper to produce all clean instead of half clean/half polluting.

Why should the US put all that effort into cleaning up the air in China?

For something like CO2 it makes perfect sense. That has global impact, so emissions anywhere are essentially the same.

But when it comes to particulates and air quality, it's mostly a local problem. Polluting Chinese factories and cars hurt people in China. The Chinese government and people should be the ones making the effort to clean it up. There's no reason for the US to take it on, unless you're suggesting that we do it as some sort of massive charity scheme.

>Why should the US put all that effort into cleaning up the air in China?

1) For altruistic reasons: help people who suffer.

2) For selfish reasons: block from markets industrial competitors who are gaining an advantage by applying much poorer environmental norms and therefore take market share.

For additional selfish reasons: there's only one atmosphere. ruining it anywhere ruins it everywhere

i'm sort of surprised that would need to be pointed out, though

Bad air quality in China has very little effect on air quality here, so that's not really true.

It is true for CO2, but it's not true for many other pollutants.

This was specifically about other pollutants than CO2. Those have local impact, so bad air in China doesn't show up in America or Europe.

It does. Diluted but it does. I think that 20% of the LA smog could be traced to be of Chinese origin. Sources - probably a guardian article an year ago.

That is clearly not feasible. Just think about it:

Right now, air quality index in central San Francisco is 15 [0]. That's "good". In central Los Angeles, it is 84, a "moderate" day [1]. Those figures are on linear scale [2].

The cities are about on an equal distance from China, and the figure for San Francisco is 18 % of that in LA.

If 20 % of Los Angeles pollution would be from China, then 110 % of San Francisco air pollution would be from China. Hey, it could only be 100 %. You took a bait.

Advice: don't believe everything in Guardian.

[0] https://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.local_city&zi...

[1] https://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.local_city&ci...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_quality_index#Computing_th...

It was nytimes. Sorry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/world/asia/china-also-expo...

https://pnas.altmetric.com/details/2061087#score

Link to the paper. Abstract:

tmospheric modeling shows that transport of the export-related Chinese pollution contributed 3-10% of annual mean surface sulfate concentrations and 0.5-1.5% of ozone over the western United States in 2006. This Chinese pollution also resulted in one extra day or more of noncompliance with the US ozone standard in 2006 over the Los Angeles area and many regions in the eastern United States. On a daily basis, the export-related Chinese pollution contributed, at a maximum, 12-24% of sulfate concentrations over the western United States. As the United States outsourced manufacturing to China, sulfate pollution in 2006 increased in the western United States but decreased in the eastern United States, reflecting the competing effect between enhanced transport of Chinese pollution and reduced US emissions. Our findings are relevant to international efforts to reduce transboundary air pollution.

"3-10 % of annual mean surface concentration over Western USA" of a single pollutant is quite a different thing from "20 % of LA smog". By several orders of magnitude.

Yes, some pollutants are measurable over Western USA, at least in areas where there are no local pollutant sources.

Your own link shows that China's per-capita CO2 emissions are half that of the US. It is rank hypocrisy to say that a Chinese person has less right to pollute than an American.

Yup, exactly my point!

Per-capita is nonsense. It doesn't matter how much pollution is being released per person, we all live on the same rock.

Though if you want to go that route, India trounces China on C02, despite having more people.

I think it's safe to say human activities is the biggest cause of carbon emission increase in the last few hundred years.

Given that, let's get the facts straight:

- China has 1.382 billion people, India is a close second with 1.327 billion people and United States is a distant 3rd with 324 million people [1]

- Since human activities are the major factor of carbon emission increase. Let's talk a look at the emission by capita data as it's a better metric to proportionally tells the whole picture. According to 2013's data[2], US is ranked at #7 with 16.5 ton per capita. The first 6 countries are mostly middle east oil producers with the exception of Australia. That's more than 2x of China's per capita rate or almost 10x of India's.

So it's hypocritical for someone from developed countries to criticize developing countries because if China and India were emitting CO2 at the rate of United States', the total emission would have been A LOT WORSE! (I'll leave the math for you to calculate how many times worse :-)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

Except India's CO2 emissions are less than a third of China's, despite having more people. End of story really. Per capita is a nonsense argument by someone trying to win on technicalities. Unfortunately, "the earth" doesn't care how many people a particular country has, it makes no difference to the environment.

It might make a difference if they were actually using the C02 to do something worthwhile, instead they're using it to make goods to sell for a profit. It's about profit and has nothing to do with China being an developing/industrial country new to the game.

    Except India's CO2 emissions are less than a third of China's, despite having more people.

That's categorically false! India still has less population than China's despite of getting real close in recent years. It's in my previous post's references. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio...

Per capita is a common sense rather because more people further developed hence more industrialization and more CO2 emission.

Along the same lines, smogs and air pollution are also part of the emission that had happened badly for the major industrial hubs in the western world like London[1] and Los Angeles[2] in the early 20th century. Although most developed countries has realized the environmental impact of industrialization and the cost of repairing it.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_the_United_St...

China emits all of this CO2, because the US and the EU moved most of their manufacturing to it. This cooks the greenhouse gas books, but at the end of the day, the planet doesn't care.

You can't have a non-polluting China, and cheap crap at Wal-Mart.

So you're trying to blame the west? As if China cannot simply decide to clean the air before it leaves their factories? Are western businesses putting guns to the Chinese factory-owner's heads? I think not. They're in it for the profit and know full well what they're doing.

China is a country capable of deciding what it wants for itself. If it wants to be a factory, then that's what it will be. It's "grown up" enough to make its own decisions and be held accountable for them. Blaming the west is just that; trying to redirect the blame.

I say good, let manufacturing move back to the countries they came from. Let them operate under actual regulations. It will be slightly more expense, maybe, but the air will be cleaner. That would require China to do its job and enforce environmental regulations. Which they're not willing to do because profits... So no, the west gets none of the blame here. It's 100% China. If a gang war broke out over drug dealing spots, would you blame the drug user for the violence? Of course you wouldn't. The dealers are the ones responsible. They have free will and can choose to be violent, non-violent, or not deal at all.

Not blame - just point out that our lifestyles are only possible because China is a large CO2 emitter. We can't have one without the other.

Yep, that's exactly what I was saying. But it's ok, a good downvote every once in awhile is good for the soul.

> I would really love to see China clean up their act (the pollution has become by far my #1 dislike)

Since no one has mentioned the Kuznets curve yet, the Environmental Kuznets Curve is a bell-shaped curve that posits that before a certain point, the environment is sacrificed for economic growth. After that inflection point where citizens demand better environmental stewardship, the environment improves.

However, in China, the problem is that economic growth is how the ruling party maintains power. The break-even for political stability economic rate in China is said to be around 6-7%. Under that, the economy cannot sustain the migration of rural workers to urban centers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve

It would probably be much more cost effective for the US to pay Chinese firms to reduce emissions (say, by paying for the installation of more advanced filtering equipment) than it is to try and wring further reductions out of US firms.

I don't see how. Particulates don't persist in the atmosphere that long. I understand a little bit of this stuff makes it across the Pacific, but not a whole lot. Living on the east coast, I'm basically unaffected by it except when I go to China, and most Americans don't do that.

If we're talking about reducing CO2 emissions, then yes, further cutting emissions in the US is probably not going to do much good compared to putting similar effort into China. But CO2 is just one piece of the puzzle, and it's one which can even be at odds with combating other types of pollution in some cases (as we saw in the VW emissions scandal).

CO2 emission per capita (2013): USA 16.5 t China 7.6 t

So better turn off your electronic devices etc. NOW.

We are not talking about CO2 emissions here....

You did write If we're talking about reducing CO2 emissions, then yes, further cutting emissions in the US is probably not going to do much good compared to putting similar effort into China.

I think it's fair to point out that the US cutting emissions could have a larger impact than China limiting increases (at least on a per capita basis).

Per capita is a FOOLISH measure here. China's population is more than 4x ours and rapidly growing AND urbanizing.

I disagree. It's a good way of evaluating what someone in the US is asking of the Chinese when they say that the Chinese should do more to limit emissions. They are asking the people in China to do with less than they have.

It certainly shouldn't be the only measure that gets discussion.

The only relevant question for that part is: for each dollar spent (or other measure of wealth/effort), how much reduction do you get in each place?

I'd wager that you get much more bang for your buck in China. The US is much more efficient at generating wealth from CO2 emissions: our emissions are about half, while our GDP is somewhat larger. China still has a lot of low-hanging fruit when it comes to cutting CO2 emissions.

In any case, per-capita doesn't matter at all unless you want to come at it from a moral angle.

> I don't see how. Particulates don't persist in the atmosphere...

You said

> I would really hate to see the US loosen pollution regulations because of some weird idea that we shouldn't bother cleaning up our air unless everybody else does too.

which, to me, only makes sense for types of pollution that are shared. Why would anyone think that China's position one way or the other on a strictly local pollutant should influence the corresponding US policy?

But in any case, my comment is true regardless. Even for local pollutants, there will be more low hanging fruit in China.

I assumed we were talking about local pollution since that's the topic of the article. As certain commenters elaborated, it became clear that they were focused on CO2 instead, but given the context of the conversation it took some time to make that shift.

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