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Originally Posted by Charlatan
Yep... We suck... or rather out smoke stacks blow. The list from the article (see below) is interesting. I wonder how many of those Eastern Bloc nations sitting at the bottom of the list are getting their negative numbers from simply modernizing their equipment? Lithuania's -66% is impressive but how bad were they to begin with?
This isn't to lessen the fact that Canada isn't achieving the goals rather it's interesting to see the econmoic and geographical divide on this list (England and Germany being the big exceptions to this divide).
By the way, how the hell did Monaco jump by 37%? They have no large industry to speak of and can't really expand any larger than they already are (i.e. you can't build suburbs in Monaco). Can everyone be using the helicopter shuttle from Nice Cote d'Azure or driving vastly inefficient cars?
Country Per cent
Spain +41.7
Monaco +37.8
Portugal +36.7
Greece +25.8
Ireland +25.6
Canada +24.2
Australia +23.3
New Zealand +22.5
Finland +21.5
Austria +16.5
United States +13.3
Japan +12.8
Italy +11.5
Norway +9.3
Denmark +6.8
Liechtenstein +5.3
Netherlands +1.5
Belgium +1.3
Switzerland -0.4
European Union -1.4
Slovenia -1.9
France -1.9
Sweden -2.3
Croatia -6.0
Iceland -8.2
Britain -13.0
Luxembourg -16.1
Germany -18.2
Czech Republic -24.2
Slovakia -28.3
Hungary -31.9
Poland -34.4
Russian Federation -38.5
Belarus -44.4
Romania -46.1
Ukraine -46.2
Bulgaria -50.0
Estonia -50.8
Latvia -58.5
Lithuania -66.2
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No, the Eastern Bloc simply has far, far less industry today than they did during Communist times. There is massive unemployment in many of those countries without state run industry. It's not impressive, given that.
I'm not sure about Germany - if it includes East Germany then their drop is simply due to eastern factories closing, too.
The UK is impressive given their own booming energy sector.
That is partially the reason for Canada's growth too - our primary and secondary industries have done well these last few years, especially in the energy sector. Not surprising to see the number jump, but I would have hoped we would have controlled it a little better (the emissions, that is).