China Installed More Solar Panels Last Year Than the U.S. Has in Total::China installed more new solar capacity last year than the total amount ever installed in any other country.

  • Nesola@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    That is producing for the rest of the world and especially for the west. It’s hypocritical to blame china while buying stuff that had to be cheaper and cheaper.

    • Rampsquatch@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      The average consumer doesn’t actually have a choice in the matter. Unless you are wealthy enough to purchase only local artisan made goods near everything you can afford is made in China or made in China adjacent.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        9 months ago

        That’s not really the point. The point is their emissions will be higher because they’re producing all the stuff everyone else purchases. The production is what creates pollution. If they stopped producing then other countries would and they would increase their pollution.

        It’s not saying don’t buy products from China. It’s saying China polluted because things are bought from them. The pollution would be wherever production is taking place.

        • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Did you forget about the existence of regulations to control the pollution that manufacturing is allowed to produce? How about the countries who are allowing pollution to happen on a ridiculous scale fix their environmental regulations? It’s not like they are under the rule of the USA and have to pollute because we say so.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        You could simply not purchase as much crap. Half of the factories that supply the West’s goods would go out of business if people stopped buying new phones and shitty plastics every full moon.

        • Land_Strider@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Oh no, that’s the freedom way. Gods forbid, they’d be living like the bland Soviet blocks otherwise.

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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            9 months ago

            Gods forbid, they’d be living like the bland Soviet blocks otherwise.

            Please don’t exaggerate, to live like in late USSR you’d have to literally outlaw local non-state production.

            They’d be living just fine. Everything would be more expensive, but with the way prices are connected to power balance and cheap Chinese workers affecting that balance on the side of businesses, maybe not as expensive as people imagine.

      • Sunfoil@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        They do. I boycott Chinese made goods, and I don’t make much money. It just requires a small amount of introspection on if I need the item. It has actually turned out I buy much much less because what I do buy is of quality and lasts.

        Cosmetics, Household goods and food are easy and generally fairly locally made and produced, unless you insist on buying exotic fruits or stuff way out of season.

        Clothes, shoes, anything fabric, again easy. Massive market of quality eco-friendly EU/US/UK made stuff that means I pay $30 for a lovely shirt that will last me decades than $5 a shirt that was made by a child in Myanmar and fall apart within the year. So I am slowly developing a modest wardrobe of high quality natural fibres.

        You don’t really need much else. But it just takes a moment to Google and consume conscientiously.

        Some stuff is nearly impossible and is actually outside of your control like fuel and SOME electrical devices. But nothing can be perfect.

      • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        Then you cannot complain about corporations moving jobs overseas. Clearly was the only way for the society to survive.

      • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        Reduce, reuse, recycle.

        If I don’t need it to work or live I don’t buy it from places I know have a slave labor issue or any other ethics concerns.

        Another thing that help, ad block. Honestly advertising is brain rot and why a lot of people feel a compulsion to buy land fill filler.

      • gnygnygny@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Just remove “made in China” from your basket. And buy just what you need. It’s my a good beginning.

    • Gigan@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I don’t think that absolves China of any blame. They’re still choosing to produce cheap goods at the expense of the planet, because it’s good business for them too.

      • essteeyou@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        If not them then it’d be someone else. Clearly they’re starting to take polluting seriously.

        If you look at CO2 emissions per capita then China is actually doing better than countries like Canada, the US, and Singapore. Assuming I haven’t completely misread that table.

        • wikibot@lemmy.worldB
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          9 months ago

          Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

          This is a list of sovereign states and territories by per capita carbon dioxide emissions due to certain forms of human activity, based on the EDGAR database created by European Commission. The following table lists the 1970, 1990, 2005, 2017 and 2022 annual per capita CO2 emissions estimates (in kilotons of CO2 per year). The data only consider carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement manufacture, but not emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry Over the last 150 years, estimated cumulative emissions from land use and land-use change represent approximately one-third of total cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Emissions from international shipping or bunker fuels are also not included in national figures, which can make a large difference for small countries with important ports. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report finds that the “Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU)” sector on average, accounted for 13-21% of global total anthropogenic GHG emissions in the period 2010–2019.

          to opt out, pm me ‘optout’. article | about

        • PatFusty@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          CO2 emissions are carefully curated and we are not even that good at calculating them. I wouldn’t trust any of this info coming from China let alone from any nation.

            • PatFusty@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              Big dog 2 months… If you knew how companies figure out their pollution metrics you would be very sad.

              As for a better metric, I don’t know. Everything is tied to cost so it’s really dumb

              • nednobbins@lemm.ee
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                7 months ago

                Not sure why you’re so hung up on dogs or 2 months. The thread still shows up in searches and you’re clearly getting updates on it. Unless there’s some evidence to suggest the information in this thread is now obsolete, there’s no reason not to respond.

                @esteeyou@lemmy.world made a claim and provided evidence. Unless there’s better evidence to the contrary it’s reasonable to accept the claim. My children sometimes still respond to arguments with, “Nuh uh.” I generally expect more from adults.

      • nednobbins@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Production will always have some waste and pollution. China has high pollution because we do a lot of production there. As I pointed out above, on both a per-capita and a per-production basis China pollutes less than many industrialized nations (US. Germany, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Taiwan) and many developing nations (Singapore, Malaysia).

        Given current manufacturing data, moving production out of China to other countries would likely increase pollution.

    • RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      No, it’s not hypocritical. Yes, anyone with half a brain knows China makes a huge chunk of the world’s stuff.

      A nation can make choices as to what energy sources they use and China went balls to the wall with coal. That wasn’t a choice the buyers of Chinese products made.