Fact: The United States is is the largest source of global warming pollution. Opinions???

Question

Though Americans make up just 4 percent of the world's population, we produce 25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution from fossil-fuel burning -- by far the largest share of any country. In fact, the United States emits more carbon dioxide than China, India and Japan, combined. Clearly America ought to take a leadership role in solving the problem. And as the world's top developer of new technologies, we are well positioned to do so -- we already have the know-how.

Answer 1

Since the Industrial Revolution, America has led the world in ways to squander energy, pollute our environment, and waste natural resources. But, considering the selfish, gluttonous, greedy, shallow, amoral, slothful society we've become, I wouldn't expect us to take a lead toward making changes which might require sacrifices in our lifestyles.
How many Americans do you think will give up their gas-guzzling Hummers and SUVs just to save fuel? How many Americans are even the slightest bit concerned about the plight of the polar bear, mangrove forests, the caribou, remote Eskimo tribes, rain forests, oceans, millions of species of insects and plants, or wetlands? They don't care because they can't see a direct connection between their personal lifestyles and that of distant civilizations or cultures thousands of miles removed from them.
Not until the disappearance of such distant resources will Americans finally decide it's time to conserve, REduce, REuse and REcycle. Not until it begins to directly affect our lives will we stop polluting the air, poisoning our waters, cramming our landfills with waste, and overfishing our oceans.
Arrogance, hubris and avarice has set in; we will not easily reject our creature comforts just for the sake of a cleaner, healthier future world. The hell with our grandchildren or great-grandchildren! Let them eat toxic cake! We're only interested in ourselves. -RKO- 11/06/07

Answer 2

If you can put a man on the Moon then it would be a simple matter to slowly reduce CO 2 emissions over time and show important leadership to the rest of the World by setting your own high standards, you can do it with high tech and create a new cutting edge green tech industry and export products overseas and possibly some nuclear power plants because all this burning of coal for Electricity should be a thing of the past.

Answer 3

Global warming by pollution has never really been proven. The earth is warming but it could be a natural process. Anyway, the most pollution by country is probably china, but per head, the guilty party is probably America

Answer 4

Don't believe everything you hear from the global warming alarmists. They are the same people that told us 20 years ago that we were heading for another ice age. One fact that we never hear is that Mars' polar ice caps are melting at the same rate Earths are. I wounder if the sun just MIGHT have something to do with it! And what about the fact that a single volcano can spew more greenhouse gasses into the air during one eruption than the history of all humanity combined.

Answer 5

i agree it's called GLOBAL warming but if united states is the largest source of global warming pollution, the u.s. should take note of that and try to change. I think china produces a lot of greenhouse gases. as their population and economy is rising the environment gets harmed. they have a lot of coal burning factories.

Answer 6

FACT: There is absolutely no evidence that CO2 is causing the warming trend so your question is rather tenuous at best.

FACT: Even if you accepted that it is CO2 blindly without any evidence... mankind produces roughly 2% of the CO2 in the atmosphere and the other 98% occurs naturally. That means that the US produces 0.5% of the overall Carbon in the atmosphere... you really think this is threatening mankind?

FACT: There is more evidence indicating that other factors are the real reason we're seeing a warming trend. I nominate you to take a leadership role in solving the problem... so get cracking on a way to decrease solar activity while simultaneously increasing field strength in the Earth's EMF.

Good luck!

Answer 7

It not the important thing.

This is GLOBAL warming, we don't need to point fingers, we need to figure out how to work together to stop it.

Admittedly we should be doing a lot more development of alternative energy and transportation technologies. In addition to being the right thing to do, it could make us very rich.

jim z - The Supreme Court of the US has said CO2 is a pollutant, Since pollutant is a legal term, they win.

SUPREME COURT - Carbon Dioxide Meets Definition Of Air Pollutant

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i15/8515news4.html

Water isn't a poison. But too much will kill you.

Answer 8

You have to appreciate that we have laws that limit pollutants into our lives, but you should also consider the 1.6 billion Chinese that are entering the tech-laden industrial revolution along with their desire for Western Consumerism.
Global laws have been implemented, now it is up to the individual countries to proactively monitor and regulate their laws

Answer 9

I agree with RKO. Did anyone see the special on CNN...what would happen if we had no oil. It was really creepy. I think Americans need to stand up and secure our future. I wish we were not so lazy and actually cared about our country. I believe in global warming whether its caused by us or just naturally occurring...it doesn't really matter anymore why its happening just that it is..and we need to find ways to slow it down.

Answer 10

Sure - We do have the technology to reduce co2 output. We just need to build nuclear power plants.

50% of all co2 emitted comes from power generation. By switching to nuclear, we would have plenty of safe, clean power enough for all our demands 24/7/365.

Unfortunally, some are scared of new and modern technology and stand in the way of building these wonders of technology.