The United States has caused the most global warming. When will China pass it?

For thousands of years, we made things with our hands. But in the mid-1700s, people in Britain began to make things with machines that ran on fuels which, when burned, released an invisible gas called carbon dioxide — not much at first, but that would change.

In many ways, making things with machines was better than making things by hand. Other people, first in Europe and then in the United States and elsewhere, rushed to invent new machines that emitted carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere.

In the second half of the 20th century, China finally began its own era of industrialization. The pace has been astonishing, far surpassing the speed of the west’s industrial development. At this rate, it’s not a matter of whether China will eventually emit more carbon dioxide than any other country in history, but when.

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