More people means more CO2.

China's been taking a lot of heat lately for its coal emissions (pun intended). Apparently, the asian behemoth took the infamous place of "greatest greenhouse gas emitter" from the U.S. in 2006, emitting 6,200 million tons of the stuff, surpassing the 5,800 million tons emitted by the U.S. This has triggered a wave of criticism aimed at the chinese government and industry. I have one comment regarding this particular piece of information:

Well, DUH!

Let me show you something: it's the World Population Data Sheet for 2006, straight from the PRB. According to it, China had around 1311 million residents last year, when the CO2 was emitted. The U.S. had 420 million. Let's do the math.

My calculator shows the following result: roughly 4.73 tons per head for China, roughly 13.80 tons per head for the U.S.

As you can see, the U.S. generate way more gas per head than China. Around three times, to be precise. So sure, China is still the biggest emitter, but maybe that's just because they have a myriad of chinese people to provide energy for. And now the States, quite probably the more environmentally unconscious country in the world, are actually considering "giving China a hand with their greenhouse gas problems". Well, that's a good one.

I don't care the least bit for the whole holier-than-thou environmental attitude the U.S. have been giving the rest of the world lately, especially since Al Gore won the Nobel Prize. Don't get me started on that.