The UK Remains an Energy Hog!

The illustration below comes from an interesting video that I came across recently on YouTube. Although the accompanying sound track is not to my liking and I would have preferred it to be slower so that there was more time to absorb the information, the animated time-lapse does show how the UK, followed by Europe, the Eastern USA, Japan and more recently Korea, has been a centre of carbon dioxide emissions (and by inference energy consumption) since the start of industrialisation in the 18th Century.

Annual Emissions Intensity (Million Tons CO2) per 1° Grid Square
Based on recorded use of fossil fuels, gas flaring and cement production, but not change
of land-use. Source (reproduced without permission): Time-Lapse History of Human
Global CO2 Emissions, YouTube webcam, copyright Robert W. Corkery 2007
 

Projecting forward from 2006 it is alarming to see that the UK remains a huge emitter of carbon dioxide, but I don't think anyone here appreciates that this is why we have such a high standard of living, or for that matter a propensity to be such consummate generators of waste.

It would also be very informative to see if someone could visualise the embedded energy / carbon dioxide content of the goods and wealth repatriated from investments between countries over the last two centuries - perhaps, a further exercise for Gapminder? I suspect this would go a long way towards explaining the accumulated wealth that the UK and other developed nations are able to draw upon.