Canada is now one of the most polluting countries per capita. Huge cars, lack of public transit, food waste, plastic packaging. We can do better

We have been for a long time, this is not new.

I would say that we continue to do nothing despite the dire forthcoming consequences, and that should be reported on ad nauseum.
- Maybe Danielle Smith could fly around the US a few more times.

Thanks to everyone forcing return to office! Great job guys!

As I suspected, Australia celebrates overshoot day before Canada (in other words manages to be a worse polluter).

Interestingly, Uruguay, followed by Indonesia are best.

https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/

This data is expressed as a date. From the site:

Every year, a Country Overshoot Day marks the date when the planet’s annual biocapacity budget would be used up if everyone on Earth lived at the same level of consumption as the residents of that particular country.

Not all countries represented. Would like to see every country on there.
- That's because not every country produces the data. We don't (yet) have a "global" order that requires a minimum standard of compliance and at the rate that the Orange is destroying everything he touches, I doubt we'll see it in our lifetimes.

But the tax is axed, right?

Short sighted fucking idiots.

Something else at play here is accuracy in reporting. Canada has strict reporting regulations, which means the pollution reported matches the actual pollution pretty well (but this ignores that Canada releases a LOT of CO2 into the atmosphere through natural processes as well — forest fires and permafrost methane off gassing for example).

Also, worth noting that where I live in Canada, there’s lots of public transit, minimal food waste, single use plastics aren’t legal to sell, and neither are single use plastic shopping/grocery bags. A lot of people drive electric vehicles, and electricity is generated by hydroelectricity.

Most of the pollution (and there IS a lot) is industrial, a lot of it related to tar sands oil extraction.

Soon to be corrected. As the USA's population seeks asylum, the per capita pollution will naturally be less. Two problems solved.

Good old statistics! Always solving the big problems by showing the data in a different way.
- Solving problems the Excel way.
“The solution to pollution is dilution”

I need a truck for my job. I had a 2011 Ford Ranger for YEARS. When that kicked the bucket in 2022, I was forced to by an F-150 and it's an absolute monstrosity. It is massive and has LESS box space than my Ranger did. I don't why it's near impossible to buy a small truck with a full sized box in North America.

Probably similar issues to Australia. Large country, small population.

Yeah, but in both cases a majority of the population lives in the moderately dense line between the two major cities in the south east.
- Without knowing too much about Canada, probably also not enough investment into rail transport?

That's why USA gets so much metal from canada, so you guys can pollute and usa looks greener.

You can see the so2 levels on windy and no2 for that matter all over the mines up there.

I don't think the US cares that much about looking (or being) greener
- well they did, but now definitely not.

We just got rid of the carbon rebate (clowns that we are). We’d better fucking make the cost of industry polluting very high.

Not saying this is false, but do you have a more recent source? This article is from last year.

A year old is not good enough? Not much changed between then and now.
- I think their request is fair, we come to Lemmy for news rather than old information, though a reminder of how much we pollute without necessarily collecting extremely fresh data is also good.
It takes a lot of time (and effort) to collect and compile global scale datasets like this.

That’s a misleading statement designed to deflect attention from worse countries.

We have very low population density compared to other countries. So our pollution per km is extremely low. While countries like India and china are much much higher

Per capita is a much better metric than per km
- Kind of. But by that argument, we could improve things by increasing the birth rate.
Why do you feel pollution per km is an appropriate metric?
- You can see the pollution from India and china from space. Or you could before Covid when it was making the news.
  You can’t see any of Canada’s. From a distance you can see smog of the GTA and Vancouver’s lower mainland

You’ve got to be kidding! No way Canada makes as much air pollution or solid waste as China, India, Africa, etc. We CAN do better but, the headline is BS.

Per capita means it's adjusted for the population. Both China and India are large polluters but they are the two most populated countries in the world.
- Yes, we are small compared to them. But we are doing very well! This article is full of numbers without sources, making it an opinion piece.
  Here’s something I can agree with:: (translated by google)
  “ It is not only the limits of our planet that are exceeded, so is our economic model”, and
  “… the only way to curb the looting and deadly destruction of our resources by the most greedy among us is to impose severe and ambitious regulatory constraints on them”