aerial photograph of three vehicles by Dominik Vanyi on Unsplash
Who is polluting the most as a communication unit, e.g. a language community?
China. In 2017 it exported 19.6% of its economic output. If China put 80.4% of 10.43 Gt of CO2 into the atmosphere for services provided to itself, then we could say that they emitted 8.38 Gt, some 23.4% of the total emissions from 2016.
The United States of America emitted 5.01 Gt in 2016. If we add 22% of 10.43 Gt of CO2, which China may have used to provide services to North America, we could say that the USA emitted 7.3 Gt, some 20.4% of the emissions from 2016. If we add 17.6% of 2.53 Gt of CO2, which India may have used to provide services to North America, we could say that the USA emitted 7.7 Gt, some 21% of the emissions from 2016. A USA citizen emits much more CO2 than a Chinese citizen (7.5 t / year) and than an Indian citizen (1.7 t / year); each USA citizen has emitted 16 t / year for 59 years, almost 1 kt.
Between 1960 and 2017 the USA had a population this large:
1960–179,323,175
1970–203,302,031
1980–226,542,199
1990–248,709,873
2000–281,421,906
2010–307,745,538
2017–323,148,586
If the population averaged 252 million, the USA has emitted 236 Gt of CO2 since 1960. Their EPA reports a huge amount for the period since 1990.
Between 1959 and 2016 we emitted 1,257 Gt of CO2. They say that we emitted 1,510 Gt between 1850 and 2015. If we emitted 1,221 Gt between 1959 and 2015, then we emitted 289 Gt between 1850 and 1958. To the extent that we want to live, we must let these emissions drop quickly.
It’s very important to communicate with Chinese people and to agree with them on methods to reduce CO2 emissions. I’ve known this for many years, but I hardly ever come across Chinese people.
It’s much easier to communicate with USA citizens. I’m in touch with many USA citizens.
Canada emitted 0.67 Gt, Australia 0.41 Gt, South Africa 0.39, and Britain 0.36 Gt, so English speakers added (Let’s say!) 1.83 Gt, some 5% of the emissions. So we can discuss a quarter of CO2 emissions in English.
English is the main language in which we can reduce pollution and avoid the collapse of anything we want to keep: a friend, a favorite food, a landscape, or a machine.
India emitted 2.53 Gt of CO2 in 2016. If India put 81.6% of this amount into the atmosphere for services provided to itself, then we could say that they emitted 2 Gt, some 5.8% of the total emissions from 2016.
I communicate with Indians.
Which citizens pollute most?
After countries from Southwest Asia, e.g. Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia (some 50m people in total), and several small countries from America, Asia, and Europe, the citizens who emitted most CO2 in 2014 were those of the United States of America (250m English speakers), Australia (18m English speakers), Canada (22m English speakers), and Russia (143m people). European countries, e.g. Germany (82m people) and Britain (50m English speakers), follow; China (1,415m people) right along them.
So we can communicate in English with more than 350 million people. Ethnologue says 378.
If 89% of the English speakers in the USA, 88% of those in Britain, 91% of those in Canada, and 93% of those in Australia go online, then we can communicate over the Internet with more than 300 million English speakers.
How do we emit CO2?
Between 1751 and 2013 we emitted 1,438 Gt of CO2: 683 Gt from fossil fuel, 507 Gt from liquid fuel, and 195 Gt from gas; so we emitted more than 1,386 Gt by burning things. We cut into the earth and burn what we take out. Fire kills everything. If we don’t burn these things, we won’t mine for them. That work is so hard that it has killed or diseased many men. We have been burning a lot of plants, mainly trees. If we do that, we kill two birds with one stone: we destroy habitats and prevent the reduction of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, i.e. we take our food and our air. So kiss fire goodbye!
We consumed 1.86b cubic meters of wood fuel in 2016. It may have weighed 1.16b metric tons and have put 2.2 Gt of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Who has invented coal-fired plants and other main CO2 emitters, e.g. engines?
We burn coal to produce electrical energy.
The English Michael Faraday, the Dutch-English Thomas Edison, the Serbian Nikola Tesla helped us produce electrical energy. We produced it first in the USA.
Engine means trick. We use engines e.g. to produce electrical energy.
The Roman Marcus Vitruvius Pollio described around 15 BCE things that contributed to the design of engines. The Turkoman Badīʿ az-Zaman Abū l-ʿIzz ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ar-Razāz al-Jazarī contributed around 1200 to the design of engines. The Syrian Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma’ruf ash-Shami al-Asadi contributed around 1550. The English Thomas Newcomen continued their work around 1710. The French Claude Félix Abel Niépce “died half-mad and destitute in England” in 1828, after “having squandered the family wealth in pursuit of non-opportunities” to design an internal combustion engine.
Chemistry seems to mean transmutation / change. Some changers of Taoism, e.g. Ge Hong around 300, slaved away for people who were too afraid, i.e. they wanted to live forever, and ended up with a means to shorten lives and ruin soil. They contributed to the design of engines.
Although we have evidence of having made even small or simple machines since at least 4000 BCE in Asia and Africa, mainly European designers are mentioned for the period after 1500; this appendix is only an instance.
Europeans and Asians seem to have created most of the industry, not Americans, Africans, or Australians. They also make most computer software. Europeans have used their machines to enslave people from these 3 continents, and some Asians.