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World's biggest polluter is in the US, study finds
(www.newsweek.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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The headline is not what the article says. The article isn't measuring nations, it is measuring individual organizations. The US military is one of the largest, most logistically active organizations on the globe, so the conclusion makes sense. But per capita or per activity? That's going to be some energy intense manufacturer. Probably Chinese.
The US has by far the most military activity per capita, so it would probably still be the US.
That's a billion people. Too many to be statistically highest per capital. It's probably somewhere in Eastern or Central Europe which is taken advantage of by the West and has a lot of oil/minerals. Maybe Romania or Slovakia.
Per capita specifically controls for population size so it’s not possible to have too many people per capita.
Large populations tend to have a lot of shared utility and a lower per capita emissions standard as a result. Countries with lots of mass transit and dense housing enjoy significant efficiences of scale. One reason why India looks so good on paper, despite having some abhorrent ecological policies in practice.
Smaller countries - especially small tourist countries - tend to have emissions far higher than their native population size would suggest. Places like Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait regionally top the emissions per capita chart as a result. Canada and Russia also score badly in no small part because of how spread out the population ends up in countries with enormous amounts of wilderness.
I get what you’re saying, but the person I’m replying to specifically said that China had too many people for it to have the highest per capita amount. And that’s simply not possible, the amount of people you have has no bearing on the per capita amount of anything, as you just described, and that’s what I said.
It has too many people to avoid the economics of scale that blunt per-capita emissions rates.
As the number of people using a public service increase, the per-capita waste declines. A bus takes roughly the same amount of gasoline to move 5 people as 50. Cooling an apartment block during a heat wave is more efficient than cooling an equivalent number of stand-alone houses. And as the apartment approaches 100% occupancy, the net benefit is spread over more people. Industrial scale refrigerators consume less energy overall than individual freezers.
The more people using a piece of capital, the less energy is wasted through its continuous operation.
I already said I understood you I’m not really sure why your mansplaining this at this point, and more importantly that’s not what the person I replied to said.
The worst per capita emissions tend to be in the Middle East. Qatar is regularly at the top of the charts