[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Olympiadis

I followed the links of the information sources at the bottom of the page looking for the exact methods they used to measure either the impact of, or production of GHG emissions per capita per country.
I didn't find any actual measurements or methods of measurement, only speculation, prediction, and projection. There also seems to be a great many assumptions on the part of those presenting that sort of "data".

That's probably because the source off the list was mentioned in the second paragraph, not at the end of the page. I suggest starting with the CDIAC and going backwards from there. In terms of just Carbon emissions from energy use the EIA has spreadsheets.

This is a list of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita from 1990 through 2006. All data were calculated by the US Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), mostly based on data collected from country agencies by the United Nations Statistics Division.

Originally Posted by Olympiadis

I always see either a lot of big round numbers thrown around or colorful map depictions, but never any actual measurement data or mention of any sort of error factors that would apply to such "data".

There's a PDF on the UN stats site, presumably regarding the data the CDIAC used, that details just that and references other guidelines for estimating Carbon emissions.

Originally Posted by Olympiadis

I've seen calculations of supposed CO2 production from burning X-amount of gasoline, but never any mention of just how much of it makes it to the upper atmosphere, how much is grabbed up by plant life near the ground, or how much Carbon falls to the ground as particulate. It seems to me that a great many steps have been skipped between calculation, speculation, and presenting of data/claiming conclusions.

Check out the Carbon cycle section of the CDIAC site for where Carbon goes and how much gets removed by different processes. I think your skepticism of the data comes from looking at the sites at the bottom of the wikipedia article as opposed to the source of the table. I've only spent a few minutes looking up the sources, and they look O.K. to me so far, but feel free to spent an hour or two looking them over and list specific sections/parts of specific articles you think have the problems you mentioned.

Originally Posted by Olympiadis

Assuming that people actually went out and took real measurements, one would have to wonder if free accessibility to more areas or facilities in places like the United States had any bearing on the amount and accuracy of the data that was collected. I myself wonder how much of this "data" was collected by students from around the world that were doing research primarily supported by funding from "rich" countries. This area of "study" has been extremely popular with students lately, and apparently has received an ample supply of funding. One benefit would be funded trips to various areas of the world, to include places inside the United States. It would seem to be a pretty good deal for any student.

Depending on the data there can be some extrapolation going on. Energy use is probably pretty accurate because stuff like coal/NG/oil is taxed in most if not all countries AFAIK, so those stats are probably fairly accurate. The data from some of the poor countries may not be as accurate, but it won't impact the results much because those countries also tend to have very low per capita emissions. If the U.S. estimates were off by 5% that would impact the total way more than if sub-Saharan Africa estimates were off by 5%. I also don't think there's a whole lot of "free trips around the world for research" going on. Most of the data is self reported from governments or maybe estimated using that info along w/ other info from locals and/or NGOs.

Originally Posted by Olympiadis

On this forum I've seen over-the-top skepticism applied against someone who is trying to sell "magic" spark-plugs, supposedly due to there being a conflict of interest between presenting non-biased data and achieving monetary gain. I have to raise an eyebrow when I don't see the same level of skepticism applied in other areas, for instance agendas that will result in substantial monetary gain for a government or governments.

How will reducing Carbon emissions result in monetary gain for governments?