I started a conversation on the Current Events board.

I pointed out that the tall pole in the tent for consumption of energy is going to be China, and that we needed to get off the fantasy and get serious about domestic supply:

I just read today that the increase in China's energy demand between 2000 and 2005 is equal to the total energy used by Japan each year.

But by all means, no nukes and no new oil wells in America.

I ignored carl. Doug responded, in a very reasonable post, that China's per capita usage was lower than America's, which is true:

Something else to think about on energy use...

Per capita CO2 production :

USA : 8.2 tonnes
China : 1.8 tonnes

Just thought it might add a little perspective.

The 1.3 billion people in China have had an energy consumption increase in the last five years equal to the total energy consumption of the 0.127 billion people in Japan over the last five years. I make that a 1.9% year on year increase. How does that compare to the USA's energy consumption increase over the same period?

This is wrong. China's energy use increased over 8 percent in 2006, while the U.S. dropped 1 percent. I didn't deal with this on the thread, because it wasn't critical to his point, or mine.

I pointed out that when we are dealing with world resources, "per capita" is meaningless. The overall Chinese numbers are what matter. I included a chart for emissions for China.

At the time I didn't have a chart of energy use. Now I do. Chart of U.S. consumption here. Mapping the two over each other, the U.S. is still on top, but it's 100 to 70 in 2005, when it was 80 to 20 in 1980. If the curves don't change, they'll cross within five years.

The rest of the post was agreement and discussion on alternatives. I added two more news articles on the subject, and I've added another one today.

This is what I got back:

"Same for energy consumption. Fact is, in the future China is going to be eating the most out of the carbon fuel trough, and burping the most back into the air"

It may have escaped your notice, but China is a little bit bigger than the USA. It's the highest population in the world, so it is perfectly normal that it should be producing the most carbon and using the most energy.

WTF? Well, yeah. China is bigger than the U.S.A.! I think that's what my "per capita" post was about, wasn't it? I don't care that it's "normal" for it to be using the most energy and generating the most emissions, the whole damn POINT was that China was, for the foreseeable future, going to be the biggest problem for both consumption and emissions.

The rest of his post was a smug cheap shot from a country that's been basking in cheap North Sea oil and gas for years (something that isn't going to be true for much longer):

If I were American, looking at the current statistics, two things would happen. Firstly, I'd be disgusted by my own country, and secondly, I'd keep my mouth firmly shut when it comes to judging other countries.

I ignored that, too.

This was my frustrated response:

Uh...no. It didn't escape my notice. In fact, it was my frigging POINT.

What's the MATTER with you people?

Oh, now I've done it. The response:

I see nothing's changed with you. Pity. You either agree with Tom, or you're a moaning, limp wristed, vote Hillary bumper sticker buying liberal. How sad, how narrow minded. I guess popping back into TUHZ was a bad idea.

Again, where the hell did I bring liberalism into this? I do notice a Bush Derangement post on that thread, and a cheap shot at the United States. You might project a quick hit at liberal energy policies in my first post, but that's about it.

Frankly, I'm getting more than a little tired of people getting "the vapors" as an argument technique. Grow the fuck up.