re: #162 researchok

re: #161 boxhead

Americans though don’t want to take the measure to cut emissions. To get down to the European/Japanese per capita output of CO2, for instance, American’s would have to cut their output by more than half. Technically possible, but that would mean massive expenditures in wind and nuke power (both of which are cheaper than PV solar), massive expenditures in transportation (rail in cities), and retrofitting most buildings with much better insulation, etc. All very costly, which is why we haven’t done it so far (although the long term financial costs of mass transportation and better buildings are less the current American hyper-individualism of cars, we prefer the latter over saving money.)

So, the whole affair is DOA as far as the US in concerned. Yet we go to these negotiations because the rest of the nations are there, and we negotiate to gain as much advantage for ourselves, or at least to make sure we don’t get disadvantaged by others.

That is what all nations’ representatives do at these things. Yet Qatar or KSA aren’t usually singled out for criticism because on the world stage they only play one role, while the US plays multiple rolls and is expected to be the leader. So when we don’t lead other nations complain.