What we need is a global warming responsibility index. Rather than dealing with different countries on an ad hoc basis, we need a better defined definition of who needs to do more and who can do less. Right now, it seems that most of the heavy lifting is being pushed onto the USA. We need a more balanced approach, that is if global warming is even a worth while thing to be spending our national wealth on.
Here are some of the things that need to be considered in any index. How many people does the country have per square mile. This is an important item to consider, because the Earth has an ability to clean itself. If you have 500 people per square mile and another only has 50 people per square mile, why should the less dense country have to do the same as the country that has 500 people per square mile? To give you an example, I have on my property over a million trees. Each of those trees soak up carbon dioxide and give of pure oxygen. If that is the case, why do I have to use ethanol in my car's gas? See why this needs to be considered?
How about the amount of rain fall? Last week we had 4" of rain that cleaned the air and washed with distilled water any pollutants away around my yard. If some one lives in an area where there is very little rain, it would seem to me that they should have to restrict what they put into the air than I do. What do you think.
Look at countries who can not grow enough food to feed their populations. I think that at least 1/3 of the world's population live in countries where they can not grow enough food to feed their population. Sounds like a lot, but I think it is very accurate. The human processing (eating) of food is one of the biggest sources of pollution and the growing of food is one of the most important ways that pollutions are removed. All food has a solar source. This means that the places where food is grown is cleaning the world, while those who consume the food are the source of the pollution.
What we need to do is to combine the above parameters in some kind of formula or index so that we can be sure that those countries who are the main cause of pollution will have to do the most to clean up their acts. I have blogged on this point before, but population and population density are the biggest problems that the human race and the world face. Most big cities of the USA and the world are failures. You know that they can not continue to grow on and on. I don't know a person who does not agree that the USA and the world were better off and we had a higher quality of life when fewer people lived in super big cities. When I was a kid, we had a power failure that lasted over a week and no one died. If we were to have some thing like that today, you know what would have happened.
PS----I has been a very recent event that we have cities with a population of over a million. My guess is that just 100 years ago that you could count the cities with a million people could be counted on one hand, but not any more. Not only are large cities economically "brittle", they are the biggest "net" polluters. It all has to do with over population and population density. The basic strategy of the Moslems, Mormons and Catholics is to maximize breeding. We should be challenging these three religions about their impact on global warming if we are honest.
